During a time when other writers sent their work only at the behest of the publisher, a Tamil writer kept sending his manuscripts despite only receiving notes of regret. Today, with over 200 short stories, nine novels, and several non-fiction essays and translations, Ashokamitran is seen as a major contributor to the modern history of Tamil literature. His nonlinear and non-preachy creative works are critically seen for their subdued aesthetics and absence of extravaganza. Unlike others, he trudged a lonesome path through an idiosyncratic style of writing.
Kalyan Raman, who translated Ashokamitran’s work to English, told ThePrint: “There is not enough discourse on him at the national level. Though he has been translated widely, his oeuvre is not introduced properly to readers in other languages. He wrote mostly about the poor and powerless, paying attention to their essential humanity. He has explored human reality in an impressive range of contexts, framed inexorably by the confusion and conflicts of a traditional society during its reluctant transition to modernity. There are many excellent nonfiction works — essays, memoirs, commentary, and criticism — written by him that need to be translated.”
Ashokamitran, whose ancestors belonged to Mayiladuthurai, was born as Jagadeesan Thyagarajan in Nizam-ruled Secunderabad in 1931. His father, Jagadeesan, was employed with the Nizam State Railways. After his schooling in Secunderabad, he enrolled in Nizam College where he completed his B.Sc in 1950.
In his six-decade-long creative life, he would often return to his early experiences of growing up in Secunderabad amidst the fall of Nizam in the wake of Indian independence, as is visible in his work Pathinettavathu Atchakkodu (The Eighteenth Parallel). In the book, he recalls a vivid memory after 25 years. “If I had gone there in between, the changes would have affected the picture I had in my mind”, he had said in an interview.
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Tryst with the celluloid world
When his father died in 1951, the family relocated to Chennai, where media mogul S.S. Vasan, who had just founded the iconic Gemini Studios, offered him a job. While Ashokamitran expected to work on screenplays, he was disappointed after being assigned to the public relations office.
He narrated his fascinating behind-the-screen experiences at Gemini studios in a regular column in the Illustrated Weekly between 1986-87, which was later compiled into a book called My years with boss: at Gemini Studios. He closely followed and wrote on the tinsel world in the book Iruttil Irunthu Velicham (Light from Dark). His novels Karaintha Nizhalgal (Star-Crossed), Manasarovar, and the novella Vizha (Festival) — whose plots were set in the film industry — brought him widespread recognition.
On his theatrical experience of Dev Anand’s Gambler, he had said: “Though it was a stupid film, Dev Anand had a way of making stupid things charming and loveable”. According to him, Parasakthi, written by M. Karunanidhi and performed by Sivaji Ganesan, was nothing but a ‘stage-play movie.’
In his book Tamil Characters, Historian AR Venkatachalapathy wrote: “No historian of Indian Cinema of the 1960s can afford to ignore Ashokamitran… Many of his essays are interspersed with observations on how Tamil cinema came to be distorted by the Dravidian movement.”
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A timeless writer
He drew his pseudonym from one of the plays he watched where a disguised king with the nickname ‘Ashokamitran’ infiltrates the rebel group and is nominated to eliminate the king by himself.
His debut work Anbin Parisu (Gift of Love) was adjudged the best play by All India Radio in 1953. His first short story, Nadakathin Mudivu (End of the Play), appeared in Kalaimagal magazine in 1956. Despite being a prolific writer in English, Ashokamitran had stopped writing fiction in English in 1959. Realising that his forte was his mother-tongue Tamil, he quit Gemini Studios to become a full-time Tamil writer in 1966. Ashokamitran also served as the editor of popular Tamil literary magazine Kanaiyazhi, for close to 25 years.
The first Tamil writer invited to attend the writers-in-residence program at Iowa University in 1973-74, Ashokamitran’s experiences in the United States culminated into Ottran (Mole) — an intersection of travelogue and fiction. It is said that two chapters of the original work, ignored during its publishing, were later released as short stories.
A collection of his short stories, Appavin Snehidar (My Father’s Friend) fetched Ashokamitran the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1996 and was later translated to English by Lakshmi Holmstrom. It was said that the then-ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam government wrote to then-Akademi president UR Ananthamurthy contesting this honour. Similarly, the Tamil Nadu Progressive Writers and Artists Association had also shown its displeasure to the Akademi. His undisputed classic Thanneer (Water), which revolved around the Chennai water crisis, received a review from renowned Malayalam author Paul Zacharia in Tehelka, generating new interest in his writing. It was extensively translated into Hindi and other Indian languages. His other novels include Aagaya Thamarai, Indru, Iruvar, and Yuthangalukaidaiyil. Among his novellas, the author’s favourite was Inspector Shenbagaraman.
Ashokamitran also translated Anita Desai’s Sahitya Akademi winning novel Fire on the Mountain (Malai Mel Nerruppu) to Tamil. The Akademi, under his supervision, published three volumes of Contemporary Indian Short Stories.
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Person beneath the icon
His son, Ramakrishnan Thiyagarajan, a Chennai-based journalist, told ThePrint: “When it comes to writing, the dynamics between my father and I was that of Guru-Shishya. He was professional to the core. There was no room for a father-son relationship. Apart from grammatical correctness and intelligible writing, his emphasis was always on clarity of thought and the simplicity of language. His style of conveying his view or position on any given matter was subtle. It was up to others to realise its importance and act on it. He admired film actor Dhanush as much as he did M. K. Thyagaraja Bhagavathar. For him, humanism could transcend any social barrier — language, religion, or caste. He was more spiritual than religious.”
Ashokamitran was one of the earliest Tamil authors to write on the conditions of women. His work Vimosanam (Absolution) was adapted by director Vasanth in the 2018 anthology film Sivaranjiniyum Innum Sila Pengalum.
Cherishing his light moments with Ashokamitran, his close acquaintance Azhagiyasingar told ThePrint: “He was very fond of Stuffed Chilli Bajjis (a south Indian snack made by frying battered green chillies). He had a simple life.”
Overzealous by nature, Ashokamitran even participated and continued to win the writing competitions by local magazines in his dotage. His novella Bombay 1944 won Kalki magazine’s award in 2010. He wrote his last novel India 1948 when he was well past eighty. Ashokamitran was actively writing until his last breath at 86 on 23 March 2017.
(Edited by Pranay Dutta Roy and Srinjoy Dey)