When I got the book 'Aram' by Jayamohan as a birthday gift from my friend, my mom eagerly grabbed it and said, "I would love to read it, if not for my neck pain. I am not getting the right position to read books these days, and this one is too heavy." But still, I saw her finding new positions with the help of the reading table. At the end of the day, she completed two chapters and told me that it had been a while since she read a book like this. She could not refrain from narrating the whole story to me. During the narration, I noticed her becoming emotional and teary-eyed.
I had always known her as an emotionally strong person. In fact, there were only two instances I had seen her break out: -
The first instance was during my father's death. Some pictures will never leave our frame of memory. I vividly remember the day (even though I was only three years old), she came rushing into our house followed by our relatives. 'He has left us all alone!' (Nambla vittutu poitaaru) is all I heard. Her eyes were searching for her two little ones, but we were too young and scared to even come close to her. We preferred to be out of the limelight and were still hiding and trying to understand and digest what was going on around us.
The second instance was when her elder brother passed away at a young age. She used to tell us that her friends often referred to them as 'Paasamalar' (an old Tamil movie that unveils the emotional bonding between a brother and a sister) duo. One evening when I was in high school, we got a call on our landline to inform us that my uncle was in a critical condition. I watched her burst into tears while she was getting ready to go to the hospital. I still vividly remember her words, "I am losing my friend, philosopher, and guide forever!"
Other than these two instances, I have never seen her get emotional over anything, though she might have faced a lot of challenges as a single mother, bringing up two kids.
Now coming back to the book. What is it all about? Jayamohan talks about personalities who lived and influenced the people around them and led inspiring lives different from the rest of the world. The author chooses 'storytelling' as his tool to narrate the lives of these personalities. As a writer, I felt that even though the people in the stories were too inspiring to resist, it was the author and his storytelling skills that captured my attention. After reading this book, I closed it with a heavy heart and lots of inspiration to write more impactful stories.