<p>Only the second young Tamil writer so far after Jayakanthan to win Sahitya Akademi award, Su Venkatesan joins an elite club of well-known writers from other Indian languages, including Kannada’s Gopalakrishna Pai, this year. <br /><br /></p>.<p>A full-time CPM cadre of Madurai and associated with the Progressive Writers and Artistes Movement, he is both jubilant and humbled by the award for his debut novel “Kaval Kottam” (High Security Zone in modern parlance). The 1048-page novel is weaved around 600 years of subaltern history of the ancient city of Madurai. Writing this novel of epic proportions that reflects diverse literary influences in structure, style and semiotics of modern Tamil, was a “miracle” of sorts for Venkatesan. With one of its focal themes being the “Criminal Tribes Act” enacted by the erstwhile British colonial masters who used it to “humiliate” certain groups, an ethnographic delineation of its horrors and pains required the author to speak to as many of the elderly people as possible whose memory was their only repository. He went in search of many of them to hear out their stories; but burdened by old age, death was either knocking at their doors or had just knocked them down when he eventually got to them. <br /><br />“Already 60 missed calls on his mobile phone panel”, exasperates Kamala, wife of the 42-year-old Tamil writer, at their modest home in Madurai, who struggles to cope with the innumerable calls he is bombarded with to congratulate him on his achievement. The author shared his feelings in a telephonic interview with M R Venkatesh Deccan Herald from Madurai. <br /><br />Excerpts:<br /><br />Congratulations sir. Would you place your award-winning “Kaval Kottam” at the intersection of history, cultural anthropology, sociology and ethnography?<br />This is a novel, a work of historical fiction. It is based on me straddling 600 years of history of Madurai (1310-1910), a people’s history as preserved by memory. It simply bursts forth with agony and pain as people open up their past, about their forefathers, if only you get talking to them. Though, I already have four collections of Tamil poetry and research books, “Kaval Kottam” is my first novel which I took 10 years to write!What was the trigger-point for this novel and what it is about? Madurai city has such an extraordinarily rich heritage spanning some 2,500 years. <br /><br />Despite its antiquity, it continues to be one of the unceasingly throbbing cities of <br />India. <br /><br />Every street in Madurai has a tale to tell and mirrors this 2,500-year-old socio-cultural heritage. So, as someone born in Madurai, I was fascinated by its long history and wanted to document it. This journey began with me stumbling upon an old October 1920 dated police report virtually in tatters, that testifies to the atrocities meted out to the “Piramalai Kallar community” by Britishers, who brought them under the purview of the “Criminal Tribes Act”. <br /><br />It pertained to the fate that befell ‘Kallars’ of Keezhakuyilkudi village (near Madurai), when 320-odd men of that community, stern warriors-like security guards, were interned by the British in camps in Guddalur. I had first essayed a historical monograph on Keezhakuyilkudi village, which I tried to recreate. And when I went around all the nearby villages of Madurai – it would be over 250 original villages-- to collect material for my research work, I was simply overwhelmed by the sights and sounds as recounted by hundreds of individuals all over the “Kallars”, inhabiting region. Each one <br />began to tell his or her story and that is how this “people’s history” of Madurai as told by them became the vast canopy for my novel.<br /><br />Is the novel then about one historical community?<br /><br />No, No. It is about the history of Madurai coursing along 600 years that comes out through people’s voices. In the process, it also explicates the socio-cultural mores of the “Kallar” community people; how for instance, the male members lived out a <br />dialectics of evolving from finesse burglars to being ace protectors of the entire community. But the British read these mores so differently and dubbed them as “criminal tribes”! <br /><br />Stylistically, how have you structured your narrative?<br /><br />What is unique about this novel is that in the first part, I have raised the superstructure of fiction on the substructure of history. The novel begins with Malik Kafur, <br />Alladuin Kilji’s general, raiding Madurai in 1310 and moves on to how Madurai came under the Vijayanagara Kings’ fold, followed by British rule. In the second part, history is predicated upon fiction! The novel’s protagonist is an impeccable ‘Kallar” guard, Karupanan. Dovetailed into the story are other historical narratives, too, like the circumstances under which the British built the Mullaperiyar dam after a killer drought in 1876 devoured 25 per cent of Madurai’s population. Apart from folklores collected from the people, I intensely researched for my topic since 1998 at the Government Archives in Chennai and Madurai and also the documents of the Christian <br />Missionaries. You should read the novel to see how I have harmonised all these into a <br />coherent piece of literary work.<br /><br />On the early influences in your life and writers who inspired you?<br /><br />I come from a farmers family near Madurai. Right from my school days I was drawn towards Tamil literature and I started writing from the age of 20. My <br />father was a small farmer and we were the first generation learners in our family. <br />I have been influenced by Russian writers such as Tolstoy and Chekov, and among modern Tamil writers by K Alagirisamy and P Singaram. I was astounded and <br />extremely elated when I was informed about bagging this award. It is very significant and is a true recognition by the Sahitya Akademi of progressive writers in regional languages. <br /></p>
<p>Only the second young Tamil writer so far after Jayakanthan to win Sahitya Akademi award, Su Venkatesan joins an elite club of well-known writers from other Indian languages, including Kannada’s Gopalakrishna Pai, this year. <br /><br /></p>.<p>A full-time CPM cadre of Madurai and associated with the Progressive Writers and Artistes Movement, he is both jubilant and humbled by the award for his debut novel “Kaval Kottam” (High Security Zone in modern parlance). The 1048-page novel is weaved around 600 years of subaltern history of the ancient city of Madurai. Writing this novel of epic proportions that reflects diverse literary influences in structure, style and semiotics of modern Tamil, was a “miracle” of sorts for Venkatesan. With one of its focal themes being the “Criminal Tribes Act” enacted by the erstwhile British colonial masters who used it to “humiliate” certain groups, an ethnographic delineation of its horrors and pains required the author to speak to as many of the elderly people as possible whose memory was their only repository. He went in search of many of them to hear out their stories; but burdened by old age, death was either knocking at their doors or had just knocked them down when he eventually got to them. <br /><br />“Already 60 missed calls on his mobile phone panel”, exasperates Kamala, wife of the 42-year-old Tamil writer, at their modest home in Madurai, who struggles to cope with the innumerable calls he is bombarded with to congratulate him on his achievement. The author shared his feelings in a telephonic interview with M R Venkatesh Deccan Herald from Madurai. <br /><br />Excerpts:<br /><br />Congratulations sir. Would you place your award-winning “Kaval Kottam” at the intersection of history, cultural anthropology, sociology and ethnography?<br />This is a novel, a work of historical fiction. It is based on me straddling 600 years of history of Madurai (1310-1910), a people’s history as preserved by memory. It simply bursts forth with agony and pain as people open up their past, about their forefathers, if only you get talking to them. Though, I already have four collections of Tamil poetry and research books, “Kaval Kottam” is my first novel which I took 10 years to write!What was the trigger-point for this novel and what it is about? Madurai city has such an extraordinarily rich heritage spanning some 2,500 years. <br /><br />Despite its antiquity, it continues to be one of the unceasingly throbbing cities of <br />India. <br /><br />Every street in Madurai has a tale to tell and mirrors this 2,500-year-old socio-cultural heritage. So, as someone born in Madurai, I was fascinated by its long history and wanted to document it. This journey began with me stumbling upon an old October 1920 dated police report virtually in tatters, that testifies to the atrocities meted out to the “Piramalai Kallar community” by Britishers, who brought them under the purview of the “Criminal Tribes Act”. <br /><br />It pertained to the fate that befell ‘Kallars’ of Keezhakuyilkudi village (near Madurai), when 320-odd men of that community, stern warriors-like security guards, were interned by the British in camps in Guddalur. I had first essayed a historical monograph on Keezhakuyilkudi village, which I tried to recreate. And when I went around all the nearby villages of Madurai – it would be over 250 original villages-- to collect material for my research work, I was simply overwhelmed by the sights and sounds as recounted by hundreds of individuals all over the “Kallars”, inhabiting region. Each one <br />began to tell his or her story and that is how this “people’s history” of Madurai as told by them became the vast canopy for my novel.<br /><br />Is the novel then about one historical community?<br /><br />No, No. It is about the history of Madurai coursing along 600 years that comes out through people’s voices. In the process, it also explicates the socio-cultural mores of the “Kallar” community people; how for instance, the male members lived out a <br />dialectics of evolving from finesse burglars to being ace protectors of the entire community. But the British read these mores so differently and dubbed them as “criminal tribes”! <br /><br />Stylistically, how have you structured your narrative?<br /><br />What is unique about this novel is that in the first part, I have raised the superstructure of fiction on the substructure of history. The novel begins with Malik Kafur, <br />Alladuin Kilji’s general, raiding Madurai in 1310 and moves on to how Madurai came under the Vijayanagara Kings’ fold, followed by British rule. In the second part, history is predicated upon fiction! The novel’s protagonist is an impeccable ‘Kallar” guard, Karupanan. Dovetailed into the story are other historical narratives, too, like the circumstances under which the British built the Mullaperiyar dam after a killer drought in 1876 devoured 25 per cent of Madurai’s population. Apart from folklores collected from the people, I intensely researched for my topic since 1998 at the Government Archives in Chennai and Madurai and also the documents of the Christian <br />Missionaries. You should read the novel to see how I have harmonised all these into a <br />coherent piece of literary work.<br /><br />On the early influences in your life and writers who inspired you?<br /><br />I come from a farmers family near Madurai. Right from my school days I was drawn towards Tamil literature and I started writing from the age of 20. My <br />father was a small farmer and we were the first generation learners in our family. <br />I have been influenced by Russian writers such as Tolstoy and Chekov, and among modern Tamil writers by K Alagirisamy and P Singaram. I was astounded and <br />extremely elated when I was informed about bagging this award. It is very significant and is a true recognition by the Sahitya Akademi of progressive writers in regional languages. <br /></p>