Karur (Karoor) Neelakandha Pillai was a school teacher who was an eminent short story writer. He wrote simple stories about the poor, but his stories almost always have a happy ending. His first story in the book "The Devil’s Jacket" is unique.
A 10 year old boy, Kuttappan, has to support himself and his widowed sick mother. He makes a living by transporting commuters from one side of a lake to the other in a row boat that he inherited from his father-- his only inheritance.
The boy doesn’t even have enough clothes to wear to keep warm on cold mornings. One day one of the passengers forgets a package on his boat. When Kuttappan opens the packet he is happy to find a shirt and a pair of shorts. He tries them on and thinks he looks like a policeman. But his mother insists on him being honest and returning the packet to the rightful owner. Kuttappan leaves the package on the boat where the passengers can see it. The owner has to identify what is in the package.
After a few days a man comes on the boat and sees the package. He happens to be a rich business man who appreciates the boy’s honesty and wants to reward him in a big way.
In the second story "Wooden Dolls" a young woman named Nalini is indignant when the census taker suggests she is a dependent. Rather than stay with her alcoholic husband she is back at her mother’s house and does everything that needs to be done in the house. In addition, she makes a living by carving statuettes from left over pieces of wood and selling them—an appropriate way for a member of a carpenter family to earn a living. In the end the census taker puts down her profession as ‘wood carving.’
The census taker also is an artist and before leaving he gives her a piece of paper on which he had sketched her while they were talking. She is so pleased that she gives him a statuette of Parvathy (Consort of Shiva) in penitential pose.
By the way, "Wooden Dolls" was staged as a play about six years ago by the South Asian Young Professionals group at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, University of Maryland.
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