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Work habits
 He
did not have any specific time for writing. He used to write whenever
he had an idea. Suddenly he would wake up in the middle of the night
and start writing. Since he was running a weekly magazine, he had
to meet deadlines. In those days, you did not have modern printing
techniques. So, if he had to bring out the magazine on Friday, he
had to write the lead lines on Thursday. There were no two ways about
it. Even now there are deadlines for daily publications, but printing
techniques are far advanced now. It used to be more tedious then,
due to technical limitations. So he used to be writing all the time.
When ‘Kalki’ (the magazine) was first started, he
had to write the lead lines, the sub-lead lines, one short story,
one children’s story. Apart from these, he had to write essays,
a few humorous snippets, an episode from a novel.
After a time, when a lot of sub-editors joined Kalki, he used to encourage
a lot of people to write. He was not content being a writer. He helped
create many writers by giving them a lot of encouragement. For example,
Devan, Saavi, Bharatan, Vindhan and Vasanthan.
Kalki - the story teller
He used to tell us a lot of stories. There used to be group of children
at home pestering him to tell stories. He used to tell very interesting
stories. He would not think that children have to be told only a particular
kind of stories. He would incorporate songs between the stories. My
sister-in-law once said, “Uncle, you are always telling us
historical stories. You are supposed to be a great writer (she was
just 10 years young then), why don’t you tell us something new”.
He wrote a book called Mohinideevu (Mystery Island).
He told us the entire story before it was written. When it got published
finally, we were very excited and wanted to know whether he had written
exactly the way he had narrated it to us, or he had changed something
somewhere.
He used to discuss some of his stories with us. In the book ‘Sivagamiyin
Sabatham’ (Sivagami’s oath), he had written the
song 'Maraven…maravenendru…'. He read out
this song to me and asked me for my opinion, I really liked it a lot
- "Maraven, maravenendru velinmel aaneiitta mannarum marapparo
vannamayile…" (The heroine of this novel sings this
song addressing a peacock, wondering if the king who swore on his
weapon, would forget). It is an ahaturai (internal process)
song. One more thing is he never felt that he should not talk to us
about ahaturrai or puratturai (external process)
songs. All that was only literature for him. Even without realising
what it was, we learned to experience these songs at a very young
age. When I was only 13 or 14 years old, T K Chidambaranar Mudaliar
would tell me these ahaturrai songs from Andaal Pashuram. We
used to really enjoy them. Even now I remember one song…"Kannal
enum karunkuruvi gagana mazhai kaatradhu minnal ennum puzhu eduthu
velakketrum karkaalam"…(Description of night during
the rainy season: The sparrow, which is as black as the night, unable
to bear the heavy rain, takes 'lightning', which is the glow worm,
and lights a lamp in its nest, during the rainy season).
Kalki's inspiration for his novels
 Even
when he was very young, he used to read a lot of novels. There used
to be one Ayyasamy Iyer, who was a teacher at a school. Kalki
learned a lot from him, he even learnt English from him. Mr.Ayyasamy
used to give him a lot of books to read. He was the one who introduced
Bharatiyar’s poems to my father. He also used to give
him English novels. At that time, he used to read a lot of Vaduvur
Doraisamy Iyengar’s books. And my father used to say, "No!
This ending does nor gel, it should be different, and he would give
his own version". So even at the age of 12 or 13 he was able
to evaluate and critique novels.
He liked Shakespeare, Sir Walter Scott, Alexander Dumas, Jerome
K Jerome, Dickens…. In Tamil Nadu we always had the tradition
of story telling, but it was all in the oral tradition. There was
not much of the written tradition. The novel as a genre had not developed
back then. After the coming of the Maratha Kings came the tradition
of Harikatha. He used to be very interested in Harikatha.
That was the only source of entertainment at that time. He would
go for these Harikathas and come back home and narrate, imitating
the Bagavathar. And of course everybody used to listen to him
and encourage him, as he was only seven years young. If he forgot
some line, he would just make it up. People thought he was going to
become a great exponent of the Harikatha.
He used to read a lot of novels like 'Padmavati Charitram' and
wanted to write like that. But the most special thing about his writing
is the way the he would develop the plot. ‘Sivagamiyin
Sabatham’ was first written as a one-hour drama for the
radio. He had the plot in his mind and later on, after 12 years, he
wrote it into a novel. The first historical novel to be serialised
in Kalki was ‘Parthiban Kanavu’ (Parthiban’s
dream). He was the first one to bring in this trend of serialising
novels in a magazine. Every week he would stop at an interesting point,
so that readers would be anxious to know what happened next. He used
to write the episodes as and when it was published. He did not have
the practice of writing the whole novel first and then serialising
it.
Kalki's favourite
He liked ‘Allaiosai’ the best among all his
works, because the setting of this book extends from a small village
in Tamil Nadu right upto the Jhelam and Chenab in Punjab. It is set
against the backdrop of the freedom struggle. He himself said once
that this story would remain popular for a very long time.
Kalki’s fascination with royalty
 In
our country, the historical genre was the most popular. Novels with
social themes came in only at a later stage. Secondly, when my father
was writing the novel ‘Parthiban Kanavu’, at
that time the freedom movement was on in our country. In this novel
the Chola kingdom is slave to the Pallava kingdom, Parthiban the
Chola king, wants to be the king of a free country, and wants to his
son to grow to be a brave man. He refuses to pay tax to the Pallava
king and dies in the war that ensues. He gives up his life, trying
to win freedom for his country. His son then becomes the King of the
free Chola kingdom. The reason for him choosing this theme was that
our country needed to become free soon. People had to become aware
of this cause. Even in that story which deals mostly with royalty,
the commoners are depicted to be very brave people. In the war that
is depicted in the novel, he says, not a single soldier ran away from
the battle, every single one of them gave away his life, so that the
Chola kingdom could be free. The Chola kingdom in essence meant India.
- Anuradha Sriraman |
