Aakaasa Veeduhal, (Homes in Heaven) is the latest novel by Vasanthi, one of the leading women writers in Tamil today. Translated into English by Dr Gomathi Narayanan, it has been selected by the UNESCO for inclusion in their collec¬tion of representative works.
Aakaasa Veeduhal is one of those works which can take its place among literature in all languages, being at the same time wholly true to the particular milieu it portrays and universal in the questions it raises and the echoes it sets reverberating. Sabesan, its unheroic hero, and Lalitha, its al¬most saintly heroine, belong to a village in South India where people never seem to laugh, and lock up their love more carefully than a miser his gold. The occupation of its men is bullying, of its women gossip and scandal-mongering. Sabesan is a sadist whose pleasure is to hurt and humiliate everyone he comes across. All his venom is directed parti¬cularly towards his wife.