Ashokamitran's Today - translated from his Tamil novel Indru --is an avant garde departure from traditional forms of writing. The novel strings together a number of genres such as narrative fiction, poetry, lectures and a newspaper interview to produce a rare amalgam of fiction and recent history.
The condition of freedom fighters in free India, social evils like dowry, corruption and crass commercialism, institutions like marriage and politics are highlighted as problems that occupy centre stage today. The period chosen for such delineation is immediately before and after the imposition of a national emergency by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Anger, persecution, lack of compassion and tolerance find their counterpoint in a father figure perhaps a veiled reference to the Father of the Nation whose dreams lie shattered in the present.
Today is also for all time. Its concerns are universal, its people are of flesh and blood. It raises serious questions about the validity of the value systems governing our lives increasingly complex world. It is without doubt a trailblazer in post modern Tamil literature.
