TAMIL
Literary pioneer
ASHOKAMITRAN
PENNIYATHIN VIDIVELLI-KUMUDINI — Biography & Literary Criticism: Prema Nandakumar; Vanathi Pathippakam, 23/13, Deenadayalu Street, T. Nagar, Chennai-600017. Rs. 60.
ILAKKIA CHINTANAI, a Chennai Tamil literary forum of 35 years’ standing, commissions a writer each year to write a biography of a Tamil literary pioneer. In 2007, at their behest, Prema Nandakumar, a scholar and literary historian of repute, wrote a book on Kumudini, a pseudonym for Ranganayaki. Penniyathin Vidivelli literally means the morning star of womanhood. Kumudini was a sterling writer. (In recent times ‘Penniyam’ is also used to signify assertive feminism.)
The first half of the 20th century saw some extraordinary Indian women in all walks of life—art, culture, education, social reformation and literature. Many of them flung themselves into the freedom struggle, suffered imprisonment and untold hardships, but came out of the trial holding their heads high.
Ranganayaki was born of distinguished parents in 1905 and as was appropriate in those times, was married in her 13th year. Her hearing began to fail when she was 22. It is in such circumstances that she took to writing and became one of the most meaningful and delightful Tamil writers of the period.
Ranganayaki translated Tagore’s novel ‘Joge Jog’ into Tamil from the Hindi version. The writer Kalki, who was then the executive editor of Ananda Vikatan, serialised the translation in the magazine and Ranganayaki
who took her pseudonym Kumudini from the Tagore novel became a household name in Tamil families. The reviewer as a boy had read a range of Kumudini’s writings and remembers with delight the evening his father read aloud for the entire family her short story ‘Godavari Gundu’. Insight, clarity, profound love and concern for humanity and effortless humour were the hallmarks of her writings. Anything she wrote was for the enrichment of the reader.
Prema Nandakumar in this excellent book brings alive the joys, sorrows, cherished moments and achievements of Kumudini.
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