Aaranniya Kandam (Stories of the Forest)
A Collection of twelve Stories. The theme of all these stories is the forests, the life of the primeval people, the simplicity and down to earth approach to their life. The umbilical cord connecting the living things with the habitat and environment is a bright and substantial theme in these stories. The treatment makes clear how the human environment on the Earth has changed and how disturbed the life is. Man has been made orphan and the life becomes laborious.
The story,”The Press Conference” reveals the hypocrisy of the modern Press. The primitive of everywhere has their own beliefs and they live as per their tradition. And custom, they give no importance to the establishment of marriage. They beget children when they are attracted to men at their will. This is alien to our society which is a tower built upon the strength of the middle class establishment, partly based on the power of money, the social security they achieve, the attainment they seek, and hence they have built up a value system to which they attach the marginalized or un privileged life. Press and the media is part of it. They are for the approved system and they attribute the flow ob life to its norms. The story deals with the hypocrisy of the attitude, which is almost criminal. Thus, the press men come to, the primitive village, in the wild forest and find out Javani, who is, pregnant and nearing her delivery of a child. The press is shocked and it wants to shock the refined society as well. They invite the young girl and her widowed mother to the city to have a sensational conference of exposure of the
poor girl. But she likes the visit to the city and want see the glory of it at least once in her life. They were taken to a covetous hotel and the press hosted them. There the girl and mother feel ill at ease; they could not sleep in an enclosed room. They leave it and escape in the middle of night, “they wanted a spread tree over their head,. No burning lamp post. They hear the murmuring night birds in the lush beyond and fell to a beautiful slumber.”