TRIBUTE
No compromise in writing
GOWRI RAMNARAYAN
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Sundara Ramaswamy will be remembered as a writer who set no standards for others that he himself did not strive to follow.
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"No damsel within the curtained palanquin." This is the refrain in a poem by Pasuvayya. The verse throbs with the excitement of the cavalcade — led by the haughty sword-in-hand warrior on the steed, a sweaty rearguard. The images echo countless legends and folk tales. But the rhythm re-invents the scene, the mood, the emotion. The verse canters straight into your pulse beats. It has a striking mysteriousness, a haunting eeriness. Unlike much modern verse, it cries aloud to be recited, chanted, resonating with meanings indirect, insistent. It mesmerises you into reading the 107 poems in the anthology by Pasuvayya, a pseudonym for Sundara Ramaswamy when he wrote verse.
No awards
Nagercoil-based Sundara Ramaswamy (1931 to October 15 2005) handled many genres — novel, short story, verse, play, personal essay and literary criticism. He shunned the bestsellers' brigade. No national award — Jnanpith, Saraswati Samman or Sahitya Akademi — sought him out. He sparked controversies by his unbending stance and frank speak. His critical views could cross the bounds of courtesy. But those rigidities helped him carve his place among the major Tamil writers of his time. Once he made a remarkable — and revealing — statement. "I want my criticism to help readers to identify quality writing, and lead them to condemn my own writing if it does not meet those standards."
Critic Venkat Swaminathan, with whom he crossed swords last year, admits wholeheartedly, "He has a point of view that I must take into serious consideration, even if I disagree." Veteran Vallikannan explains, "Not everyone could accept his views, but he set down what he thought was right." Eminent writer Asokamitran sums up, "He instilled in readers a consciousness that popular writing should not be mistaken for better, or literary writing. He was a reminder of the need to recognise in depth expression."
It was with such well-defined ideals that Ramaswamy wrote his The Tale of a Tamarind Tree (1966). The novel placed the author among the best. It retains its vigour even in translation. What made it unique? The author talks about `abandoning the family and moving under a tree' to look at "a town changing with the passage of time..." The tree at the centre is the sole witness of socio-politico-economic changes, the crumbling of values. Men want to cut it down.
Says veteran Vallikannan, "He focussed on the landscape of a town as a whole, new to Tamil writing." Asokamitran wonders, "The way he organises his material to present the multiple faces of a small town... Can there be so much in the subject? The novel is a model for writing."
The second novel, J.J: Some Notes and Sketches (1981) was to take a different path altogether. "A mental world of my own liking began to unfold artistically," explains Ramaswamy, leading him to critique the world of Tamil culture and Tamil life from the standpoint of Malayalam culture. Ramaswamy knew his Malayalam from schooling in Kottayam, readings of Malayalam writers and critics, probings into their ideological conflicts. He had translated Takazhi Sivasankaram Pillai into Tamil. Like the Tamarind Tree, J.J created a buzz with its innovative form and content, its authentic vision, and its stabbing satire. His last novel Children, Men and Women (1998) provoked mixed reactions. Some thought it lacked the concentrated compactness of the other two, while others found insights in its voluminousness.
Ramaswamy had little formal education; his schooling was interrupted by ailments. He taught himself Tamil. "His style was marvellous, a natural gift," exclaims Swaminathan.
His sole foray as a playwright — an allegory — is forgotten. But not his short stories. If the Heifer follows a predictable path, the gem, A Day With My Father, communicates an experience beyond verbal expression. Vallikannan mentions "Akam", a psychological probe into the doctor-patient relationship; while Asokamitran singles out "Prasadam" for its unforgettability. Its gentle humour laughs with, not at the characters — a temple priest who thwarts a policeman's desperate ploys to extract a bribe from him. A philosophical streak glows through a few tales.
Interestingly, though Ramaswamy and Jayakanthan were the noted writers of the 1950s and 1960s, with early Left affiliations, they were to take different paths and develop divergent styles. Scholars note that Ramaswamy's progressive socio-political ideals found more direct expression in the first phase of his writing, yielding to a later aesthetic subtlety.
Master artiste
Chitti, the senior-most penman of the Manikkodi movement to which Ramaswamy was aligned, believes that in fiction the modernist writer created illusions like a master artiste and craftsman. "As a critic he has not made much impact." Ramaswamy identified Pudumaipitthan as his model. He published the senior's complete works in a definitive edition. "His standards in publication rank with the best in the world," says Asokamitran. Though Ramaswamy was mostly published in little magazines like Saraswati and Ezhutthu, he launched the high to middle-browish Kalachuvadu, a forum for new writing and literary debate. Friends visiting his Nagercoil home recall his warmth and hospitality, extended even to members of opposing politico-literary camps. Acerbic and subjective he was, but also candid and uncompromising. Sundara Ramaswamy will be remembered as a writer who set no standards for others that he himself did not strive to follow.
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