Ha… so this is where I realised maybe it’s not that Indian books cannot be philosophical.
Maybe I just hadn’t reached the point where I could see it.
I’ve started thinking books don’t just come to us.
We meet them when we are ready to seek something… or when something in us is ready to be seen.
And maybe… it goes both ways.
What we are seeking is also, in some way, seeking us.
Sounds bizarre. Or maybe it doesn’t.
Depends on where you are when you read this.
Estuary does exactly that.
It doesn’t change the world.
It just… waits for you to calm down enough to see it differently.
Because that’s the thing
we don’t really see the world as it is.
We see a version that agrees with us.
A version that fits into what we already believe.
Something that feeds us back to ourselves.
And anything that doesn’t…
something grossly different, something that doesn’t sit right by all the good gods… that becomes evil.
It’s almost immediate.
And sometimes… we even call it concern. Care. Responsibility.
when it is just fear… thinking out loud.
Perumal just… removes that reaction.
He doesn’t argue. He doesn’t prove anything.
He just places the world there. As it is. A addictive mess.
And it’s uncomfortable.
Because somewhere in that… you start noticing something else.
We all have a little demon in us.
Not in a loud way. Not in a dramatic way.
Just… there.
And a part of the world is always going to feel demonic to us.
As long as we believe it is.
But then something shifts.
That same thing… stops feeling like a demon.
It starts making sense. It starts feeling… familiar.
Almost like a friend.
And that should feel like relief.
But it isn’t.
Because it’s still the same thing.
Just wearing something softer.
A friend’s coat.
Nothing really changed.
Only the way we looked at it did.
And maybe that’s all the world ever is.
Perumal also brings in something else… something almost too obvious to notice.
Absurdity.
Bare human absurdity.
Clear as the sky on a sunny day.
And yet… we don’t see it.
Or maybe we don’t want to.
Because the demons in us they bring their own dark clouds.
They cover that clear sky on bad days, make it rain, make it heavy…
and then we stand there, in the middle of it,
wishing for the same clear sky we refused to see before.
So we run.
We go looking for clearer suns. Better skies.
Far away from where we are.
Only to realise…
it was never about the sky.
It was the mind trying to protect itself…
from a world it cannot control.
We were just afraid of new versions of the same dark clouds.
And maybe… those clouds were never the problem.
Maybe they were always closer to us than we wanted to admit.
Familiar.
Reliable, even.
And that’s when it starts becoming uncomfortable again.
Because if the clouds stay…
and we stop fighting them…
then what exactly are we left chasing?
Perumal did this brilliant job by subtly putting humor into the darkness of the world
and then leading to a path which brings light…
but hold on is the light leading to another darkness.
And it leaves you there.
Not confused.
Just… not as certain as before.
Which, I think, is worse.