jeyakAn^than first made his mark as a short story writer. And a short story writer par excellence he is! The only other writers in the same league - quality and quantity-wise, are pudhumaippiththan and thi. jAnakirAman. Before jeyakAn^than (JK hereafter), modern thamizh literature was of a pseudo-formalist style. The popular wrieters before JK burst on the scene were pudhumaippiththan, kalki and lakshmi ( Dr. thiripurasun^dhari). pudhumaippiththan was of course far superior to the other two and a trail blazer of great originality. But even he wrote mostly in a formal literary style. Very few of his characters speak the language, the patois, which one would consider natural to them, appropriate to their station in life or to the geographical location. Thus in his masterpieces like \bt kadavuLum kan^dhasAmippliLLaiyum \et, or \bt ponnakaram \et, the characters don't speak the language one would expect them to. It is not stilted by any means. But even in his realistic stories (almost all of them are) the language is somewhat akin to the formal, "literary" style found in his other masterpieces such as: \bt chiRpiyin naragam \et, or \bt biramma rAkshas \et, or \bt kANYchanai \et, or \bt sApa vimOchanam \et. Same is true of most of the short stories of the other three \bt maNikkodi \et greats - n^a. pichchamUrthy, b.s. rAmaiyA and ku. pa. rA. Mouni of course had a style of his own, appropriate to the stream-of-consciousness interior monologues so characteristic of his stories. Then, JK came like a breath of fresh air. His characters spoke "naturally". His Madras city workers spoke as only the underclass of that city can and do speak. When muniyammA the roadside aduppukkadaikkAri shouts "E, ... savAdhi ... I... I..." in yelling out for her son sabApathi in the story poRukki ( in the collection oru pidi sOru, pp. 102-109) it is THE authentic voice of her people. There is no literary window dressing here, no striving for effect, no artificiality, no artefact. She speaks as she does because she has to. Or that is the strong impression in the reader's mind. It is one of JK's earliest stories, written in 1955! Yet, we find the sure touch of the master who is supremely confident of his craft and his style. iruLan and murukAyi in nan^dhavanaththil Or ANdi (1958) in the collection inippum karippum speak their own language. Anyone who has been to the small towns and villages of thamizh nAdu will recognize their voice, their words and understand why iruLan must sing "nan^dhavanaththl Or ANdi" and not "ennaik kaNdu nI vAda unnaik kaNdu nAn vAda" etcetera. The contrasting styles of the city slickers (pattaNAm) and the country "bumpkins" (pattikkAttAn) in "pattaNam sirikkiRathu" (1958) and the madhuraith thamizh of mInAtchi and ponnammAL in "tharkkam" (1959) confirm that the writer speaks of things he knows and knows very well from personal observation. In short, his realistic stories ARE realistic both in content and style. Of course, he shows that he can handle the formal, literary style when it is demanded by the situation in his stories of (philosophical or historical) inquiry such as "thani manidhan" (1955) or the birAmmaNAth thamizh as in "suyadharisanam" (1965) or "agginip piravEsam" (1966). There have been many imitators and followers of one or the other of his linguistic "styles" but none as good in handling the different styles appropriate to each situation. Only thi. jAnakirAman comes even close. Thus, the first revolution that JK wrought in MTL was in the use of the thamizh language in all its glory, with all its subtlety and its complexities, and yes, its limitations too. Before going ahead with my study of jeyakAn^than's works, it may be appropriate to point out the approach I plan to take. Although modern literary criticism as practised in the West may not be applicable to Indian, or thamizh, literature in its entirety, it provides the basic foundation for our own study. Thus the general review under the headings of setting, plot, character, structure, style, atmosphere and theme would still be useful. What might be questionable is reliance on anyone critical school ( the traditional, formalistic, structural/post- structural etcetera) to the exclusion of others. I am of the view that some knowledge of the historical- biographical details and the moral-philosophical stance of the author would always be useful. Of course, we can choose to ignore all or part of these and rely mostly on the textual material if that is appropriate for the study of a particular piece of work. In keeping with this approach, I provide a brief biographical sketch of JK obtained from his own autobiographical writings ( see the BIBLIOGRAPHY posted earlier).