Eldorado refers to a mystical city of gold in South America, sought by 16th century Spanish explorers. The term originates from the Spanish phrase el dorado, meaning the gilded one. Eldorado is a metaphor for any place that promises wealth or great opportunity. This is something about writer Sujatha I liked a lot. I started reading Sujatha’s short stories, novellas, novels from my high school days. He introduced scientific and technological terms in his stories which will pique our curiosity. He will drop in names of literary writers through the characters – that is how I came across bigwigs in the likes of Sundara Ramasamy, K. Rajanarayanan, La. Sa. Ra, Mouni, Janakiraman, etc. Even in this Eldorado story, we come across Marcus Aurelius, Dostoevsky, Hemingway, Russel, Thiruvasagam. During our college days, it made me and my friends to hunt for those author’s books. It wasn’t easy to get our hands on those books, talking about 80s here.
Eldorado starts with youngest son, Bharath, coming back home after 8 years to see his father who isn’t keeping well. Maybe in his last few days. He doesn’t get a good welcome from his family members – his mother, two elder brothers, his sisters-in-law, and elder sister. After few hot exchanges, his brother asks him to leave. Bharath tells him the house is still in the name of his father, and he has all the right to come to the house. Now others think he has come back to pick up his portion of his wealth once the father passes away. Bharath clarifies he is not there to fight. He just wants to see his father and leave. Bharath goes to his father’s room. It takes some time for his gather recognize him. The conversation between the two is the best portion the book. The time they spent together, swimming lessons, cricket games, trekking, naming the stars in the sky lying on a rock, long walks, bird watching, Thiagarajar, Arunachala Kavirayar. Both get emotional talking about the time they spent together.
Father holds Bharath’s hands and says we are same.
Yes, Appa. You talked about Eldorado. Do you remember? I went in search of that. Without realizing I am running after imaginary gold.
Then son talks about the secret only those two knew. Post that incident rift between them grew and widened the gap between them. His opinion about his father changed. They started fearing each other. Bharath left home and wandered around. Got married and divorced.
Bharath says அதையெல்லாம் அழிச்சுடலாம்பா. சரசு வரைக்கும் விரசமில்லாம இருக்கு…அதோட போதும். அதுக்கப்புறம் எல்லாத்தையும்…
Father shakes his head and says அதுவும் இருக்கட்டும்
Father asks his son to take him away from home. Son consoles him he will get better. Father asks him to get new specs once he gets better. And read him Hemingway, Marcus Aurelius, Russell, Thiruvasagam, etc. Then the father shares a secret with Bharath. Bharath stays with him through the night. Father dies in his sleep.
Before Bharath leaves the house, he tells his elder brother that father has written all his wealth to him, contact him once the funerals are over and he will transfer everything to them. Brother wants to know where he is going. Bharath walks away without replying.
Eldorado leaves you with myriads of feelings that are hard to describe. It raises pertinent questions about life. The story was published in 1977. I read this during my college days. Since then, it has never left me.