PROFILE
The brighter side of life
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PADMA NARAYANAN and PREMA SEETHARAM write about the Tamil writer Anuthama, who believed in and wrote about ethical values without pontificating on them.
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ANUTHAMA, a successful Tamil writer with an impressive number of novels and short stories, is in her early eighties. Though she is careful not to ever pontificate or sermonise, she believes that written works of fiction ought to convey some message. She is very clear about why she writes. "I believe in certain values and I try to reflect them in my literary creations." The message, however, is never overt as it is woven unobtrusively into the fabric of her stories. It is what she refers to as a "sugar coated pill".
Relevant today
Mr. Srinivasan of Alliance Company, a publishing house that celebrated its centenary a couple of years back by issuing new editions of books by older writers, is very definite about Anuthama's place in Tamil fiction. He categorically declares that it is writers like Anuthama who have preserved our culture and faithfully recorded our traditional practices for posterity. Her stress is only on the positive aspects of life. The negative elements are understated and she uses tradition and traditional roles as psychological tools to resolve them. Anuthama succeeds in bridging the gap between the behavioural patterns of different generations. Mr. Srinivasan says that he heard the "empathetic listening" in Anuthama's writings and decided they would be as relevant today as they were at the time they were created, some of them half a century ago. His hunch proved right, for, the new edition of Anuthama's books have been sold within a short period of their publication.
Vijayalakshmi, an admirer of Anuthama's stories says, "With a tiny seed of an idea, she builds up an entire novel, peopling it with an impressive cast with individual traits and spotlighting the interplay of their emotions and relationships." Anuthama's stories present fairly accurate images of life in the middle years of the 20th Century, neither glorifying nor decrying the period. While her canvas is not as large as that of some other writers, one could say her writing is — to borrow a comment on Jane Austen's works — like a piece of ivory, exquisitely carved. With her descriptions of various rituals and traditional practices, both living and dying, her books become records of social history in addition to being very readable novels. To Anuthama as well as to most of her characters, tradition and preservation of native culture are very important. The accent, though, is more often on ethical values rather than on empty practices.
To a writer, every one of her creations is precious; but some seem to find more favour with the reading public than the others. Anuthama says that one of her books, Nainda Ullam — Frayed Emotions — went into many editions after its initial appearance. The book in its entirety faithfully portrays the mores and conventions of the period with all its inherent contradictions and peculiarities.
Nainda Ullam is voluminous and has many characters acting out their respective roles. The protagonist, Maithreyee, a young girl, has necessarily to interact with them all. Her various relationships wax and wane along with her growth from a sensitive pre-adolescent, passing through difficult adolescence, and maturing into an adult. Krishna Rao and Kausalya value their friendship with Maithreyee's parents so highly that they are willing to take on the responsibility of bringing up the girl after her parents are killed in riots in Burma. Maithreyee and her brother Gangadharan are as much their children as Balu, born to them. Maithreyee's relationship with this family is so complete that it makes it a wrench for her to leave them behind in Ceylon and become part of her mama's family in India. The contrast in living styles and family structures and spaces is strong. The girl misses the freedom she had at Krishna Rao's house and finds the atmosphere in her mama's house stifling. Anuthama's acuity comes through in her efficient portrayal of the anguish of the deracinated adolescent gradually giving way to an understanding of the warmth and affection in her new home. Maithreyee has inchoate feelings for two young men, Ramaswami and Seshadri. Ramaswami is a handsome villain in disguise. Seshadri, though principled, is reserved, apparently weak, but with definite hidden strengths. Much to the joy and relief of the whole family, she makes the right choice. Lokanathan is a character unique in himself. His self-imposed punishment for omissions and commissions committed in his early years evokes compassion in the readers. With his overflowing maternal instincts, he is verily a mother to Maithreyee.
Anuthama is mildly surprised at readers' response to Nainda Ullam and wonders what could have made it a special favourite. Could it be that the readers felt an extraordinary kinship with the book's characters — people they encountered in their daily lives? Or were the situations the protagonist and her kin faced, the problems they had, akin to their own? Or was it that the readers could relate to the emotions of the characters? A couple of readers did, indeed, tell Anuthama that they had been in similar situations in their own lives.
The author's favourite
Anuthama, however, picks out another book of hers, Thavam, as one that really crystallises her ideals and convictions effectively. Thavam, written some three decades later (1977), is about a couple, comfortable in their marriage, going through a period of stress because of the husband's illness — a weak heart that might give in any time. The concern that each feels for the other, and their attempts to protect each other from undue anxiety is the story-line. Each is not sure about how much the other knows of the seriousness of his health condition. The narrative voice is that of the husband. Anuthama is able to write about the actions and reactions of the male narrator as successfully as any male writer would have. The couple move to a hillside village for the husband to rest and recuperate. The husband finds it difficult to understand his wife Kantha's seemingly careless attitude towards him and attributes her easy stance to her not knowing about his impending death. He marvels at the way she gets intricately and intimately involved in the lives of the people of the village. Anuthama's faith in God and in traditional values "shine through the wife who brings her husband back from the shadow of death". Kantha observes religious penances, adhering strictly to the prescribed codes. Her firm faith in the efficacy of her sincere prayers is justified by the reward she gets.
Each of the village's inhabitants has a life of his and her own. Sankar, the unconventional artist and Kamatchi, who, unmindful of society's censure, devotes her life to nurturing the artist's talent; the unusually beautiful Usha, her mother Maragatham whose bitter experiences in life make her wise to the ways of the world, and the strong man Velappan who marries Usha to protect her from lecherous advances; the duck-gaited Kamali, principled, but set against her thieving husband... they are all characters who support and add flesh to the story, saving it from becoming a linear narrative. The village, with its river and hill-temple of Murugan, present a charming setting to the story. Kantha endears herself to the people of the village by entering their homes, setting things right here, suggesting changes there, teaching them basic hygiene, bringing colour into the girls' lives by teaching them to sing... all this in addition to caring for her husband, scheming away to see that he always has somebody at hand, luring her kith and kin to the place, collecting folklore and generally making her warm presence felt all around. The story is suffused by Kantha's vibrant and benign nature. Asked what she would say the core idea of the book was, Anuthama unhesitatingly replies, "Every one needs God."
Spontaneous literature
Mr. Srinivasan of Alliance Company has no doubts whatsoever about the need to revive readers' interest in the works of writers like Anuthama. He feels present-day writing is more keen to reveal the seamier sides of life that evoke negative tendencies. The divide between literary and popular writing seems to be wider now, the demarcations more marked, whereas writers like Anuthama created literature spontaneously without worrying about its literary status. Thanks to this publisher, Anuthama's works are once again available to those of Generation Now who are keen to get acquainted with the creativity of the writer and the social customs of yesteryear.
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