The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : “Writings about others’ pain great literature”

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Saturday, Apr 25, 2009
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“Writings about others’ pain great literature”

Special Correspondent

Jayakanthan felicitated on his 76th birthday

— Photo: R.Shivaji Rao

happy moments: Writer D. Jayakanthan with actor Kamal Haasan and poet Vairamuthu at a meeting in Chennai on Friday.

CHENNAI: Writings that recollect the pain and tragedies of others, and not personal sufferings, will make for great literature, said writer D. Jayakanthan.

Addressing a meeting organised to felicitate him on his 76th birthday, Mr. Jayakanthan said though he had written about poverty and the sufferings of men, he himself had never experienced the pain of poverty.

He said his friends, first the Communists, then journalists and others, never allowed him to suffer. Mr. Jayakanthan, who was recently conferred the Padma Bhushan, said great literature would be made by keenly observing and assimilating the sufferings of others.

The writer, however, stressed the need for voracious reading. Experience alone would not result in great writing, he added.

Recalling his childhood days when he eavesdropped on his elder sister reading out Jayakanthan’s works to their mother, actor Kamal Haasan said his mother would have been happy if she had spotted him sitting next to the great writer.

“But I will share my experience with my sister,” he said.

Reflection of society

Poet Vairamuthu said the contradiction in writer Jayakanthan was nothing but the manifestation of the contradictions in society and in politics and in family relations.

The function was organised jointly by the Indo-Russian Cultural and Friendship Society (IRCUFS), Tamil Nadu and Russian Centre of Science and Culture, Chennai.

General secretary of the IRCUFS P.Thangappan announced that an award in the name of the writer would be instituted. V.Iraianbu, Secretary, Tourism and Culture Department, F.A.Rozovsky, Counsellor and Head of the Culture Department, Embassy of the Russian Federation in India, Vladislav V.Antonyuk, Counsel General, Consulate General of the Russian Federation in South India, R.Veeramani, chairman and managing director of GEM granites and others participated.

Industrialist N. Mahalingam inaugurated a photo exhibition on Mr. Jayakanthan.

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