Leaves you with tears and thoughts

The birth of an ordinary life never leaves a trace, does it? With that, Perumal Murgan sets the mood of the fable. A grim world lies ahead.⁣
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Poonachi, an unusually tiny, black goat, journeys from infancy to motherhood. Her personal tragedies play out against the ordeals of famine, abject poverty and systematic corruption.⁣
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We’re continuously reminded that Poonachi is an outcast. The tale, in fact, has strong parallels with Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things. That too speaks about outcasts and transgressors—the ones who find happiness in the small things of life. Because the big things (or the big ones) are always in defiance of them. Poonachi, too, understands that early on in her life.⁣
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In her case, the ‘big ones’ are her human-owners, a farmer and his (unnamed) wife who decide to bring her up. They’re in turn similarly domesticated by the government. Murgan makes a sharp commentary against the system. The goat owners are no less tethered down than the goats.⁣
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Murgan touches upon variety of other themes like gender inequality, discrimination and herd mentality—all blended into a sour alchemy that leaves a lump in your throat.⁣
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In the end, he reinforces George Orwell’s words from 1984—from the point of view of the low, historic changes only mean changes in the names of their masters.⁣
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Poonachi is weak, sickly and prone to dangers. Yet, she survives every situation with zeal and luck. At one point, she looks at a herd of sheep and wonders why their heads are always down. “Unless we look up, how can we see the sky?” But destiny has other plans for her. As she comes to terms with her own fate, we see greed and desperation of hunger engulf the village, especially her owners.⁣
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Did Poonachi choose any of this? Why do some suffer more than the others?⁣
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Murgan lifts us to a vantage point so that we realise how little we can control. The book has made me even more conscious of my privilege. Aren’t we all oppressed and oppressor at the same time? Murgan leaves us with tears and too many thoughts.⁣

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5 people found this helpful

Short and Sweet

if you liked George Orwell's Animal farm then you will definitely love this book , I think this genre is not very popular , and thus very few writers makes an effort in it . I liked how Murugan showed the feelings of human through poonachi .
hats off to Subhav kher , his narration was great , his goat voice was very funny though .

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Excellent is a small statement

Gods gift to human meets different transition of hardship and opportunities. Behaviour changes from to selfless to selfish and so on explained in a simple manner. Thanks Murugan Sir

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1 person found this helpful

A story for the ages

Beautiful story, passed like a breeze, thanks also to the great narration. Strong characters, too, especially the old woman caretaker. Do give it a listen.

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perumal murugan was awesome

this is the first time I am reading a story by perumal murugan. suffice to stay I will be picking up many more books of his. narrator was awesome!

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Moved to tears!

A heart touching story. it's been a day since I finished listening to it, still Poonachi is in my head.

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Amazing story, terrible narration.

Absolutely loved this book, amazing story where the lead is a goat but it's no story book for children I'd place with the likes of Animal Farm combined with magical realism. The author beautifully portrays the idyllic but still very eventful life of a goat in a South Indian village.

Now the bad part. I dont even understand why the narrator chose to do stereotypical/kinda racist accent for the villagers, but the only rich person gets a English posh accent. Also how he butchered the pronunciation of few non English words was so harsh on ears.

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Amazing story

Moving and thought provoking story. You can feel the pain that Poonachi is going through and that's kinda sad.

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Incredible story, mediocre narration

Absolutely phenomenal. Perumal Murugan has weaved an utterly moving, stirring story. I only wish they had gotten a narrator who could pronounce the words or names properly. The man absolutely butchered the pronunciations. I'm astonished that they couldn't even hire a language supervisor to ensure something as basic as that. Having said that, his performance was pretty good, he captured the emotions well. If you're not a South Indian, you probably won't find the terrible accents and pronunciations as jarring.

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Nice

Its and amazing listen. Great experience. Got a book of this to my mom to read.

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