Chapter 12: chapter 12

8“Why is my short story not included in the anthology of short stories written by Hyderabad writers?” Shanta Ram asked me. The way he put that question irritated me. I was then arranging books on the floor of the auditorium in the Keyes High school for the Tamil book exhibition. There was no proper furniture to arrange the books. It was quite inconvenient for the visitors to bend down to look at the books, to take them and examine them. But there was no other way.No profit at all. During the book exhibition that lasted for ten days one had to run from pillar to post for everything. One or two friends who came once in a while to help would go away after sometime. There were pricking problems including ‘book-lifting’. There was no proper person to bill the books and collect the money.The book exhibition was held under the auspices of the literary magazine Kanavu. As a result of my compulsion that all the members of the Kanavu Literary Society should also take part in the exhibition, many of them would simply vanish! Many times, I had to request someone whom I had never known at all, to act as cashier. But on such occasions I incurred heavy loss!A young man called Sundaram had attended one or two meetings. I had some respect for him as he was introduced by Arul. Once I requested him to sit in the cashier’s chair. He too was enthusiastically billing and collecting the money. His enthusiasm stimulated me to look after the sales, running here and there. When Arul came in the afternoon to help us my enthusiasm knew no bounds. Arul could do the cashier’s job till the closing hours in the late night, I thought.After Sundaram left, he tallied the collected amount with the bills and handed it over to me. But Arul was suspicious and told me, “Of late, Sundaram has fallen to drinking! He frequently asks his friends for loans! Why did you put him in charge of cash? it’s very disturbing!” I told him that Sundaram had settled the accounts. When we examined the bill book we discovered that some bill numbers were missing here and there. Their carbon copies were also missing. The total amount of such bills was quite shocking. Such cheating was common.When I tried to tie the books in bundles for returning them to the publishers in Tamil Nadu, my knee pain would develop into back pain. Only the thoughts of new friends I had made would give me some solace.That year, during the exhibition, the renowned Tamil publisher Kavya had published an anthology titled, The Short Stories of Hyderabad Writers. That collection contained short stories by fifteen writers including Suba Sri and Sri Priya. These two writers had written more than 300 stories each in mass magazines. They were husband and wife. “I’ve read some good stories written by Sri Priya, but I don’t know whether she is the Tamil actress Sri Priya or somebody else!” Ashokamitran had told me once! The Keyes High School was just opposite to their house. Suba Sri had in charge of the Rama Navami Festival for many years.The school was the venue for the Rama Navami Festival during which many programmes like dramas staged by the Tamil Sabas and debating Forums by famous orators were conducted. Tamils attended the festival in large numbers. Once I gave the responsibility of printing Rama Navami souvenir to Pon. Vijayan. He was working then in Kanayazhi, a Tamil literary magazine. That year he could not complete the souvenir work. In all the thirty years of the Rama Navami Festival’s history that was the only year in which no souvenir was brought out. Pon. Vijayan had a curse, I thought. There were at least twenty-five people in Hyderabad like Suba Sri who were writing in mass magazines.I told Santha Ram, “You write only in mass magazines. You have been writing for twenty-five years. But, as I was more familiar with the literary magazines, I could not come to know about you at all!” He knew only one or two literary magazines. Santha Ram was surprised to find the strange fact that one writer did not know another who had been writing for twenty-five years in popular magazines! “As I did not have your address, I could not contact you to get your story,” I told Santha Ram.Afterwards, I introduced him to a few literary magazines. I urged him to take up translation work. In the beginning, he showed only little interest. He was virtually basking in the popularity bestowed on him by the readers of mass magazines. I left Hyderabad next year itself.After sometime, Santha Ram started attempting translation of texts. He started his work by translating the stories that were popular in the Telangana region such as the works of director Narasing Rao and Bhoopal Reddy. A small portion of Telugu Literature had been brought to Tamil by him.Susheela Kanaga Durga who was living in Hyderabad then was translating the ghost thrillers and other stories of Yandamuri Veerendranath. Santha Ram had dispelled the popular opinion that his rival was Suheela and had been doing translation work over the past decade.Next year, we the Tamil speaking friends, brought out a book entitled, Hyderabad 400. Unfortunately, it did not become a representative work that spoke about the lives of the Tamils who had played a pivotal role in shaping the cultural development of Hyderabad. Instead, it had become just a collection of essays and short stories.I think, after that, even for a period of fifteen years, no book reflecting the lives of Tamils has come out. Dr. Kirubanandan, who is attached to Hyderabad Tamil Sangam has translated one or two books. People like Mustafa and Muthusamy are not interested in uniting the Tamil readers. Nobody knows about Krishnaswamy or Thangasamy, who belonged to the Andhra Pradesh Tamil Literary Society. But contributions of Tamils who live in Andhra cannot be ignored. Good works documenting those contributions should be brought out. People like Ilayavan should continue this task.Sometimes the copies of the literary magazine, Kanavu and the invitations of the book exhibitions were sent to Dr. Abdul Kalam. Once he expressed his good wishes in a post card. At that time his address was: Director, DRDL, Kanchan Bagh, Hyderabad.