Death anniversary : charama varshikam

K.P. Ramanunni's novel Charamavarshikam (Death Anniversary, 1996) presents, in all its tragic intensity, the possibility of fleeing from one's own life.

The novel explores the themes of alienation, banishment from home, and desolation caused by the loss of loved ones and childhood memories.

The protagonist, Damodaran, returns to his village after staying away for twenty years to discover that he has been considered dead since then.

Instead of causing any shock, this news is accepted by him as a justification of the kind of life he has been living.

Past and present, life and death, and the real and the imagined interweave through each other in this 'post-modern' novel.

The author figuratively uses the concept of 'death' to emphasize the tragedy that befalls someone who is forced to forgo the things of life dear to them.

The novel suggests that loss of the spirit of living is akin to death.