Weather

[Article published in the Journal of the Institute of Asian Studies, Vol. XV, N° 1 (Chennai), September 1997, pp. 37 – 52.] 

Satire and Didacticism in S. Akastiyar’s Manita Taricanankal¹ (Glimpses of Humanity): the nurture of an autodidact, his life, style and works

by

T.Wignesan

Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique,

Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales,

Paris, France

I

Life and Works

Akastiyar was born on August 26, 1926 in Anaikkottai village, Jaffna peninsula, Sri Lanka, to Savarimuttu (father) and Annamma (mother); he was the third among siblings comprising two elder brothers and one younger sister. At a young age, he got to know and came under the influence of S.Ramasamy Iyer, a Jaffna bookseller, who provided a reading-room in his premises, and others, such as, P.Kantiah, A.Vaitilingam, V.Kartikesan, all officials of the Jaffna-branch of the then Ceylon Communist Party. This group helped him in his quest to impregnate himself with the necessary know-how in the arts and to venture out as a poet and dramatist even at the early age of sixteen. Despite the fact that he hailed from a fairly well-off family, this particular early association conditioned his intellectual outlook throughout the rest of his life.²

His burning desire to become a mirtankam player through study in India, with the intention of going to Tamil Natu, led him to go against the wishes of his parents, but an irate father severely interposed himself between the young carnatic music aspirant and his childhood desires. Though a dutiful son, raised in the old manner with respect for his elders, he nevertheless learnt to play the mirtankam on his own and was admitted to join in public performances later on. He prided himself on having performed on Radio Ceylon programmes and in the festivities at Kandyan temples.

As was the custom among Jaffnese Tamils, he frequented the local educational establishments of his village, the primary Anaikkottai Tamil Patacalai and the local secondary school in the Tamil medium, in which he obtained the Senior School Certificate. He then passed through a brief period of drifting and even indulged in a spurt of - according to the author himself - vagabondage, but then, due to the insistence of his parents, he became a policeman in Bambalapitiya, Colombo, in 1951, but soon, witnessing much of the inhumanity of the force towards the lay public, he resigned when he was twenty and found a job with the fire brigade, the Royal National Fire Service, in Trincomalee in which he served for a few years. Not being quite able to pursue his writing career at the same time, he foraged around and was lucky enough to find a post as a store-keeper in the Sri Lankan Army, most of the time being stationed in Kandy, but there was a period from 1958 to 1962 when his posting took him to several places in the island: Kaluturai, Nuwara Eliya, Tiyatalawa and Colombo. He accepted the post as he was virtually left alone to devote his spare time to writing, and since he was not in any way subject to harrassment from the hierarchy, he persisted in the job until his retirement in 1981. hamali

From 1958 onwards, owing to the ethnic riots, he had had to - for safety’s sake - live apart from his family whose members grew up in his village in the Jaffna peninsula, though he commuted weekly to be with them. He was hounded by the Sinhalese security forces personnel during the 1983-July Crisis in Sri Lanka. According to his family, almost all his manuscripts were confiscated and fearing for his life, he and his wife sought and were granted asylum in France, having left Sri Lanka on May 1st., 1986. The rest of his family preceded him. Akastiyar passed away in Paris on December 8, 1995, leaving behind his widow and three daughters and a son, all of them married and settled in Europe.

He married Agnes Navamani on February 5, 1955, but, since he professed leftist politics, people got together to oppose the celebration of the marriage in the church. Eventually, leaders in Jaffna stood up for him, and the people relented. He and his wife and children were baptised Catholics, though, it is averred by the children, he wasn’t religious. 

In the 1958-racial riots (that is, the Sinhala pogrom), he narrowly escaped death by hiding in a well all day long while Sinhalese goondas (hooligans) in search of Tamils to lynch roamed about. Soon after he took up his pen to defend the one-million-odd stateless Indian Tamils in the central highland tea-plantations, indentured-labourers brought by the British before the War to work the plantations and who were unjustifiably deprived of their citizenship rights by the Sinhalese majority government at Colombo. While working in Kandy, Akastiyar also founded, in the sixties, a literary society, the Malaiyaka Kalai Ilakkiya Cankam, devoted to the propagation of hill-country writing and arts.

Soon his poems, short stories, novelette, novels, essays and plays, published under twenty-four pseudonyms, began to make their appearance to a larger public through national and international Tamil newspapers and journals, such as, in Sri Lanka: Cutantiran, Ila-Natu, Tinakaran, Tecapimani, Ila-Tevi, Virakecari, Tinapati, Ceyti, Mallikai; in India: Tamarai, Eluttu, Tipam, Kalaimakal, Jiva, Kannatacan; and in France: Tetal, Ocai, Kan, Paris Tamilan (all in Paris).

The following are the pseudonyms under which he published in the above-mentioned publications: Ticanyan, Alati Amman, Kalan, S.A., Raji, Vittakapantitar, Arulampalanar, Navamani, Joti, Jiva, Jekani, Kuru Munivar, Yalpanan, Ilattuc Celvan, Cattiya Murti, Piratipan, Vacantan, Leninist, A.Cu., Putumaippiriyan, Jinikraj, Kalaitacan, Ananta Cupiramaniam. According to the author, himself, he had published under twenty-four different signatures, but in a list he left behind, he has only given the above twenty-three pen-names.

He was awarded the Sri Lankan Sahitya Academy’s prizes for his books, entitled: Nattukkuttuk kalainar varalaru (The History of Folk-Dance Artists) and Mannil Teriyutoru Torram (Beings [caram/acaram] produced on the Earth) [A novel]. For his short story collection: Meipparkal (Those who herd others), he won the respective Sahitya Academy prizes, awarded by the Sri Lankan government in 1990, and the Tamil Nadu government in 1992. According to a document he left behind in his own handwriting, dated June 1st., 1995, Akastiyar claims that he had refused accepting the prize from the Sri Lankan authorities unless they released the young Tamilian independence fighters under detention. He was also a member of the executive committee of the Ceylon Progressive Writers Association, while being simultaneously the head of the Jaffna branch. Despite the precariousness of the ethnico-political situation in Sri Lanka, fifteen of his books managed to get published during his own lifetime.

All in all, therefore, he has published six short story collections, four novels, one novelette, one memoir, one history of folk art, two collections of literary criticism and one collection of essays which he selected [strictly speaking not a book of his own], not to mention, of course, his individual publications of articles and other pieces in journals and newspapers, which by and large have found their way into the above book publications. For instance, Manita taricanankal was first serialized in the newspaper, Paris Tamilan, in 1995.

According to his widow and children, he has left behind nineteen unpublished manuscripts, all of which he managed to write during his long illness in Paris, before finally succumbing to the toll of leukaemia. It is a tribute to the author, that even when he had accomplished enough in a lifetime of writing lasting half a century, he had envisaged doing more. In the handwritten document of 1995, he concludes as follows:

I have so many more contributions to make. I have the intention of writing

a long novel about the pathetic condition of refugees all over the world. At the

moment, the conditions of freedom of statement do not exist in which to

exploit this theme. Nevertheless this situation will change. Apart from this, in

Sri Lanka four great riots have come to pass. The truth about how

these four ethnic riots were precipitated by which classes of the society have

yet to be made known. I have direct experience of these four ethnic riots: 1958,

1970, 1977 and 1983. By coalescing these factors (including the J.V.P.), I intend

to write a long novel (War and Peace). Further, I have also made up my mind

to write a very long work on the question of « the last will and testament ».

I have also the intention of publishing a book of essays that I have been writing

on the « meaningful Hindu religious » compositions by the poet Kannatacan,

called « Most meaningful life of man ». If body strength, the wear and tear of

disease, and age (were to permit it), I have yet the intention of creating many

profound analytical works. If in the act of writing I experience enthusiasm, I

am sure I’ll be able to realize my aims. With the aid of my doctor, my wife and

children, I believe I will be able to accomplish these undertakings.³  

II

Language/Style/Technique

Since his book is entitled « glimpses of humanity », Akastiyar is not trying to give an overall picture of his people in their own country - though the sum total of his glimpses could amount to a partially comprehensive view if you could retain the onrush of images in these series of perspectives - but rather isolated delineations and insights into their behaviour through flashes of memory as they come to him while in the act of writing, a creative act which approaches at times a poetical composition, but which nevertheless remains almost true to life. Some of the « characters » still exist or have existed, according to his family, and several of the incidents recounted by Akastiyar are reputed to have taken place in the places mentioned in the book. It is therefore curious that Akastiyar had included this book under a list of his novels in his document of June 1st., 1995.

The fact that the book was first serialized in a newspaper somewhat constricts the author’s style: none of the recollections exceeds six pages, most being contained within four pages. The descriptions are kept down to a minimum, and there is hardly much or adequate development in the dialogue. In delineating character, the author relies a great deal on the dishing out of nicknames, such as, kakkottu, kokku, netuval, mullan, cempan, kataiati and so forth, which take the form of characteristic epithets that the person has acquired either for his odd-looking appearance or idiosyncratic behaviour in the course of his life and which also serve to distinguish two or more persons with/of the same name. One must remember that Tamils traditionally have only one name which is - to all intents and purposes - neither a surname nor a first name: it is simply a nom unique.

Not unlike most publications in other languages in South and Southeast Asia, such as the deplorable Skoob Publications from London, the book carries a preface, entitled: « Preface by a friend who has not met the author ». This preface by a specialist in venereal diseases does not throw much light on the book. Instead, it « discourses » in a personal vein through numerous references to age-old mythic personalities, such as, Rama, Sita and Ravana, and even to Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. There is a general feeling among certain littérateurs that by simply invoking some episode in the classics the critic or explicator has performed the task of eminently serving literature at large.

The point of view of the first person: « I » of the narrator in these accounts can of course be taken to be that of the author himself, though he figures in the text both in his teens and as a grown-up, that is, as a vitalai, aged between sixteen and thirty-two. He has also recourse quite often, as in the second and seventh [pp.29-30] chapters to verisimilar speech, where, it would appear, the characters belonging to the generally educated Vaisya or other castes use a language which is dialectal [what the author calls « yalpanattup paripacai », p.29], sometimes devoid of the basics of fundamental syntax, or the use of proper declensions and conjugations. Even where the author/narrator expresses silently his thoughts, such is the case: 

‘nayam kataiccal koviccuppotuval’ enra ninaippil pesamal tirumpivitten. 

nayam is the dialectal form of niyayam which means law, justice, fairness, morality, logic, equity, right, etc., having its origins in the sanskrit Nyaya philosophy, one of the six religious systems of North India. 

kataiccal is dialectal for kataittal, just as koviccup is dialectal for kovittu, the phoneme « t » being converted quite generally into « c » in conversation, while potuval is dialectally shortened from  poyvituval.  

Likewise, there are other words with a particular local usage which present equal difficulty for the uninitiated. Example: « vettirumpu  (kacippu)», meaning a chisel for cutting iron and referring to illicitly brewed alcohol, or « kirukkukal » for kirukkankal, meaning an eccentric or insouciant, self-conceited, arrogant fellow. [p.3]  

On the other hand, the ambiguity/plurisignation or multiple meaning of some words, whether intended or not, enhances the literary value of his narration. As for example: 

...oyyaramana nalla oranai misaiyankal tavaranaiyaic curriye tavaratu vantu kutuvar. [p. 3] 

Here the adjective  oyyaramana could either mean men of superior manners, dignified in their bearing, that is, matippanavarkal, or, contrariwise, affected or spurious in their behaviour, that is, polinataiyullavarkal or pacankukkararkal. Now, which of the two meanings may one accept as being the most appropriate in the context? Or should one accept both? The truth is in their ambiguity both are applicable. There is no linguistic or literary criterion to lay down the law about which meaning has a closer relation to the context, though if we lean towards the propensity largely perceptible in his writing, we might feel that to go hand-in-hand with the rest of the text which is slightly satiric in tone, the author himself may have wanted to impart the critical, less salubrious meaning of the word. On the other hand, the satiric purpose can also be served by the use of the first meaning, that is, dignified, superior manners, for this would better set off the fact that even well-mannered gentlemen frequented the tavern, and therefore in the same breath be a cause for reinforcing the satiric tone. remonti

Akastiyar also sometimes has recourse to complex or passive sentence constructions to enhance ambiguity in a way which would make either of two interpretations valid. For instance, his use of the following enigmatic saying: « aruvatu vayatu central vittukku nay ventam » [p.4] is a case in point. Now, the juxtaposition of « kateri vappukal » [jungle imps] in the very same sentence [cf. translation of text below] would cause « nay » [dogs] in the axiom to be equated with « kateri vappukal » and hence to « vitalaikal » [the youths, meaning the author and his cohorts], but then, the saying could also easily stand by another interpretation which dissociates the « vitalaikal » from the innuendo in the saying, that is, if one isolates the sense that « when one reaches the age of sixty, there’s no need for (a) dog(s) at home », meaning that « when one gets to be old what’s the use of keeping a dog to defend or protect the house ». Such ambiguity is necessarily achieved by the convoluted nature of some of his sentences where the object [vitalaikal] is brought in last in the complex sentence which has « urp pettaccikal » as the subject somewhere in the middle. приобрести высококачественную профнастил кровельный на этом портале

In the same vein, there is « kirukkukal » [p.3] meaning either eccentric and/or arrogant, an epithet which refers to the band of the young stalwarts whose comments, observations and actions, centred on the idiosyncratric behaviour of the trio: Kakkottu Rattinam, Kokku Daniel and the author, form the crux of the material which provides the motivating force of the narration as seen through the recollections of the author in this book of vignettes recalling life in Jaffna during, mainly, the forties and fifties. There are several incidents, such as, the murder committed in the cinema, which the author records in footnotes as having actually taken place.

Further, Akastiyar’s use of derivative words from the Sinhalese and English render the meaning of some of his sentences somewhat difficult for the outsider, though the frequent use of such a linguistic variety makes for richer and quainter local colour which is his forte. As for example, we have tavaranai [in Tamil, carayakkatai] which could easily have been derived from Latin or old Spanish taberna [please note that the phoneme « v » in Spanish is pronounced as « b »]; so the word could well have come through English: ME taverne to Tamil. Again, there is karattai [p.2], or alukkatai [from the place name: Aluthkade], words derived from Sinhalese.

But then there are also as, for example, in the third chapter about festivals and musical peformances straightforward recounting of events through a recall of some incident or anecdote involving some people he had known in his youthful days. If the author can be taken as the narrator, then most of the events in these glimpses of recollections revolves round the « trinity » of characters, that is, Kakkottu Rattinam, Kokku Daniel and the author himself. 
 

Didacticism as a foil for criticalness  

Underlying the spatio-chronological narration - though here and there Akastiyar may derange the order of development of events for the laying out of references to local and traditional myth and customs - is a moral and/or satiric intent which sometimes turns self-laudatory. The didactic intent of his utterances in these circumstances becomes more than evident.  

For instance, in « Tarisanam 5 », the relation dealing with drink and its usual consequences, such as, sexual desire, is punctuated by the recourse to an irrepressible desire to anchor the narrative to a well-known saying or adage. 

‘matu matu sutu muntraiyum evan vilakkirano avantan kalainani.

anal, intap mupparimanattaiyum tintatavan manitan alla.’ [p.20] 

[‘Drink, woman, gambling, he who manages to avoid them is a

truely wise man (that is, one who is versed in the sixty-four arts and

sciences: kalainani.] 

This remark by Kulasinkam is then taken as a basis for the recording of comments by Kakkottu Rattinam. 

‘palum palamum cuvaiyaka irukkalam. anal, atukalum veri uttukira

panankaltan. matu enra pennin meniyai mokkikkatavan yarum

illai. sutu enra vilayattuk kalaiyil itupatata enta givanum kitaiyatu.’ [p.20] 

[‘Both milk and fruit may be gratifying to the senses. But then, they

too are beverages that intoxicate. Yet, there is no one who has not

lusted after the beauteous form of the woman. There is not one

being which has not been caught in the throes of gambling.’]

Then the argument is taken a bit further by quoting from the classics, since an illustration is asked for. Two eschatological [from the Spanish: escatalogia, pertaining to excreta and to the world beyond the grave] quatrains from a famous Cittar poet, Pattinattar, are brought in to show that truth or wisdom is only available to those who have experienced the worst in utter reality. 

‘cilum malamum celunir valuppum

cerinteluntu - intap

palum putavai illatupoyin

pakaliravai

iyum erumpum pukukinra yonikku

iravu pakal

mayum manitarai mayamal vaikka

maruntillaiye...’ [p.21]

[‘Pus, excreta, seminal fluid and violent lust

growing in abundance - this

Ruinous skirt if it weren’t there

diurnally

Flies and ants that enter the pudendum muliebre

night and day

In illusion: to debunk man of this illusion

isn’t there a medecine...’] 

This quotation also well illustrates Akastiyar’s non-feminist point of view. Nothing is seen from the feminist angle. Yet, it is to the distaff side of his family that Akastiyar owes - it is almost possible to say - his allegiance and gratitude. His first chapter in the book under review carries a tribute to his grandmother as his avowed mentor. His very first book, Irunilulle, carries on the page en face the preface a picture of his mother, with the following words: 

To my late dearly angelic mother who carried me first for ten months,

then gave birth to me in pain and diurnally cradled and cared for me

and brought me up and made a man of me, this book is an oblation.  

The motivating energy of his creative recollections [vivaranac cittirankal] is therefore didactic; first he poses the satirical material which reflects the weakness of the human being in general for the vices: drink, fecklessness, lethargy, lust, gambling, addiction to films, etc., and then he uses some local or traditional age-worn customary wisdom to chide and render ridiculous the victims of these vices. In short, he is preaching, either with the intention of expressing his own criticalness from the heights of safer ground which is the prerogative of the writer, or of simply wishing to make palatable the platitudinous wisdom of ages.

Some chapters are evidently - judging from the notes at the end of chapters: 19[p.90] 26[p.123], 38[177] - based on incidents and events occurring in the life of the Tamil community in Sri Lanka, while other limited anecdotes, such as, the intervention of G.G.Ponnampalam in favour of Dudley Senanayake in an election rally [chapter 23, p.109] are woven into the fabric of his creative recollections: it would be difficult to accept that he was actually quoting his « characters » from memory, since practically all his manuscripts were either confiscated or destroyed by the Sinhalese security personnel during the 1983-July Crisis. 

Possible Influences

Even if Akastiyar’s book may not stand comparison with similar works in the English language, it may well be worth the while to draw attention to the existence of, say, V.S.Naipaul’s Miguel Street (1959) and Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg Ohio (1919). Both are fictional works with perhaps a basis in reality in the respective authors’ lives, both are thematically related from chapter to chapter and/or story to story by the authors’ presence throughout their books, both share elements in this respect with Akastiyar’s Manita taricanankal and not just because all three explore with humour small-town life but for the insights they offer into human character however diverse their origins. Naipaul put Port of Spain on the literary map; Anderson, his home town, Clyde in Ohio, while Akastiyar, it may perhaps be claimed for him, is probably in the process of bringing Jaffna town to greater international attention.

To a lesser extent, Manita taricanankal might also be considered a work in the manner of James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916). It records his own adolescent nurture and development as an intellectual and writer, mainly between the ages of sixteen and thirty-two. « Taricanam 31 », for instance, testifies to his introduction to three books: Mahatma Ghandi’s Cattiya cotanai; Lenin’s Ulakap pattali varkkamum teciya vitutalaiyum; and V.K.’s Pennin perumai allatu valkait tunai nalam. Of these influences, it might be said, Lenin’s took greater root in him, and some who have known him quite well [revealed by speakers at the publication ceremony in Paris of Akastiyar’s posthumous book] even in his last years affirm that he persisted as a « communist » until his dying day. There is also the possibility that he may have got the idea for the book from Maxim Gorky’s autobiographical trilogy, for it is quite likely that he may have read or known something about the self-taught Russian writer’s work.

There is, however, no way by which one could verify [without being present oneself in war-torn Sri Lanka] if Akastiyar had himself read or heard of these books in English. That the older generation of Jaffnese Tamils, born before the Second World War, had in all probability been exposed to English influences goes without saying, but whether or not these books formed part of his reading in those days is a matter left to research. Akastiyar, himself, was educated in the Tamil stream, and though he knew English tolerably well, he regretted, as indicated in his document of June 1st., 1995, that he was not able to read more serious works in the English language.

It goes without saying that Akastiyar as a writer - despite the early influence of the bookseller, Ramasamy Iyer (and we do not know to what extent this was a literary influence) - was wholly self-taught: he had certainly not the higher education necessary to make him an informed and/or innovative literary technician. From his very first book of three fairly long short stories (though he sub-titled them « short novels »), Irunilulle, he evinced a genuine talent for reproducing verisimilar speech of the Jaffnese community, a talent that traverses his entire oeuvre ever since, much like the ear of a Mark Twain in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) or a V.S.Naipaul in his, also, first-written book, Miguel Street (1959), though the latter was published after his first two novels.

Though there are similarities of technique in the book under review and that of Miguel Street and Winesburg Ohio, the major difference between Akastiyar, and say, James Joyce and Dylan Thomas’s talent and ability in evoking the past is in the latter’s use of an uniqueness of imagery, where the past objects, people and places mix indistinguishably with the colour, sound, and shape of memory rooted in the poetical use of metaphor.

Where Akastiyar has recourse to simile or straightforwardly uncomplicated metaphor: « vallaru kuncai appinamatiri » [« Taricanam 1, p.1-2] and to allusion and comparison by the use of customary sayings: « aruvatu vayatu central vittukku nai ventam » [« Taricanam 1, p.4], Dylan Thomas’s evocation of the past, for instance, is inseparable from the metaphor, memory as it were becoming the metaphor, itself, through personification and apostrophe. In his radio piece, broadcast on the B.B.C., « Quite Early One Morning », the title story of his collection of broadcast material, he evokes memories of the small seaside town, New Quay, on the Welsh coast, during the War years.

The chapel stood grim and grey, telling the day there was to be

no nonsense. The chapel was not asleep, it never cat-napped nor

nodded nor closed its long cold eye. I left it telling the morning

off and the sea-gull hung rebuked above it. [...] And a far-away

clock struck from another church in another village in another

universe, though the wind blew the time away. And I walked in

the timeless morning past a row of white cottages almost expecting

that an ancient man with a great beard and an hour-glass and a

scythe under his night-dressed arm might lean from the window

and ask me the time. I would have told him: ‘Arise old counter

of the heartbeats of albatrosses, and wake the cavernous sleepers

of the town to a dazzling new morning.’ I would have told him:

‘You unbelievable Father of Eva and Dai Adam, come out, old

chicken, and stir up the winter morning with your spoon of a scythe.’⁴ 

One might say that the essential difference between Akastiyar’s style and that of the above quotation which typifies Joyce’s style as well is that Akastiyar’s prose - though rich in vocabulary, incidents, anecdotes, observation and description - falls short of the free rein of poetical evocation; he is merely content to describe or narrate what he sees or remembers in his mind’s eye and by drawing the obvious Indian classically ethical conclusion leaves little to the exercise of the imagination. He relies less on figurative language than his European counterparts. The reader is not taken behind the scenes he evokes to feel the fleeting moment of fascination for a forgotten and neglected past. Barring certain moments and exceptions like the first taricanam, almost everything else is cut and dry, a retelling of events as they took place in his memory, though the manner in which he recounts it all is patently satiric and literary, the style of an experienced novelist and short story writer. 
 

III

Another lamentable fact about Akastiyar, as with most Tamil writers, is that his work has had to be brought out by himself, in other words, each publication had to be paid for by himself, or as is the case at present, by his surviving family. Akastiyar has had to earn a living as a fairly lower-middle order civil serviceman after only secondary school education, has had to provide for a family of five in a country torn by an atrociously unrelenting civil-war, has had to seek refuge in France, has had to cope with debilitating leukaemia in his final years, and yet as a writer who has managed in these circumstances to produce thirty-four books (though the majority still remains in manuscript form) has little or nothing to apologise for himself.

Akastiyar’s work has hardly ever been translated. A couple of stories - one of which is entitled: « Vatti » [Debt], appeared translated in Russian in a Moscow journal. Another story also appeared in Malayalam. It is precisely for this reason that here below is offered a sample of his writing in English translation with a short introduction. 

Introduction: Jaffna Town in the forties and fifties

The narrative technique in this first chapter is rather less « narration », less the juxtaposition of a chronological development of sentences than a poetic concatenation of images, mixed with descriptive patches of « glimpses » of realistic - even naturalistic - scenes from everyday life. Akastiyar also uses names of personalities and events devoted to glimpses of Jaffna town, the names of Turaiappa [p.1], the assassinated mayor of the town, an act which sounded the gong of the armed guerrilla struggle, and G.G.[p.2], the initials by which the leading lawyer politician (President of the Ceylon Tamil Congress) who took up the fight, after the war, to demand equality for the Tamils in the Sinhala-dominated politics of the island of Sri Lanka. Alongside the anchoring of his glimpses in the historical context, he flirts with visions of the ordinary everyday life of the town, steeping his reminiscences in streaks of stark local colour.

orrai rattaik karattaikal sakitam kanatana alalasilarkalaic

sumantu cellum rikco vantikal iraka elumpukalil satai

tiranta tolilala purvikal tannirtottik kuntukalil kuntik kitantu

kokuttavam purivar. karaiyurc cemban kural kettal, ittavam

kulaivatuntu [p.2]

[One or two-seater vehicles carrying heavy men of

an eagle-like disposition, rickshaw-pullers whose lungs

show through bony thoracic cases, hereditary workers who

stand one-legged like stalks crouching or meditating on/beside

water-troughs: should they hear the voice of Karaiyurc

Cemban their meditative spell would be foiled.]  

His underlying purpose appears to be a satirical view of his compatriots, with a rather open feeling in wanting to set right the foibles, lethargy, fecklessness, and dissensions prevailing in his Jaffna community. So, in the actual act of recording the life of a people under political and physical subjugation, punctuated by sheer autobiographical snatches of experience, he has no recourse to an academic or journalistic language to sustain his thesis by way of scientific socio-anthropological analyses. Instead, he quite blatantly uses a poetical language through a celebration of sensuous kaleidoscopic images to evoke the bizarre, the untoward, the odd event and incident, and also the least palpable of sights and sounds. It is even said of him that his own experiences and real-life observations form the grist of his fictional material. 

Mullan Saravanamuttu ‘kalari tikkat kalakt’ pannumpotu

oru kuruvikuta avar kannil patamal ulle nulaiya mutiyatu.[p.1]

[When Mullan Saravanamuttu is in the act of collecting

tickets not even a bird can manage to sneak in to the

gallery seats [of the cinema theatre] without him noticing it.]

He has a gift of drawing one’s attention to the offhand human behaviour which says reams for the way of life of a people he has observed with keenness. The habit of playing the card-game of 304 is by now - wherever television is not widely available - a public phenomenon. If men did not indulge in this form of past-time, they would easily become idlers or drunkards. It’s an innocuous drug, but a drug just the same which is of the potency of the « small screen » or tube. The players could easily forget to eat, forget their families, forget their duties, forget even to get their fair share of daily sleep once they get wrapped up in the game. Akastiyar sets the scene of one such meet and suggests that even with « mennakaiyalum avarkalai usuppa elatu »[p.3] (even Menakai would not be able to bestir them.)[cf. note 13 of text below]. Then the following description increases the weight of his lampooning of cardplayers. 

ur vayal vaikkal cuttrum katerikal potta sanikkuviyalin cini narram

mukkuttuvarankalil nulaintu nasivarai ciracerum. ilaiyan arippum

tonatonappum periya ariyantamakavirukkum. ulakellam valankum

menmai taku caiva niti etir tenirk katai retiyop pettikkuliruntu

mulankum. kats vilaiyatak kuntiyavarkal itattai vittu asaiyar. [p.4]

[The stink of dung heaps left behind by buffaloes roaming around

rice-fields and irrigation channels which stealthily enter the nostrils.

The itch, the drone and molesting of flies are unbearable. From the

radio in the tea-shop across the street issues the world-wide noble

law of Saivam. Those who crouched to play cards refuse to budge.]  

Akastiyar ends the first « glimpse », I would rather say, series of glimpses, by confiding that he had related all what he had seen and heard to his maternal grandmother.  

‘inimel ketta nattamuttiyalotu kutate’ enru conna acci.

[‘From now on, don’t go about with lowly fellows,’ said grandma.]

‘kettavaiyotu kutinattane nallavaiyalat tiruntalam’ enren.

[‘Unless one associates with evil-doers one cannot learn to become

righteous,’ said I.] 

‘cinna mulaiyan unakku nalla putti irukke’ enru colli ennaik

kattik koncina.

[‘Though you possess a small brain, you have the right sort of knowhow,’ so

saying, she hugged and kissed me.] 

inta accitan pin enkal nanak kuruvana.

[It is this grandma who became my mentor/guru later on.][p.5] 

From the above dialogue, it would appear that Akastiyar is recording his youthful memories, and in the same breath mixing later historical events, such as, invoking the name of the assassinated Jaffna town mayor, Turaiappa, and that of G.G.[Ponnampalam]’s whose postwar demands for parity status and/or non-domination between the Tamils and the Sinhalese made him the Tamil leader of note until the entry of Celvanayakam’s Federal Party in the early fifties and Amirtalinkam’s Tamil United Liberation Front into the ethnic political struggle. The dividing line between adolescent and mature memories remains rather indistinct, due perhaps to the poetical tone; the chapter (and thus the book as well), however, constitutes by and large a free-wheeling harking back to bygone days, mainly during the forties and fifties, in a land he may never - as was the case - visit again. 

Translation of « Taricanam 1 »

If you bypass the Fort grounds and head north - in the days before the construction of the Jaffna-town Mayor Turaiappa Stadium - you will see along the open grassland the Regal cinema appearing as a round, beauteous mark on the forehead. No buses ran in those days. The day-long seething heat of the sun rises like hovering vapour on the public roads. Joan Gavas, Nadiya and S.S.Kokko are to be found together. Manippai Tavamanitevi agreed to cover her pudendum muliebre with a fig-leaf to feature in the film, « Thunder », and since the Regal Cinema affixed « house full » signs, teenagers and the country rowdies never appeared to suffer from much want.  

When Mullan¹ Saravanamuttu is in the act of collecting the gallery-seat tickets not even a bird can sneak in without him noticing it. 

Police officials receive their salaries by drenching their thumbs in ink and signing by thumb-print. Princely Netuval² Nadarajah would give even his life at the very mention of the word « cinema ». In spite of it, he became our ideally perfect protector. While he walked, we would have to run alongside him in order to keep pace with him. The gallery ticket costs 25 cents (satam). For this we would have to save up. He would stick his hand into an opening in the wall, sweep up the tickets like a hawk snatching up the young of some bird or other animal, roll them up tightly and then stepping into the midst of the crowd waiting outside, give each and everyone a ticket. It is quite conceivable why perspiration ran down his body like water. When Tavamanitevi flapped like a lightning flag on the flower-garden swing, he stooped low to espy her thighs while her skirt rose forwards and backwards. Not only his intellectual prowess but also his fearlessness was widely known. We gave him the nickname of Ancanencar (Fearless-Chest). Would that he had heard it! He too became a rogue known around the country.  

Some take themselves to be [actresses] like Joan Gavas, Nadiya, Kokko while other green-horn impulsive youths assume the role of national thugs. « Total heels » sniggered the old country dames while they put the blame squarely on the famous Regal cinema. While the coronation of King George the Sixth was taking place in London, at the Manippai village council’s open-air celebrations the fact that these cliquish thugs dared to impose order among the spectators was a matter for heartfelt praise. For the old dames this was quite a whipping. Jaffna town - despite the antics played on this great show of arts and culture - held its head high.  

Besides feeling pride in the record-making prowess of the Regal cinema, if you took the road on its right flank, you will find opposite the Ponnamma mill, there where the brainy man who won fame through defending murder cases valiantly in English: the flour-mill called G.G.³. There too you’ll find the tavern like the portals of hell where shadowy ghost-like figures flitted. At the corner from that place, where there’s a water-tank, four water-troughs lie alongside where are (sometimes) to be found, too, sprawled drunken men. There, too, would gather around all sorts of spice-shops sacks of rice, flour, millet, sami or another kind of millet, payaru: pulse, lentil or beans of several kinds, varaku: another kind of millet/Paspalum frumentaceum, blackgram, sesame seed, wheat flour, ventayam: seed of the Fenugreek plant, pull-and-push-carts in the process of loading them. One or two-seater vehicles carrying heavy men of eagle-like disposition, rickshaw-pullers whose lungs showed through bony thoracic cases, hereditary workers who stand like stalks crouching or meditating on or beside water-troughs: should they hear the voice of Karaiyurc⁴ Cempan their meditative spell would be foiled.  

There, too, are those who come from elsewhere and think of themselves as Jaffna-town city-dwellers - yet one can’t interfere in their wishful-thinking and blame them. As newly incarnated men of the legendary Kuru country⁵, the assemblymen of the karaiyar’s⁶ village don’t seem to have profited from this. But, if Cempan⁷ Kamalappu got up on to a .

makeshift stage to sing, you could hear him some three miles away at Navanturai. If he got up to walk around, the audience would vibrate. Ilaiyappa and Lenal Rattinam lovingly betrothed themselves. When love songs are heard in the « cine », the heart overflows and fierce, ungovernable lust fills it. If in the midst of these happenings Pakkiri⁸ Sinnaturai were to disguise himself as an actor and there stand up as a tree and sing and act, the rich voice could be heard some eight miles away. Pakkiri and Pukuntan, from Narantanai, like the united tortoises that crossed the Indian sea, having attained to respectability on the stage, in the course of time becoming friends beyond life itself⁹.With the performances of folk-dances even commerce in jewelery thrived. Since Cerukalattur¹⁰ Sama sang: « The world is a stage », even the world of the arts danced in a whirl, dishevelled.  

This Jaffna-town junction is the central area in which proliferates all kinds of sweet sap and juice shops and where religious practices are nourished. How these men get entangled in these three ruling entities: the butcher’s, the tavern, the toddy-shop - as if someone managed the puppet strings - is a mystery that even the sacred writings¹¹ cannot reveal. Let’s not exaggerate. The Ponnamma mill, the tavern, the cinemas, the toddy shelters, the meat and fish shops - all held their heads high [that is, were above reproach].  

Despite the fact that a red sign-board openly advertised the dangers inherent in the words: « Alcohol, Tavern », where Kallati¹² Veluppillai stood out, dignified [or affected] gentlemen with identical moustaches would never fail to gather in and around the tavern. 

Even if illicit, corrosive alcohol [like « vettirumpu », the chisel for cutting iron] of these days did not exist in the days of yore, for the gentlemen shaken up through imbibing alcohol, the tavern - the support of spirits - is always a refuge.  

Like us, the sort of eccentric and/or arrogant band of youngsters [in Akastiyar’s use, meaning « kurukkukal » should rather read « kurukkankal »] between the ages of sixteen and thirty-two would, as if they were trembling in a circus lion-cage, watch the fun. 

The roguish battalion which plunders from all over the land would rise and come to congregate - from the four corners of the country - at the tavern where they would spread a large piece of square cloth and while leaning against the wall of the tavern, sit down cross-legged and begin to play the card game of 304 and that is the moment when even Menakai¹³ would not be able to bestir them. 

The stink of dung heaps left behind by buffaloes roaming around rice-fields and irrigation channels stealthily enter the nostrils.The itch, humming and molesting of flies are unbearable. From the radio in the tea-shop across the street issues the world-wide noble law of Saivam¹⁴. Those who crouch to play cards refuse to budge. 

A dictum from the Jaffna medical treatise: ‘Having attained sixty years, there would be no need for dogs at home’; prohibitive country grandmas would brand us youngsters¹⁵ as ‘jungle imps’. One day, that too, when the alcohol began to make us groggy, we quite foolishly entered into the midst of these thugs and got ourselves into a mess by disturbing their concentration. In this altar, there is no saviour to be found: only old men were present. Besides, they too would have only gone there to worship at the shrine. 

‘Get out of this place’ said a voice. 

We lingered wide-eyed. 

Alukkataic¹⁶ Canmukam raised his hand to his moustache and stared menacingly while growling at us. 

Among us Kakkottu¹⁷ Rattinam was slightly a more daring person. This Rattinam, Kokkan¹⁸ Taniel and myself were known around the country as the ‘Mummurti’¹⁹. We were that close. 

Alukkatai rose threateningly. 

It dawned on us in all clarity that our karate, cilampati²⁰ and magic will have no effect on him. We had rather not beg, let’s go catch the dog, so thinking we retreated to the entrance and slowly took to our heels. 

Near the water tank we espied Kataiatik²¹ Kanesan who appeared to be threatening someone with his jackknife. 

Our bodies froze. Our bowels constricting, we stood trembling. 

Like an envoy of Heaven, Netuval²² Nadaraja was right at that moment coming along with the Cillalai²³ goat-killer or sacrificer. 

We narrowly escaped death that day. 

As soon as I gained my village, I told all of this to my maternal grandmother. 

‘From now on, don’t go about with lowly fellows’, said grandma. 

‘Unless one associates with evil-doers, one cannot become righteous,’ said I. 

‘Though you possess a small brain, you have the right sort of knowhow,’ so saying, she hugged and kissed me. 

It is this grandma who became my mentor later on. 

Notes on the translation 

1 “Mullan”: from  “mullu”: meaning thorn; therefore, « bony » as a nickname for Saravanamuttu.

2 “Netuval”: meaning « tall ».

3 G.G.Ponnampalam, the President of the Ceylon Tamil Congress in the former Ceylon.

4 from Karaiyur, a district in the Jaffna peninsula.

5 “Kuru country”: from the epic, Mahabharata, near Delhi as descendants of the lunar race or kauravar.

6 “karaiyar”: that is, the fishermen caste.

7 “Cempan”: from « cempu » meaning copper or copper pot/vessel.

8 “Pakkiri”: from the Persian meaning a « fakir ».

9 “becoming friends beyond life itself”: that is, for six spans of life.

10 from a place name, Cerukkalattur.

11 “sacred writings”: the Vedas, Agamas, Puranas and Smirtis.

12 “Kallati”: epithet derived from kallu, meaning « stone » - though « stoned » would not be valid even if apt - since kallati really means at or by the stone or rock.

13 “Menakai”: either a famed courtezan of Swerga, in Tamil: cuvarkkam, that is, Indira’s heaven, or the daughter of Mount Meru, wife to Himalaya, thought the mythical over-a-million mile mountain is generally thought to be the Himalayas.

14 “Saivam”: the sectional philosophy of Saivaite - as opposed to Vishnuite - worshippers.

15 « vitalaikal », that is, between the ages of sixteen and thirty-two.

16 from the Sinhalese place name: Aluthkade.

17 “Kakkottu”: the measuring can/vessel of a quarter litre made from the palmyra trunk, found in all Ceylonese Tamil homes for measuring out unhusked or husked rice.

18 “Kokkan”: meaning « lean » from kokku meaning stalk.

19 “Mummurti”: the Trinity of Hindu Gods: Brahma, Vishnu and Siva.

20 “cilampati”: the Tamil art of defence with a staff.

21 from kataiati meaning at or near the shop, there being often in the old days just one shop in some streets.

22 “Neduval”: meaning tall.

23 “Cillalai”: name of a village area in the Jaffna peninsula. 

Notes 

i S.Akastiyar. Manita taricanankal (vivaranac cittiram). Madras: New Century Book House, 1995, ix-177p.

ii For details concerning Akastiyar’s life, I’m indebted to his family: his widow, Navamani, and his daughters: Navajoti and Navajekani, and to his son-in-law S.B.Yogaratnam’s « Valkaic curukkam » [ brief bio-data], published on the occasion of the memorial ceremony in Paris, on January 6, 1996. I have also relied heavily on a twenty-one page manuscript in the author’s handwriting, written in a question and answer basis, covering essential facts of his life and work, dated June 1st., 1995.

iii Pages 15 and 16 of the manuscript dated June 1st., 1995.

iv Dylan Thomas. Quite Early One Morning (broadcasts by). Preface by Aneirin Talfan Davies. London: J.M.Dent & Sons, 1967 [1st.ed., 1954], x-181. Quotation: p.18.  

 

Bibliography (of all Akastiyar’s published books) 

Irunilulle (In the Dark) [Three short stories]. 1968. P.P. (Ananta Accakam), iv-124p., Jaffna. 

Ni - Elu unarvurrunavakac cittiram (You: Seven Didactic Fresh Vistas in the form of Dialogues). 1969. Sri Lanka Progressive Writers Association, 72p., Jaffna.  

Tirumanattirkaka oru pen kattirukkiral (A Girl is Waiting for Marriage) [A novel]. 1976. Manikkam Piracuram, viii-162p., Colombo. 

Mannil teriyutoru torram (Beings [caram/acaram] produced on the Earth) [A novel]. 1978. Verakesari, iv-142p., Colombo. 

Nattukkuttuk kalainar varalaru. Puntan yocippu: kalaiyulaka valkkai varalaru. (History of Folk-Dance Artists). 1981. Navaracu Nattukkuttuk Kala Manram, xvi-102p., Jaffna. 

Oru nurrantin iru tamil navalkal (An Explication of Two Novels (Piratapa Mutaliyar Carittiram & Acanpe Carittiram) in a Century]. 1988. New Century Book House, 64p., Madras.  

Meipparkal (Those who herd others) [Short story collection]. 1990. New Century Book House, vii-199p., Madras.  

Akastiyar kataikal ( Agastiyar’s stories) [A short story collection]. 1990. Jinikraj, iv-147p., Anaikottai, Jaffna. 

Kopurankal carikinrana (The (Temple)Towers are leaning) [A novelette]. (?) Rajini Publications, Colombo.  

Kalai Ilakkiyammum Varkka Nilaippatum. (Arts and Literature and the Durability of the Masses). 1991. Rajani Publications, v-65p., Paris. 

Erinerruppil Itaipataiillai. ( There is no escape route in the midst of a burning fire) [A novel]. 1992. Jekani Patippakam, 285p.,Madurai & 1993. Paris Kalai Ilakkiya Arvalar, Paris. Repub. 1994, Lausanne. 

Akastiyar Pativukal [A collection of essays, selected by S.Akastiyar]. 1993. Jekani Patippakam, xvi-203p., Madurai. 

[Strictly speaking, this is not a book written by Akastiyar. It is made up of thirty-six accounts, including interviews with the author, himself, and reviews of Akastiyar’s writings and therefore contains much useful information on the author.]  

Narakattiliruntu... ( From hell...) [ Three short stories]. 1994. New Century Book House, x-112p., Madras.  

Maka kanam poruntiya ( Appropriate to Enormous Weight) [Three short stories]. 1994. New Century Book House, 246p., Madras.  

[The above three titles were republished as follows: Zurich: On the occasion of his 50th (writing) anniversary, October 1994. Republished in Paris: December 1994. Same republished in London: March 1995] 

Evalukkum Tayaka. (A Mother to Every Girl) [A collection of short stories]. 1994. New Century Book House, ix-130p., Madras. [Republished as follows: Paris: June 1995. Republished in Essen: On the occasion of the Literature, Arts and Music Festival, organized by Tenaruvi Publications, September 1995.] 

Manita Taricanankal (Vivaranac Cittiram) [Glimpses of Humanity: An artful narration]. December 1995. New Century Book House, xi-177 p., Madras. 

¹ from « mullu » meaning thorn; therefore, « bony » as a nickname for Saravanamuttu.

² meaning « tall ».

³ G.G.Ponnampalam, the President of the Ceylon Tamil Congress in the former Ceylon.

⁴ from Karaiyur, a district in the Jaffna peninsula.

⁵ from the epic, Mahabharata, near Delhi as descendants of the lunar race or kauravar.

⁶ that is, the fishermen caste.

⁷ from « cempu » meaning copper or copper pot/vessel.

⁸ from the Persian meaning a « fakir ».

⁹ that is, for six spans of life.

¹⁰ from a place name, Cerukkalattur.

¹¹ the Vedas, Agamas, Puranas and Smirtis.

¹² epithet derived from kallu, meaning « stone » - though « stoned » would not be valid even if apt - since kallati really means at or by the stone or rock.

¹³ either a famed courtezan of Swerga, in Tamil: cuvarkkam, that is, Indira’s heaven, or the daughter of Mount Meru, wife to Himalaya, thought the mythical over-a-million mile mountain is generally thought to be the Himalayas.

¹⁴ the sectional philosophy of Saivaite - as opposed to Vishnuite - worshippers.

¹⁵ « vitalaikal », that is, between the ages of sixteen and thirty-two.

¹⁶ from the Sinhalese place name: Aluthkade.

¹⁷ the measuring can/vessel of a quarter litre made from the palmyra trunk, found in all Ceylonese Tamil homes for measuring out unhusked or husked rice.

¹⁸ meaning « lean » from kokku meaning stalk.

¹⁹ the Trinity of Hindu Gods: Brahma, Vishnu and Siva.

²⁰ The Tamil art of defence with a staff.

²¹ from kataiati meaning at or near the shop, there being often in the old days just one shop in some streets.

²² meaning tall.

²³ name of a village area in the Jaffna peninsula.

Notes 

¹ S.Akastiyar. Manita taricanankal (vivaranac cittiram). Madras: New Century Book House, 1995, ix-177p.

² For details concerning Akastiyar’s life, I’m indebted to his family: his widow, Navamani, and his daughters: Navajoti and Navajekani, and to his son-in-law S.B.Yogaratnam’s « Valkaic curukkam » [ brief bio-data], published on the occasion of the memorial ceremony in Paris, on January 6, 1996. I have also relied heavily on a twenty-one page manuscript in the author’s handwriting, written in a question and answer basis, covering essential facts of his life and work, dated June 1st., 1995.

³ Pages 15 and 16 of the manuscript dated June 1st., 1995.

⁴ Dylan Thomas. Quite Early One Morning (broadcasts by). Preface by Aneirin Talfan Davies. London: J.M.Dent & Sons, 1967 [1st.ed., 1954], x-181. Quotation: p.18.

©Copyright EelamNation News Group. 1999-2001