Balakrishnan, “at home” in Tamil and prolific in English which he taught at many prominent Indian universities, has been writing for over 60 years, giving shape to 500 short stories, 10 books in Tamil, many novels, novellas and skits.

Though known for his humour — the late ‘Sujatha’ Rangarajan clubbed him with Kalki, SVV, Devan, Nadodi and Savi — Prabhat says “he was larger than just his humorous writing.”

His collection includes fantasy, history, robotics, magic and three award-winning stories.

Balakrishnan’s stories, set in north and south India, are simple to read with short and crisp sentences. And like Prabhat describes, they are the type “you would love to read on a rainy day curled up under a blanket”. But when you get out of bed, instead of forgetting what you read, you could well be on a Freudian thought-chariot, psychoanalysing the dimensions of cruelty or the charms of life. These stories have a mind of their own.

Three for sample. In ‘The Jasmine Creeper’, Vasco da Gama meets Omana in a Calicut bazaar and instantly takes a liking to her. She reminds him of Ionawa, his daughter who died of dog bite. Omana is ogled at by his teammates and is molested by one of them; Vasco de Gama is blamed for it. After a series of incidents, Omana dies. Devastated, he regrets not leaving “the untended jasmine creeper of Omana alone.”

The ironic twist is evident in ‘The Relic.’ A traditional artist Sivarao is averse to the ‘new wave’ of sensual drawings. His magazine editor disagrees and shows him the door. As bitterness swells, an idea strikes. He dons a pen name for a short while, draws with more oomph than the popular vulgar sketches in circulation and has his editor begging him to return. But, all he gets is “the rising crescendo of his depraved laughter”.

‘Shadows’ is about a man leaving behind a cushy life seeking anonymity in Rishikesh. He sees all sorts of people inside the plane and is overwhelmed by the feeling that life is a gift. As the plane descends, the “entire plane evinced the excitement of accomplishing something”, and there’s a huge cloud of dust…

Simplicity in the complex art of story telling is Balakrishnan’s forte. The stories are page-turners with an Alfred Hitchcock-like grip, the plots whet your appetite for more, the open endings make you linger on with the character, wondering what happens to them.

If “entertainment is the only goal of his writing”, then entertained you will be. There is love and karma, lust and deception, fear and devotion, fate and kindness, the ordinary and the ignored. The characters, the life they live, the things they say have so much depth, you step into their shoes and stay in them for a while.

And, when you return to reality, you agree with Prabhat who says how extraordinarily-talented storytellers such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Haruki Murakami grew popular due to their association with America and promotion by journals like The New York Times and how there are “unsung Nerudas” in Tamil and other Indian languages still waiting to be announced.

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