Chapter 5: chapter 5

1“This is like a place where counterfeit currency is printed!” Deepam Na. Parthsarathy, a renowned Tamil writer, popularly known as Na.Pa. commented sarcastically when I took him to the lodge where I had arranged for him to stay and put him in his room. He had come to Secunderabad on my invitation to give a talk in the book exhibition arranged by me in Secunderabad. The single cot in the room was quite short. The dim mirror whose mercury coating was almost gone, showed only his chest. To see his face, Na.Pa. who was exceptionally tall, had to bend his head almost a foot. The motor- pump that was in a corner was running. It gave out an intolerable whirring sound. The lodge boy who opened the room said with a smile, “The tank will be filled within 5 minutes. Then we can switch the motor off, sir!” Tirupur Krishnan, another writer, who had come with Deepam Parthasarathy was not interested in the dimensions of the room as he was in a hurry to leave for his relative’s house where he was going to stay. As soon as we came out of the Secunderabad Railway Station Na. Pa. asked me, “How did the idea of conducting a book exhibition in this town come to you?”When I completed my studies, Mr. Velayutham who was running a publishing house in Coimbatore, was conducting book exhibition under the name “Readers’ Festival” every year in the Town Hall in Coimbatore. That was during the eighties. After my studies I got a job in B.S.N.L in Secunderabad. Once when I went to Coimbatore from Secunderabad, on seeing his book exhibition with a readers’-writers’ meet, I told him casually that he could run a similar exhibition in Secunderabad too! I quite conveniently forgot that the environment in Secunderabad was not quite encouraging for such events.The Secunderabad Tamil community thought that its service to Tamil was over just by purchasing weekly Tamil magazines from Menon store. It forgot all the dirt it had collected over a year by immersing itself in the floods of fine arts like drama, Bharatha Natyam and debates that would inundate the Keyes High school during the Rama Navami festival, which was conducted for ten days. This is one side of the picture. The other side had a different scenario: meetings on atheism conducted by the Andhra Tamil Peravai, focused on D. K’s ideology (an ideology devoted to atheism) and attracted little crowd. In the Tamil meetings conducted in the Cantonment, works on Tamil language and literature would be analysed threadbare.Velayutham honoured my request. He had come to Secunderabad with four friends and forty bundles of books. The Mahbub college in R.P. Road was selected as the venue for the ten-day book exhibition. The city was well known for its anti-Brahmin attitude and my friends Kandasamy and Thangasamy had their own doubts about how they could sell books on making vadagam, astrology and Bakthi Literature to such people. Somehow, I convinced them. We printed small pamphlets of four inches in a Tamil press near the Secunderabad Railway Station. We displayed placards containing the details of the exhibition in places where the Tamils would usually gather. We also inserted notices in Deccan Chronicle, a popular English daily.In the inaugural function, Na. Pa. gave the inaugural address. He asked me again, “Why should you run a book exhibition here?” There was only a very thin crowd. Our dream that we could attract large crowds by inviting great writers dissipated. Sujatha and Bengaluru Ravichandran (Ravi, where are you now? How are you? Nowadays we do not hear your robust voice and words that throb with life ) graced the occasion without minding the quality of the food! Writer Anuradha Ramanan and writer Suba and his family did not want to stay in the lodge we had arranged for them and stayed in an air-conditioned lodge at their own expense.Writer Ashokamitran had studied in Mahbub College. During his college days, he had wandered around the railway line, Parade Grounds and Mahbub College. His speech in the meeting was more interesting than ever. He was in high spirits and he spoke in a voice bubbling with enthusiasm. He told his experiences as a youth in an easy flow that was quite interesting too. He recalled the places where the characters of his novel Pathnettavathu Atchakkodu roamed about. When I asked him what he wanted to buy in Secunderbad before leaving it, he said that it was enough if he could buy some vegetables in the Monda market. On hearing those words, we were a little conscience-stricken! He bought two bags of vegetables before he left.I wrote an essay in the literary magazine Kanaiyazhi about the film Rangula Kala by B. Narasing Rao and the costume and art works that had been used in that film, which were on display for some time. When he came to the exhibition to give a talk, Gaddar, a renowned folklorist and singer, had come. On hearing his deep resonating voice, the crowd gathered in large numbers. My friends chid me for that for not announcing beforehand that Gaddar would be coming, for, they said, the news would have attracted more crowd.Kasi Anandan, who had been accustomed to speak in large gatherings in Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu, was much disappointed on seeing the small audience. On both sides of the Cantonment Dalits were living. They were the sympathisers of the Dravidian Movement and were familiar with its leaders. But they too did not attend the meeting in large numbers. That also disappointed Mr. Anandan. He spoke out his disappointment openly.Mr. Velayutham, the proprietor of M/s. Vijaya Publishing House was also not happy. He had spent a lot of money. The small size of the crowd troubled him. Then only, I decided to conduct the exhibition with friends of Knavu, the little literary magazine I was editing and publishing. As I used to request the publishers to send books, there was no difficulty in getting them. But I had to manage things single handed. One or two friends who were sailing with me hoping against hope, instead of helping me, pitied me! During the book exhibition, I had to apply for leave. After the exhibition was over, the books had to be sent back to the publishers. It was an exacting work. More or less it was an art. Never could I master it! It became quite a regular affair to receive complaints from the publishers that the bundles were damaged and were received in a bad condition. Many popular publishers and publishers like Kavya and Annam participated without minding poor sales. It was difficult even to pass on the message that a book exhibition would be held. Only a single line message that a book exhibition would be held was published in Deccan Chronicle andThe News Time reached some people. Even the ‘two-inch’ length news item about the screening of Tamil films that appeared in the Sunday Issues of Deccan Chronicle caught the attention of more people. Nevertheless, we conducted the exhibition every year however small the crowd was!After we started the little magazine Kanavu, in the literary gatherings (ten was the maximum number) we had, we used to discuss in the Clock Tower Park and Cantonment Park in Secunderabad the works of writers like Ki. Rajanarayanan, Indira Parthasarathy, Jayakanthan and Asohkamitran. To the participants who talked well, we gifted the books that came to Kanavu for review. Mahadevan who worked in the Railways and Muthusamy who worked in Godrej got the maximum number of books. We started the magazine Kanavu to encourage the Tamil writers in Hyderabad and Secunderabad but the response was poor. So, we started publishing the writings of Tamil writers from Tamil Nadu. When the first issue of Kanavu was brought out, I put its copies for sale in the Rama Navami festival conducted in the Keyes High school. The festival attracted a big crowd. When people heard the word Kanavu (Kanavu, in English means ‘Dream’), they asked whether the book contained the meanings of dreams and its interpretations. We brought out an anthology of short stories by writers who lived in Hyderabad and Secunderabad through the renowned publishing house, Kavya. The writers also wrote in popular magazines. So, they could not sync themselves with the tune of Kanavu. We also brought a book, Hyderabad- 400 years. The cover drawing by scientist, Arul, was very simple. At times, I met Kiruthika but she had no interest in Kanavu. In the meetings we conducted in parks under the auspices of Kanavu the total number of participants never crossed the single digit.Now also the Kanavu meetings in Tiruppur command the same respect. The average expense to ‘catch’ a head is one hundred rupees. That is the fate of literary meetings in Tamil Nadu. But the literary meetings conducted by political parties have a different story to tell.During the book exhibition, I used to have swelling and rheumatic pain in my knee-joints and fever. My friends used to ridicule me saying that those afflictions affected me because as I did not cater to the needs of the ‘big’ crowds in the exhibitions, they had cursed me, they said.When the first exhibition was over, when Velayutham was about to leave, he said, “Next year I will keep a hundred rupee note in some books kept in the exhibition. Anybody who picks that book up will get hundred rupees as reward and also the book, free of cost. It seems only when we advertise like this, we can pull some crowd!”I remembered Deepam Na.Pa.’s remark about the room and the counterfeit currency!***Bharatha Natyam: a major genre oh the Indian classical dance that originated in Tamil Nadu.Pathnettavathu Atchakkodu: This much acclaimed novel of Asokamitran was translated into English under the title The Eighteenth Parrllel. Atchakodu means latitude in English. The city of Hyderabad lies on the 18th latitude.Rama Navami: a spring festival that celebrates the birth of Lord Rama.vadagam: a paste of flour dried in the sun. It is deep fried in oil and used as a side- dish. It has a mouth- watering crispy taste and is a part and parcel of the typical Brahmin meal. The sun- dried pieces can be kept and used for months together. The NRIs who visit India, take bundles of them when they return to their alien lands.