A Tamil intellectual of repute
 The name Handy Perinpanayagam was spoken around in elite Colombo
circles and also in Yaalpaanam recently. He was a pioneer dedicated
socialist and educationist in the peninsula true to the saying 'in heart
and soul'. Please read Dr Seelan Kathirgamar's book to know more about
him.
It's a pity the English media, leaves alone the Sinhala media and
does not bother to inform readers of very important Lankans belonging to
the Tamil and Muslim communities. But here I want to speak about her
daughter, Dr Selvi Thiruchandran, who is featured in the cover page of
the current issue of the monthly literary magazine, Mallikai.
The elite and academic women circles in Colombo know her very well
and a few Marxist Tamil writers in the city and around.
Sparks of creativity
Mahes Vairamuthu, who became noted as a fine short story writer with
her one and only short story in Tamil, under the name 'Shanthini',
during the late K Kilasapathy's editorship of the Thinakaran, has
profiled Selvi' Thiruchandran. For the benefit of people interested here
are some gleanings from Vairamuththu's article:
 * She is an educated lady who fights for equality of genders and the
director of Women's Educational Research Centre (WERC) in Colombo for
many years.
* Her research centres on how women are affected badly socially,
politically and culturally, and to find means to have gender equality
both locally and internationally. She has a first, second degrees in
Lanka and a post-graduate doctorate from a university in Amsterdam,
Netherlands.
* Her research took her to India as well and she had executed some
remedial measures
* She is very proficient in Tamil and English and had been
responsible in making people change their attitudes towards women. She
has written several articles and books both in English and Tamil on
Feminism, Literature, Culture, Politics and Literary Criticism. Some of
her books have been translated into Sinhala.
* Her books in English include: Ideology - Caste - Class and Gender,
The Spectrum of Femininity, The Dilemma of Theories, The Politics of
Gender and Women's Agency in Post Colonial Sri Lanka, The Other Victims
of War: Emergence of Female Headed Households in Sri LankaVol II,
Feminine Speech Transmissions: An Exploration in the Lullabies of Women,
Writing an Inheritance: Women Writing in Sri Lanka (1860-1948) Vol 1,
Stories from the Diaspora: Tamil Women Writing.
* Three books of her are in print: History of Woman's Movement in Sri
Lanka, Writing Religion: Locating Women and The research on Gendering in
Hindu System of Beliefs, Practices and Rituals.
* She also serves for South Asian Women Research Front
* Her organization- WERC- publishes a research journal called
Nivedhini.
* Some of her articles in Tamil are also on similar lines
* She is executive member of the Social Scientist Association and
also a member of the editorial board of the Tamil version of their
magazine "Pravda"
Mahes Vairamuththu writes further on the valuable contributions of Dr
Selvi Thiruchandran. If only you could read in Tamil also, please read
this article in Mallikai.
Special characteristics
What are the other features in the current issue of "Malikai? As
usual there're short stories, poems, reviews and article and the
editor's columns and responses to letters. Dominc Jeeva edits Mallikai.
Ma Balasingam reviews a collection of short stories by the poet and
critic, Prof S Sivasekeram, who also writes plays and political columns
chiefly in Tamil.
But he is an excellent translator and very proficient in English as
well and was teaching in the Engineering Faculty at Peradeniya
University. Ira Sadagopan introduces Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea".
M M Mansoor introduces K Jayatilake as a forerunner in modern Sinhala
literature.
Other contributors include Zulfica, Usha Jawahar from Australia,
Chanrakantha Muruganandan, Rimza Muhammad from Weligama, Vel Amuthan,
Yogeswari Sivapragasam, Mohammad Rafi from Moothoor, K Muralidharan,
Memon Kavi, L Waseem Akram, Sarana Gayoom, M M Rafa, A Muthulingam,
Aananthi, and others in the letters column.
My grouse is why the English newspapers do and journalists do not
bother to interview a segment of the Lankan community and introduce them
to its reading public and why do they depend on columnists like yours
truly to do that? This is not right because Tamil magazines and
newspapers willingly feature writers in Sinhala in their newspapers and
magazines and not in the other way.
While the writers in Tamil or most Tamils in the country think and
act as Lankans, the English and Sinhala media are aloof.
The concept of 'Sri Lankan consciousness' is damaged by such
indifference. Just publishing articles on temples, and functions and
interviewing politicians wouldn't do.
It is the writers and the artistes that matter because they reflect
independent views and life and society.
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