Yaalpaanam conjugal relationship in the 1960s
One of the notable Lankan writers in Tamil is S Ponnuthurai who is
also known as Es Po by his initials. One of his creative writing is a
short fiction titled Sadangu. This has been translated into English by
Prof Chelva Kanaganayakam of the University of Toronto in Canada. The
English title of the book is 'Ritual'.
The book is published by The Three Wheeler Press - The Gratiaen
Trust, c/o Marga Institute, Jayanthi Mawatha, Etul Kotte, Kotte. Prof
Walter Perera, the Chairman of the Trust, the translator, Prof Chelva
Kanaganayakm and the writer S Ponnuthurai have given the background
regarding the publication.
Es Po lives Chennai and alternatively in Sydney. He is a phenomenal
figure in contemporary Tamil Literature. He is both a creative writer
and a critic. He is deemed a controversial figure in literary circles
especially when he takes the role of a critic, but as a creative writer
he has shown his talents as an innovative, imaginative and realistic
writer with a unique literary style.
The book is very interesting as it shows what the mentality of the
northern man had been, his frugal living, his hard work in Colombo
separated from his family of five children and the loving wife besides
giving the social and cultural atmosphere that was prevailing in the
1960s.
The short fiction is a commentary on both the conjugal life of a
frustrated lower middle class clerical servant and the typical social
behaviour of the people in the northern peninsula.
Es Po is generally believed to be a writer on sex themes. But that is
not totally correct. He has written spicy stories which are not lurid,
but his writing is essentially that of a social and psychological
realist.
The main characters are Senthilnatan, his wife Annalakshmi and her
mother.
The blurb in the back cover gives succinctly what the plot of the
novel is. I quote:
"Ritual takes place over a period of six days in the 1960s when a
clerical servant in Colombo decides to go to Point Pedro to visit his
family. He attends to household chores, plays with his children, visits
his neigbours, listens to gossip about the people around, gets
increasingly frustrated when all his attempts to sleep with his wife
fail, and finally returns to Colombo to continue his humdrum life."
Ritual is about a world that is neither rural nor urban.
It depicts the middle class as they really were - hard working,
frugal, ambitious, self-centred and generous.
The characters in Ritual believe in and and conform to tradition, but
they also need the modernity of Colombo to be upwardly mobile.
The lives and aspirations of the people are simple, but in their
simplicity there is also something very attractive and wholesome. The
author's objective is to show how ordinary lives can be, in their own
way, quite extraordinary."
Es Po had to struggle hard to be reckoned due to his social rank as a
member of the down trodden community in the north. Hence we could
understand his anger and rebelling nature. Educating himself he became
an orator, writer, publisher, and teacher in both Lanka and Nigeria and
proved that he could not be put down.
While the story is heavily bent on the struggle he and his family
undergo, there is also sweet yearning for intimacy between him and his
desirable wife. His mother in law plays a vital role in being a bridge
between them in fostering a bond in the family.
What interested me most was the acute and subtle behaviour of the few
people who are figured in the story and how artistically and poetically
the writer brings out the nuances in an effortless and simple manner.
The language and pithy idioms and usages and dialects in the Tamil
language are given expression by the writer to most satisfaction.
One should congratulate the translator, Professor Chelva
Kanakanayakam for his balanced rendition of the story in readable and
understandable English. It's balanced because his translation is
consistent with the Standard English, but not failing to render the
local flavour as close to the spoken Tamil. Here is a passage from the
novel to illustrate the style of writing by the author and the
translator.
"White skinned beauties with breasts like little mountains; legs like
fleshy white banana stems turned upside down, exposed and teeming with
life; the desperate passion wanting the eyes to feast on exposed flesh
and yet not satiated; the flesh demanding that it be seen as the acme of
beauty; even as the eyes stared at the figures gently removing their
clothes, behind them the shallow of Annalakshimi in all her beauty."
(Page 06)
[email protected]
|