Kadhai
Friday, October 03, 2008 by Shreyas
I grew up reading Siruvarmalar.
For the uninitiated, Siruvarmalar is a free supplement that comes on Fridays with Dinamalar and it's targeted towards the kids. But I shamelessly agree, even today when I go to my aunt's place, lunch without Siruvarmalar becomes tasteless. During those days the thin magazine used to transport me to another fantasy world - of kings, magic and morality. Simply putting it without getting too sentimental - I loved the book.
This was one of the reasons I pursued Tamil even in my 11th and 12th, but I screwed up finally in 12th board exams which is a different story. But my initiation into Tamil poetry and literature was through this simple magazine. It led me to bookstores searching for more Tamil books and I zeroed in on another series of books called "Rani Comics". It was a comic book which I bought - the main reason being that the price was Rs 2.00 . Today it might be some 5 bucks- but the point is it well satisfies ROI or NPV or whatever analysis you do. The number of pages is around 60-70 and it usually runs stories about heroes on the likes of Tarzan and Batman with busty female leads.
At a later point of time, I started reading another weekly called "Kalkandu" which I stuck on to for long. I even read the crime reporter "Junior Vikatan" but given it's propensity for lecherous and gory crimes and my propensity for reading such news, my mom decided to stop it. I somehow never read Kumudam or Ananda Vikatan or Kungumam beyond taking an eyeful of centerpage blowups - apart from that they were not able to catch my attention. And Kalkandu it was, for a long period of time with lots of tit bits and travel stories of Lena Tamilvanan. Kalkandu comes from the house of "Manimekalai Prasuram", a damn famous Tamil publishing house which publishes books like "Cinema ulagil hero aavathu eppadi?", "kokko munivarin kadhal ragasiyangal", " 30 naatkalil Judo katrukkollungal", "Kundaliniyai ezhuppungal" and other universally well guarded secrets in the price range of 10-30 bucks.Incidentally they also published a lot of science fiction and detective stories.
All these books where somehow restricted to a very very niche set of people who had high flying jobs like doing an audit for sleepworthiness of benches in Valluvarkottam, Sivan Park and other popular vetti officers' hangouts. Then again some guys identified a major business opportunity in parrying to the tastes of the elite masses who claim themselves to be Tamil (Palakkadu, Madurai, Tiruchi, Mylapore or wherever)Iyers and Iyengars but still don't know how to read or write Tamil. Pico Iyer, I'm your fan and all but can't digest the fact that you can't talk Tamil and you can't walk Tamil. So, for all these Anglicized Tams and other lovers of pulp fiction, out came a book called "The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction" which was a translation of all these Tamil thrillers in English.
Nice way to start, I should say and this will bring on more famous works of Tamil to limelight. I love Tamil. But there are people like Skin.Panther and AncientlanguageDrinkSon who go ga-ga over this. The cause is good - these dudes want to save Tamil and propogate it, but the means remain questionable. Guys, let's face it - you stop the encouragement of other languages in Tamil Nadu and you make generations of Tamil people socially handicapped when they go out. And this leads to a species of people called "Ek Gaon Mein.." group which always work in isolation and finds itself allergic to mingle with the rest-of-Indians. And somehow this has ingrained in our DNA and is flagrantly visible for everyone to see. But you know, lots have changed now. And slowly in Tamil Nadu, Mamas and Mamis have started looking beyond Hindu Paper and Narasus coffee. They are allowing their sons and daughters to get married to Sethjis and Sardarjis. They are spending their retired life on round trips of the world.
So the panthers and drunkards of the world - all your motives and moves are outdated by some 20 years. Try something new. You may find some innovative ideas in the stories of Rajesh Kanna and Indra Soundarrajan in the Blaft Anthology.
Adios.
For the uninitiated, Siruvarmalar is a free supplement that comes on Fridays with Dinamalar and it's targeted towards the kids. But I shamelessly agree, even today when I go to my aunt's place, lunch without Siruvarmalar becomes tasteless. During those days the thin magazine used to transport me to another fantasy world - of kings, magic and morality. Simply putting it without getting too sentimental - I loved the book.
This was one of the reasons I pursued Tamil even in my 11th and 12th, but I screwed up finally in 12th board exams which is a different story. But my initiation into Tamil poetry and literature was through this simple magazine. It led me to bookstores searching for more Tamil books and I zeroed in on another series of books called "Rani Comics". It was a comic book which I bought - the main reason being that the price was Rs 2.00 . Today it might be some 5 bucks- but the point is it well satisfies ROI or NPV or whatever analysis you do. The number of pages is around 60-70 and it usually runs stories about heroes on the likes of Tarzan and Batman with busty female leads.
At a later point of time, I started reading another weekly called "Kalkandu" which I stuck on to for long. I even read the crime reporter "Junior Vikatan" but given it's propensity for lecherous and gory crimes and my propensity for reading such news, my mom decided to stop it. I somehow never read Kumudam or Ananda Vikatan or Kungumam beyond taking an eyeful of centerpage blowups - apart from that they were not able to catch my attention. And Kalkandu it was, for a long period of time with lots of tit bits and travel stories of Lena Tamilvanan. Kalkandu comes from the house of "Manimekalai Prasuram", a damn famous Tamil publishing house which publishes books like "Cinema ulagil hero aavathu eppadi?", "kokko munivarin kadhal ragasiyangal", " 30 naatkalil Judo katrukkollungal", "Kundaliniyai ezhuppungal" and other universally well guarded secrets in the price range of 10-30 bucks.Incidentally they also published a lot of science fiction and detective stories.
All these books where somehow restricted to a very very niche set of people who had high flying jobs like doing an audit for sleepworthiness of benches in Valluvarkottam, Sivan Park and other popular vetti officers' hangouts. Then again some guys identified a major business opportunity in parrying to the tastes of the elite masses who claim themselves to be Tamil (Palakkadu, Madurai, Tiruchi, Mylapore or wherever)Iyers and Iyengars but still don't know how to read or write Tamil. Pico Iyer, I'm your fan and all but can't digest the fact that you can't talk Tamil and you can't walk Tamil. So, for all these Anglicized Tams and other lovers of pulp fiction, out came a book called "The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction" which was a translation of all these Tamil thrillers in English.
Nice way to start, I should say and this will bring on more famous works of Tamil to limelight. I love Tamil. But there are people like Skin.Panther and AncientlanguageDrinkSon who go ga-ga over this. The cause is good - these dudes want to save Tamil and propogate it, but the means remain questionable. Guys, let's face it - you stop the encouragement of other languages in Tamil Nadu and you make generations of Tamil people socially handicapped when they go out. And this leads to a species of people called "Ek Gaon Mein.." group which always work in isolation and finds itself allergic to mingle with the rest-of-Indians. And somehow this has ingrained in our DNA and is flagrantly visible for everyone to see. But you know, lots have changed now. And slowly in Tamil Nadu, Mamas and Mamis have started looking beyond Hindu Paper and Narasus coffee. They are allowing their sons and daughters to get married to Sethjis and Sardarjis. They are spending their retired life on round trips of the world.
So the panthers and drunkards of the world - all your motives and moves are outdated by some 20 years. Try something new. You may find some innovative ideas in the stories of Rajesh Kanna and Indra Soundarrajan in the Blaft Anthology.
Adios.
