The Thinnai - Book Review

Picked this up on a whim at the Chennai airport earlier this year. I was intrigued by the story of how the book ended up getting translated. It was originally written in French by  Ari Gautier and translated to English by Blake Smith. Ari commented on Blake's essay. He expressed irritation as it failed to mention current francophone writers and only mentioned the writer whose work Blake had just translated. What followed was a series of interactions that ended up with this masterpiece. 

The book retains many Tamil words like thinnai, kaili, vaatiyar, suruttu etc. which gives it an authentic feel. The characters are only referenced by their nick-names – Joseph One-and-a-half eyes (he squinted), Three-balls six-faces (he had 3 balls), Emile Kozhukattai-head (his head was like a watermelon), Killer Widow (she supposedly murdered her husband) etc. Having mean, hilarious nicknames is a common phenomenon in Indian households with everyone forgetting your actual name because nobody ever uses it.

Ari has artfully managed to bring out the complex identities of Pondicherry - the Indians who opted for French citizenship, those that did not, French soldiers who identify more with India as many have never been to France, Creoles (French, mixed ancestry) who were former slaves and now worked as support staff in households, and Aurobindo ashramites - in a simple story. With all of them living together in a disharmonious harmony. It brings to life the characters with their unique background, personality quirks and life journey. There is a story within a story narrated by an old French man in the thinnai (loosely translated as porch) of the author; which gives the book its name.

Would recommend it as a fun read which happens to have a wealth of information spanning multiple generations showing how Pondicherry changed with historical events. It conveys 10x of what is written and therein lies the magic of this book.