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KALKI: SELECTED STORIES Kalki's New Avatar A Tamil literary maestro finds an English audience. By P Ananthakrishnan KALKI: SELECTED STORIES "Run always the short road, and the
nature's road is short." Kalki's life was short -- -- He died at the age of 55 -- -- but he ran the longest literary road. Of all Tamil writers, he is the most prodigious by a long chalk. He presented a mind-boggling spectrum, from eminently readable tomes of historical fiction to brilliant essays on all subjects imaginable. In between, he spent time in British prisons, attended concerts to identify geniuses (D.K. Pattammal, for example) and wrote amusing and accurate critiques on music and dance. He was probably the first to switch over from an unbending, inert Tamil of the pundits to a live, vibrant Tamil of his own. This style won him millions of admirers. Some may vault right into the domain of Pudumaipittan, the acerbic antithesis of Kalki. But most Tamils begin their literary journey in Kalki's fiefdom, where the good end well and the bad end badly and the rare tragedies are charmingly patinated. Many fall for its perennial reassurances and choose not to venture out of it. Thus almost all Kalki's admirers remember him for his historical fiction. Some may remember him for his essays -- -- he is indisputably one of the greatest Tamil essayists. Only a handful will remember him for his short stories. Kalki was a master expatiator. This skill, that stood him in good stead while writing novels, was actually a handicap when it came to short stories. Many of his stories are either amorphous, neither-here-nor-there affairs or openly preachy, occasionally leavened by humour. Kalki was aware of this. He said his task was not to create works of lasting literary value but to reach Gandhian ideals to every literate Tamil. In her wonderful introduction, Gowri Ramnarayan defends her grandfather's technique with poise and integrity, comparing him to the harikatha (mythology) narrators of Tamil Nadu. But harikatha belongs to the warm and gregarious oral tradition and grafting it on to the prim and detached medium of short stories produces curious and often unedifying results. Having written this, one must point out the luminous nature of Ramnarayan's translation. Her language has the same easy elegance of her Kalki's Tamil and it ensures that the non-Tamil reader will never be stuck in an unfamiliar milieu. The 12 stories selected by her are perhaps not Kalki's best. For instance, the critically acclaimed "Kedariyin Thayar" does not find a place here. They, however, represent Kalki's range and interest and cover a period between 1925 and 1950. In most of them, Kalki stretches the twist-in-the-tail technique to its limits. "The Poison Cure" is about a snake-bite expert who believes that his mantras will not be effective before an untouchable. A postal inspector in whose presence the expert effects his cure reveals himself to be an untouchable and the expert is cured of his prejudice. The famed "Veenai Bhavani" is a farrago of ersatz emotions. But "The Governor's Visit" and "The Tiger King" are thoroughly enjoyable and prime examples of Kalki's biting pen. A few more stories like these in place of "The Big Swelling Sea" and "The SS Menaka", the two stories that will test the patience of even die-hard Kalki fans, would have made the book a wholesome fare. NEW RELEASES All You Wanted to Know About Heart Attack Witness to the Century Good Schools of India Naval Tata Hockey Year Book Business Mantras |
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