Thursday, February 21, 2008

Jeyamohan & Charu Nivedita

This again is a post on modern Tamil literature. Presently there is a big war of words going on between Jeyamohan and the rest of the Tamil literature circle about his humorous barbs on Tamil Icons MGR & Sivaji Ganesan and to a lesser extent his articles on fellow writers. This post isn't about the current controversy.

Way back in 2004, I attended my first literary meeting, the first year anniversary of little magazine Uyirmmai. That is when I first met Lazy Geek. I wrote a blog post about that meeting. After the meeting, Lazy cornered Jeyamohan and waxed eloquent to him about having a blog. He didn't stop at that, he went on about how he learnt about Charu Nivedita's Zero Degree through blogs and started extolling Charu. Jeyamohan had a pained smile through out this. At that time I was unaware of the political working of the Tamil Literary World but sensed something amiss the way Jeyamohan looked. Now I understand why.

Jeyamohan's article on Charu Nivedita

Charu Nivedita's retort - pdf link

I consider Jeyamohan's Pin Thodarum Nizhalin Kural as one of the great Tamil Novels I have read. (I am sure that I lost my esteem in the eyes of a lot of Tamil Bloggers for that statement). Out of his humorous articles in his blog, I liked the one about Veda Sahayakumar the best, esepcially the last paragraph.

9 comments:

ILA (a) இளா said...

this war is might be for sake of personal advertisement.

Pro Wrestling Fan said...

Two things.

1. I found the Tamil word I was searching for - sevivazhipuridhal. Beautiful.

2. I didn't know that Jeyamohan had a blog of his own. I regularly read Charu's blog, but was not aware of Jeyamohan's blog. Thanks very much. :)

Anonymous said...

Would like to know more about the barbs on MGR and Sivaji Chen.

Unknown said...

hah! 'Pin Thodarum. Nizhalin Kural' is still my most fav. book.. Have you read his 'Kaadu'?

Chenthil said...

Ila - may be, may be not.

Krishnan - welcome.

Jillu - MGR, Sivaji

Baraka - glad to have found a fellow fan. I haven't read his other novels, I have read most of his essays and critiques. I read an excerpt of Ezhavadhu Ulagam but couldn't proceed further.

Unknown said...

Kaadu was wonderful... Iyer and Kuttapan and Resalam are some of the most beautiful people one could ever read about.. very richly textured.. u'll love it!

Eezham ulagam was bitingly real.. there is one character in the novel called 'maangandi saami'.. read it to find out why Jeyamohan is probably the most intense writer of our time..

Anonymous said...

Zeero Degree and Ezhaam ulgam both has unique values.

Let us invite the differences with good attitude.Thats the good sign of the good society

Sridhar V said...

//Jeyamohan is probably the most intense writer of our time..//

That is very true. He has the penchant to portray things with multiple shades so easily.

Charu's opposition against Jemo may have political angle as well. :-)

Anonymous said...

I agree with you, Ila!