A literary meeting

Warning: A long post on a Tamil Literary meeting. If you aren't aware of what a Tamil Literary meeting is, you can safely skip this post.

Attended the "S. Ramakrishnan Kathaigal - Vimarsana arangu" meeting organised by Kizhakku Padhippagaam on 20th August. The meeting report is here by Badri. I have read S. Ramakrishnan's non fictional writing, but have no idea about his short stories, so I can't say whether all the praise heaped upon him that day was justified.

N. Muthusamy of Koothu-p-Pattarai spoke eloquently about the experiences that transcend the meaning of the words in the stories. Nanjil Nadan spoke about the growth of Ramakrishnan's stories from realism to Magical Realism to Post Modernism back to realism. (Believe me I too don't know what is Post modernism). S. Devadoss who spoke last, read an essay and effectively killed the audience's interest.

Then Badri announced a question answer session, but no questions came. So S.R. started talking about what are the questions that are generally asked of him, and went into what made him write stories different from those existing in Tamil. He mentioned Dostoyevsky atleast 50 times, Borges 20 times, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez got 5 minutes. Having read only Marquez amongst the three, I could relate when S.R. spoke about One Hundred Years of Solitude.

One suggestion to Badri - while arranging for a review / critique, please avoid placing a lectern / podium. Once the speaker gets behind the lectern it ceases to be a discussion, it turns into a speech.

Saw famous Tamil bloggers Icarus Prakash and Meenaks. I was suddenly bit by the anonymity bug, so didn't introduce myself.