ആവാം

by Chitra Mudgal, S. Thankamani Amma (Translator)

Avaam is the Malayalam translation of the Hindi novel Avaan by Chithra Mudgal.

600 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Chitra Mudgal is an Indian writer and one of the leading literary figures of modern Hindi literature.

She is the first Indian woman to receive the coveted Vyas Samman for her novel "Avaan".

In 2019 she was awarded India's highest literary award, the Sahitya Akademi, for her novel "Post Box No. 203, Naalasopara".

Reviews

[Sarath Krishnan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aavam/ആവാം, the Malayalam translation of Aavan by Chitra Mudgal is written in the backdrop of trade union movements in India. Though it was written following the assassinationa of prominent trade union leaders in India like Dr. Dattatray Samant and Shankar Guha Niyogi, the novel cannot be considered as a purely historical fiction. The protagonist of the novel is Namitha, a young girl who wanted to rise from her poor conditions and achieve success in life. However, she became a mere tool in the hands of the business interests of a lady who used her for her own success in business. Namitha was later cheated and sexually exploted by her boss, and she could not resist anything, but approve everything in willing submission.

The novel is significant not because of the obvious plot structure. From the beginning itself, one will get the feeling that she is being used by her boss and ultimately reach in her own self-disintegration. However, at the end she understood the exploitative nature of the society and choose to work for the downtrodden(an option which was there in front of her right from the beginning, as her father was a well known trade unionist). In this sense, the novelist is trying to give a strong message. However, I have this confusion on how to decipher that message. Is the novelist saying that the protagonist at the end realized her subaltern position and decided to fight the system? Or the novelist becomes so pessimistic and says that however radical and freedom-loving you are, you are supposed to meet failures as long as you are born in the proletariate class? One can very well argue that she is not so pessimistic as the protagonist at the end decided to go back to the society where she was born and decided to uplift the society. Even then, it is not a hopeful eding at all: Because already the novelist showed the immoral side of the trade union movement, the Anna (leader of the movement) trying to sexually exploit the protagonist, and also various other not-so-holy side of him(we need to take this aspect seriously as some critical readings of the novel says Chitra Mudgal wrote this novel after the assassination of the popular trade union leaders which I have mentioned above, and the novelist took it as a personal loss). The same picture one gets about other NGO movements portrayed in the novel.

[Chandra Maniar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent read. Story of Namita - the trials & tribulations of a young girl in her 20s, from lower middle class, growing up in an east Mumbai ghetto and wants to make it big. Chitra Mudgal has scripted Namita's inner conflict very well. A must read.