It
has been demonstrated time and again that the human mind is capable of
producing innovations and solutions that can be considered as almost miracles.
Every once in a while, in every field and walk of life, there comes a person
whose talent, intelligence and ingenuity produces results that can leave a
lasting impression on the world. This profound spirit that drives breakthroughs
in innovations is the subject of a recent Konkani novel, Kallzache Kholayek Thaun by Epifanio Valadares.
Epifanio Valadares is a Gulf-based
engineer, who took to writing because he had a lot of free time or leisure.
Punching the keys on his laptop, Epifanio Valadares says that slowly the pages
accumulated into a full-fledged novel. Kallzache
Kholayek Thaun is conceived as a tale of a boy from humble origins who goes
on to do many great things – some nothing short of a miracle. Kudov, the
protagonist, is a person whose innovations and inventions take him across the
Indian sub-continent as a fugitive on the run from the arms of law. Kudov is
the pet name of the protagonist given by his villagers – as it happens in many
Goan villages – after a bird which never stays in one place.
Losing his parents very early in
life, Kudov is forced to fend for himself. The characterization of Kudov can be
paralleled to those heroes from folklore stories. I am specifically referring
to the Goan folklore where the boy of a poor and humble background goes on to
perform many heroic feats and in the bargain, also winning a fair maiden
(generally of a wealthy and powerful king or person). Sometime these heroic
feats are solely meant to win the fair maiden. Hence, it can be claimed that
Epifanio Valadares’ novel is folkloric in its aspirations.
Just like a folk-hero can receive a
magic mantra or any other such charms, Kudov has the immense ability to acquire
knowledge and use it to invent technology that could possibly change the face
of the world. He invents a cure for a very deadly disease that is poised to
wipe out the whole population of his village. Next, he invents a thermo-dynamic
engine which can run on water. When he elopes with his lover – who later becomes
his wife – to Bombay and reaches the Taj hotel, it is that fateful day when this
hotel is attacked by terrorists. Kudov and his wife were on a run from the
police (and also on their honeymoon) and in the crossfire of the security
forces and the terrorists, Anushka, his wife meets an untimely death. This
moves Kudov to invent a device that would detect the locations of explosives
that could potentially pose a threat to national security. Kudov anonymously
tips-off the police about the whereabouts of terrorists. Since Kudov is
unwilling to share the secrets of his innovations and because such innovations
can be deadly in wrong hands, the security forces are constantly on the lookout
for him. As a result, Kudov is on the run again and he lands up in Nepal. It is
here in Nepal that he finally gets arrested and is brought down to Goa.
The plot has many twists and turns
and these do not seem to be forced or out of place. There is an easy flow to
the novel. However, the innovations that the protagonist of this novel comes up
with need an elaborate comment. Epifanio Valadares portrays these innovations
as being based on scientific knowledge and reasoning. It is here that the novel
suffers, becoming a bit tenuous and laboured. In order to explain the
scientific base of the innovations of his protagonist (and hence make them credible
or authentic), Epifanio Valadares goes to great lengths to make them believable
and this exercise leads to oversimplifications. For instance, this ovixkar or innovation about a vehicle or
an engine, that can run on water. This idea has been floating around our world
for quite sometime. Using hydrogen as combustion fuel has its own problems and
if it was as easy as Epifanio Valadares makes it to be then surely our own
vehicles would be running on water by now!
What I want to emphasize is such
imagination and its integration into a novel is not silly in its conception but
the way in which it is portrayed – with its apparent emphasis on scientific
rigor – deny the reader a possibly delightful reading experience. One is
writing a novel and not a paper for a scientific journal and hence other ways
could have been used to make this idea work. By way of a suggestion, I would
like to propose that the use of the literary device of magic realism, which took its birth in Indian literature in Salman
Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children could
have been useful. For instance, when Kudov tries to stop terrorism he invents a
device which displays the locations of terrorist hide-outs and activity. This
section of the novel could have been effectively done, again, on the lines of
how the midnight’s children across India could communicate through their own
minds. My emphasis on this point is for the only reason that the innovations of
Kudov form the linchpin for constructing the plot of the novel and there needed
a serious consideration of whether the current way in which it is portrayed
really worked for holding the novel together.
As a young writer with his debut
novel, Epifanio Valadares has clearly demonstrated that he is capable of stretching
his imagination to unknown territories. He is definitely cut-out for this craft
of novel-writing which, in my opinion, will be further enriched with a deeper
engagement with a wider literary world. As his introduction states, Epifanio
Valadares has ample leisure or “mekllo vell”
(and by that implication no work related pressures!) to carry on his writing.
In such a happy and almost-utopian state of existence, Epifanio Valadares
should seriously consider writing another novel, one better than what he has
come up with.
Kallzache
Kholayek Thaun by Epifanio Valadares (Penha de Franca:
Happyfun Prokaxon), 2012; pp. 239, Rs. 100/-; Phone: 91-0832-2221688 (Available
at Dalgado Konknni Akademi, Panjim)
(A version of this article appeared on Gomantak Times, dt: December 29, 2012).
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