Who can forget his book 'Vyakti ani Valli', in which he penned and brought alive several characters, most of them easily identifiable in our households or in neighbourhoods. Nanda Pradhan, Chitale Master and Antu Barwa. And Narayan and Sakharam Gatne. In Nanda Pradhan, P L invokes our empathy for a character whose tragedy has the Greek dimension. And P L does it with loving, feeling care. His humour, soft and softer, takes a back seat.
While Chitale Master endears himself to us by his dedication to work and his sense of humour, Antu Barwa shocks us with his wry humour. "Tell that Gandhi not to speak of fasting to us. We are always fasting here." And characteristically, P L is his own all-good-seeing self as he ends with an Antu Barwa ripened like a jackfruit. Read Narayan and Sakharam Gatne and we can see how P L goes about painting a character a few strokes of humour, a few touches of pathos, interesting incidents and just a passing reference to a philosophical idea or two. The character goes straight to your heart. And stays there.
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