Topic started by Kanchana Dhamodharan on Wed Jun 30 18:48:32 .
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- From: Kanchana (@ spider-wk014.proxy.aol.com)
on: Thu Jul 8 09:02:57
ŀƿ :
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캑 ב˴ ͎. 俺Ƒ˿ ,
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Ű. (' ' .) ґ..̑. ƙ ր [:-)], ŀ . ذ Ͽ, ̳ Ͽ ŀ ҿրƑ?
Ƒ, ƍ . ̳ ( ?) ϳ ' ̛ э' æƑ. , 'ל' č ׀ Ѵ Ҫ א ˰ ƍ. ŀ ƍ
Ͱ ര. , ̴ ت , א ̀ , א ƙ ƍ , ŀ ź 'ҙƿ̀' ϙ. 퐴 ̫ ϙ, ̳ ⵑ א ت ϴƳ.
- From: bb (@ inehou-pxy06.compaq.com)
on: Thu Jul 8 11:47:05
Kanchana, an excellent write-up! i didn't get this difference between madras writers and delhi based writers. was there politics in this too?! can you elaborate?
if we consider a writer to be a one who should think ahead and bring out ideas which will shape the future, your argument about thi.jaa becomes void. a JK could instill new thoughts to the "society driven" mentality of a thamizh female.
http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/LibInfo/SourcesBySubject/SouthAsia/RMRL.html (thanks to ramani for the link) gives this on ambai:
In the last years of his life, his health fading, Roja Muthiah worried that his death would mean the demise of his collection as well. C. S. Lakshmi, a visiting fellow in the University of Chicago's Institute for Culture and Consciousness, who had used Muthiah's collection for her research on women in India, knew from previous discussions with Muthiah that he was concerned about the future of his library. Hearing of his death, Laksmi informed friends at the University of Chicago Library. The University of Chicago launched a global effort to preserve Roja Muthiah's library.
- From: Ramji (@ 205.177.170.127)
on: Thu Jul 8 12:51:00
Kanchana:
Beautiful writeup! Wish you had done the interview. Just one obsevation."samUgaththAl thiNikkappadAtha suyasinthanaigaL" has no gender-divide IMO.Beyond this, it will be unfair on my part to comment on Thi. jA without having read him.
- From: Udhaya (@ 205.218.142.217)
on: Thu Jul 8 17:44:33
Kanchana,
Thanks a bunch for the painstaking reproduction of the interview and for the profound follow up post. I'm with you totally in judging writers based on their time frame, circumstance background, etc. This Ambai chick (I bet she would love me calling her that! ha ha!)doesn't mince her words, I love that. She doesn't pull punches when criticizing her peers, what a welcome relief.
From the interview I got the following:
Ambai reads stories not just to read stories. A just or adequate representation of women is important for her to view a work as worthy or else, "enakku eedupaadillai" is the ready critique she has.
Of the authors she has criticized, I have read five: la.sa.ra, asogamithiran,baalakumaaran, ki.rajanaaraayanan and sundara ramasamy. I too wished la.sa.ra's vision broke out of the middleclass mentality (godfearing conservative fatalism) and viewed women in a more down to earth manner, but that would be like trying to make honey lose a few calories. Take the man for what he is for pete's sake, there's plenty to like in this supreme writer. We should all be so lucky to be drunk in language, don't we see enough dry editorials in our lives?
Asogamiththiran is a very objective writer, no doubt. His writing is more of observation than exposition. Nothing wrong with that, it's very commendable in fact. But there's also nothing at stake in his writing.
ki.rajanarayanan, I've only read one of his works so far,"Vayathu Vandhavargalukku Mattum" a pathetic wink-wink-nudge-nudge treatment to a precious subject: taboos of sexual orientation. I find his much lauded colloquialism very contrived.
Balakumaran, Ambai was dead on with this guy. I totally agree.
Sundara Ramasamy was dealing a much needed blow to Indhumathi and Sivasangari in his JJ sila kurippugal through his characterization of female writers. From that book I couldn't confirm that he was a chauvenist, he may very well be, but his understanding of the human psyche and his universal vision should not be discounted in light of his chauvenism.
If all writers' worth were weighed by their contribution to the advancement of women, we won't have any art left, just agendas.
- From: Vanchinathan (@ 203.197.139.1)
on: Fri Jul 9 00:38:33
I am not competent to write about Ambai as I haven't read her.
I agree with Udhaya's last line about art and agenda.
But Udhaya seems to find fault with Ambai using
adequate representation of women as a yardstick to measure other writers.
One cannot use this yardstick with reference to a single novel.(For example sundararamaswamy's jj might have encountered only such "dull and shadowy" women).
But when summing up a writer's lifetime work
such a criterian is very much valid. If laa.sa.raa. glorifies women as "devi" in all his books, and thi.jaanakiraaman's women are all similar to those in mOkamuL and marappasu, then we can rightly accuse them of being insensitive to
women. Even a person without agenda can conclude that these writers understanding of nearly half the human population is flawed. And that is a great failure on the part of a writer.
This failure cannot be covered up by
mere adoption of a superior style of writing(objective or addictive)
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