The author of Akshaya Netra, with name and fame in media circles for his lucid presentations about persons and events in which they figure, is in more than one sense the book’s ‘ghost author.’
On his own admission, he embarked upon the task of narrating about an individual who dared his visual impairment (being blind) by leading a life that mocked at the disability, having convinced himself that if he did not record what the central figure of his work, Prof. M.S. Venugopal, went through in life that would amount to a betrayal to the society. The narration in first person makes Venugopal the ‘true author’ of the work, but for his being sightless.
The author has captured the saga of life’s vicissitudes that the subject (Venugopal) of his book faced with aplomb by adopting the anecdotal route as narrated to him from memory. In that sense, the work is a hybrid case of an autobiography not actually written by its own author.
The crisp script presented in 10 concise sections generates a feeling in the reader that Venugopal is himself narrating his travails and ultimate successes in all his pursuits in a one-to-one communication. While his realisation of being sightless is told in a matter-of-fact outlook, his triumphs of achieving his goals in life are told with consummate humility.
The reader is served a sumptuous fare of details of innumerable occasions that Venugopal braved to the extent of visualising those trying occasions as crystal-clear graphics. Once begun, it is well-nigh impossible to put the book away until page 112, its last page.
Prof. Venugopal, now a familiar figure among the literati of Mysore, through the pen of his biographer Ravindra Bhatta, may be inclined to agree with the thought of this reviewer that his message to everyone in society is this: It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision. The world may be full of suffering, but it can also be full of overcoming. Also, avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure to that danger (a quote from Helen Keller, the legendary deaf-blind icon). —BRS.
source: http://www.StarofMysore.com / Home> Feature Articles / March 31st, 2013