Ecological degradation in Cho. Dharman's novel Sool

Abstract

Sool Cho Dharman has registered the lives of Karisal (land) people. It is mainly on how an age gone generation have lived their lif e which is depends on their practical knowledge on nature. He has collected information on how people of the karisal land have worshiped their ancestress in their religious belief system and how they have maintained their ethical values. He has transformed this information into the fictional theme of his novel, Sool. Through this novel one could read how UrulaikKudi people once have lived their lives one with nature. Now they have lost their traditional knowledge, and their life which is very much imbedded in their ethical values. Hence, the novel represents the decadence of ancient way of life with its traditional knowledge system. Subsequently such decadence of living has also lead to destruction of environmental resources such as reservoirs, natural irrigational system and ethnic seeds and trees. Traditional works such as pottery, traditional medicine, palm tree related products and its works, carpentry are also jeopardised by loss of such living. When new foreign breeds of species are introduced here the ethnic breeds are vanished from the face of the earth. Hence, this article tries to showcase the issues and consequences of environmental decadence and the changing social life of karisal people through the novel Sool.