Lone survivor looks back

P.G. SUNDARARAJAN

More than six decades have rolled by since the last issue of the Tamil literary journal Manikodi was published. For the lone survivor of the era, Chitti, those days are still fresh in memory.

The nonagenarian biographer-writer tells T. Ramakrishnan of the niche that Manikodi created for itself in Tamil writing and what the future of Tamil literature looks like.

DECEMBER 1933. MAHATMA Gandhi was in the midst of his country- wide Harijan Tour. He came to Chennai and addressed a number of meetings. Excited at the thought of having ``Gandhi darshan'', Mr. P.G. Sundararajan, a 23-year-old man, went to those meetings, just as thousands of people did at the time.

Apart from Gandhiji's inspiring speeches, what captured the imagination of the young man was the ambience in those meetings, particularly the threads of humour running through them. This prompted Mr. Sundararajan to write a humorous article and he sent it to Manikodi.

He was not sure about this piece getting published in the journal, but to his surprise, he was called to the magazine's office and the founder-editor, Va. Ra. (V. Ramaswami), encouraged him to write more such pieces. ``After this, I became his intellectual slave,'' Chitti recalls.

That item carried the author's name, `Chitti'. Since then, all the humorous articles written by Mr. Sundararajan bore that name, which he kept for himself as a mark of affection for his sister's son, Mr. Chittibabu. Besides, he became a regular contributor to Manikodi.

``The journal's contribution was that it made Tamil simple, less pedantic. It demonstrated that even profound thoughts could be expressed in simple and direct language,'' says Chitti, who is now 91.

At a time when `Manikodi' was launched, there were two important Tamil magazines. One was Ananda Vikatan, which was very popular, while Kalaimagal was the other, conforming to classical literary standards. The need for a journal which would position itself between the two was felt. ``That's how Manikodi was born,'' he recalls.

Manikodi ran for six years, from 1933 to 1939. It was after B.S. Ramaiah took over as the editor in 1935 that the magazine became the vehicle for short stories. It served as the platform for a band of writers, who represented the arrival of modern Tamil writing. Pudumaipithan, Ku.Pa.Ra (K.P.Rajagopalan), N. Pichamurthy, A.N. Sivaraman and C.S. Chellappa were some of the prominent names.

Born in April 1910, Chitti evinced interest in English writing in his late teens. His first English short story, ``Also Ran'', was published in Student, a journal from Chengalpattu. Till he shifted to Tamil completely in mid-1930s on the suggestion of Va.Ra., Chitti had an intense relationship with English, editing Sound and Shadow, New Age and Marina magazines.

At the Pachayiappa's College where Chitti did his graduation in history during 1929-31, one of his colleagues was the late C.N. Annadurai, founder of the DMK and Chief Minister of the State (1967-69). ``I was a staunch supporter of the Congress and he was on the other side, in defence of Justice Party. Despite this, we remained good friends.''

He fondly remembers how Annadurai noticed him in a polling booth in 1967 after a gap of 36 years.

``Nadanthai Vazhi Kaveri'', considered a trendsetter in Tamil, was authored by Chitti and the eminent Tamil writer, T. Janakiraman (1921-82). Written in the form of a travelogue on the river Cauvery from the originating point in Karnataka to the confluence point in the Bay of Bengal, it talks of temples and history of landmarks along the river and social conditions in these places.

Chitti's other works include ``Thamizh Novel'' and ``Thamizhil Sirukathai'', collaborative efforts done with S. Sivapathasundaram. Both give historical accounts of the evolution of novels and short stories in Tamil. He translated from English to Tamil, among others, Prof. K.A. Nilakanta Sastri's ``History and culture of the Tamils''.

Last year, he wrote a Tamil book on the life and work of Va.Ra. Another biography of Chitti was S. Satyamurti and this assignment was originally entrusted to him by K. Kamaraj. However, the book, written in English, was released at the time of centenary celebrations of the Congress leader in the late 1980s.

The nonagenarian, who held various positions in the All India Radio, says emphatically that ``many sections of our society may have a craze for English but Tamil is capable of giving expression to a variety of subjects - not just romance but also philosophy and science.''

Chitti, winner of the Akshara Award in 1993, ends on the note that despite being contemporary to Sanskrit, Tamil is still a living language.

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