Memoirs of a Few (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9789358968309)

The Memoirs of a Few narrates a series of events that happened in the life of a few people with unique perspectives towards life. These narratives uncover the saga of a Brahmin family with a long history of migration.

Keerthi, several generations down the line of the migrated group of Brahmins, believes, like his predecessors, that he is just one among the group who follow a particular pattern of living that cannot be related to a religion. Bashful by nature with repressed feelings, he is unaware that the psychological stress caused by the separation from his mother in childhood and his weakness for listening to tales of misery suffered by his forefathers were triggering delusions and transforming him into a different personality. Into his life walks Samanta, a Greek who migrated to the US and has a history of unpleasant memories of her tumultuous teenage years.

They become good friends and, later, life partners.

Alamelu, his mother, born into a wealthy family, is a strong woman who does not like wealth and comforts and lives a kind of austere life. She is not an atheist but has shunned age-old practices. She believes that problems are mind's creations and that we alone are responsible for our misery. She is impervious to the spirit behind beliefs and scriptures and thinks that they form a road to escape the reality of life.

Narayana, his father, an upright man of few words and strong convictions, believes that spirituality is the only rudder to hold when sinking in the deep waters of misery. He thinks that rituals bring people down to a mere instinctive level and remove the beauty of philosophy.

However, the philosophical outlook of Keerthi's parents receives a blow when a rare form of amnesia leaves Keerthi unable to recognize his parents' faces. By the time he recovers, his father is no more, and his mother has retreated into seclusion - retreated not out of despair but of a desire to renounce everything she cherished before being stripped of it by fate.

Of late, Keerthi is getting tough like his mother......

The Memoirs of a Few engages with the question of faith and rationality from the experiences of a few characters in their life.

Read here how the lives of the characters in the memoir unfold ............