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Magazine
EXPERIENCE
Janakiraman sends a wire
ASHOKAMITRAN
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An incident concerning T. Janakiraman, the Tamil novelist and his principled stand, out of the pages of memory…
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On 20th August 1982, I received a telegram from Tiruvarur, a town then in Thanjavur District, Tamil Nadu. “Urgent meet my wife and brother waiting TNagar boarding point for 558 bus between 21 15 and 21 45 hours tonight ask them cancel journey eviction postponed – T Janakiraman.”
As usual, it wasn’t the best of times for me. But T. Nagar bus boarding point wasn’t too far away. It had been some years since I had seen Janakiraman’s wife. And, of course, I had no idea about his brother. Janakiraman had moved to Delhi quite some time ago. Obviously he was now in the south as his telegram revealed. If his wife was to take a bus at T. Nagar, she must have been staying at some friend or relation’s house in Chennai. Why did Janakiraman send the telegram to me?
Distinguished career
Janakiraman had, until then, in his unhurried 61 years, achieved a great deal in the world of modern Tamil letters. In 1966, he had written probably the most discussed novel, Amma Vandaal. For the Tamil drama veteran S.V. Sahasranamam, he wrote three distinguished plays and had had one of them made into a film. In the company of his staunchest friend and benefactor Chitti (a pseudonym for P.G. Sundararajan), he wrote a novel account of the river Cauvery and the regions it passes through. The book was embellished with original line drawing by Kalasagaram Rajagopal. Janakiraman had written two rather formal travelogues resulting from his visit to Japan and the Crimean countries. He had translated two books on difficult topics like astronomy and atomic physics. He had also compiled an anthology of Tamil poetry in English translation.
Rare distinction
But Janakiraman’s forte was the short story. He had the distinction of being serialised in translation in The Illustrated Weekly of India, then considered “almost a Nobel Prize!” He startled R.K. Narayan during a live radio broadcast that he never revised or took a second look at his manuscripts. He was a Central Government servant and the government in those days promptly retired the staff when they officially reached 56. (Age and date of birth were uncertain categories in those days. Even Rajaji, famed for precision, would smile helplessly in the matter of his exact date of birth. It was to his personal relief that for his contribution to Indian politics, administration and literature, his exact age was no criterion, Now, it appears, one can’t afford to die without his or her birth certificate.)
In the dimly-lit T. Nagar bus boarding point, in a crowd of filmgoers just let loose after the evening show of a nearby cinema hall, I managed to identify Mrs. Janakiraman and Janakiraman’s brother. They couldn’t believe their trip was to be cancelled. Mrs. Janakiraman was terribly worried. She said she feared for the safety of her husband.
Different perception
The problem was something any other person in Janakiraman’s place would have just brushed aside. Years ago, he had applied for a State housing board flat and had quite forgotten about it. In those days — may be even now — there used to be a condition in the application form to say the applicant had no other house or land in his name in the whole of India. Like most middle class families of Thanjavur district, Janakiraman’s ancestors should have had a small piece of land or a house rented out for generations. Janakiraman should have inherited a few yards of land or a hold on a crumbling old house along with his brothers and a host of cousins. Though the property was in no way generating income, technically he owned a patch of land. So when the housing board informed him of an allotment of a flat, he was more worried than happy. Innocently, he should have applied for eviction. I have known of people who had housing board flats in Chennai, Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad at the same time and they would look at you without batting an eyelid. Eviction of a tenant or his successors in a village by an absentee landlord was almost impossible.
Quite likely, Janakiraman should have reconciled to abandoning all claims on his ancestral land or house. Before I thought things would have got resolved to allow me to ask him, Janakiraman died.
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