VOLES

   The  Red Sorghum  by Mo Yan- a temptation to go through it. China had always been fascinating for me- especially as I was exposed to it through  the literary works of Pearl S Buck. The mystery and the haunting ambience of intrigue and secrecy and the indomitable spirits of the suffering hoi-ploi.The grandeur of this ancient civilization was awe inspiring. Mo- Yan instantly attracted me, more so since he received the Nobel prize recently. Though I knew that all such books are dense and heavy on the intellect yet there is a fascination for them. I opened it with all the excitement and trepidation that I could muster. The going is tough not smooth. Every piece is interspersed with the acute observation of the writer. The cloud is not the irregular mass of vaporous spread but a pulsating nymph who gels with the mood of the protagonist  a vibrant participant who  opens the wider vista of cosmic magnificence and the reader is mesmerized. The hounding dog is the gigantic fiend whose crimson eyes and the lolling belly full of human flesh smacks of utter defiance to human subservience .The reader is struck by the blood  curdling ferocity of these maniac beasts and he loses the track of the story rather he forgets that he was there to find the story

The voles of the dug out grave of the protagonist’s grandmother create the picture of the transience of life. A life which should have taken birth and a few loops here and a few loops there should have met the finality without unlayering the intricacies of human ambitions,cunning,manipulations and above all the greed for power and pelf. Well the voles would in any case lust them in their graves. So here is the difference between the Nobel winner  and the humble Chetan Bhagat. He has sustained the upper crust of the stagnant pond and let the muck be while the prize winners have dug into the slumbering crust of the human consciousness and raked the dregs which are the innumerable volves and that green and black snake staring and stalking the protagonists mother as she was lying in the dark cold pit of the dry well where she encountered death in her dying brothers cold body.