From: SANKARAN@Meena.CC.URegina.CA (Sankaran, Sam)
Subject: MMTL - jeyakAn^than: Part VI (a)
Date: 1 Jan 1996 06:32:56 GMT

jeyakAn^than first earned his name as a short story writer.
In fact the short story collection \bt oru pidi sORu \et
was the first of his works to be brought out in book form.
It was initially published by puththakap pUNGgA in 1958 and
the second edition was brought out by MBN (mInAkshi puththaka
nilaiyam) in 1963. This collection contains 12 stories:

oru pidi sORu (1958); pAl bEdham (1957); 'pUvANGgaliyO pU' (1956);
vElai koduththavan (1956); 'rAsA van^dhuttAru...' (1957);
rikshAkkAran bAshai (1956); thamizhachchi (1955); edhu, eppOdhu? (1957);
poRukki (1955); thani manidhan (1955); 'tiredil' (1958); and,
pattaNam sirikkiRadhu (1958).

All of them, except 'thani manidhan' are written in the colloquial
language appropriate to the characters in each story. All of them
except 'thani manidhan' and 'thamizachchi' are entirely about the
common people, mostly people who are cityside pavement dwellers,
port workers or harbour coolies, a woman who makes a living selling
flowers, about some aspect of their daily lives, and almost 
all of them are tragic or tragi-comic. They all display JK's
lifelong concern with the little joys and sorrows of these 
"little" people, their struggles, their dignity and sense of 
honour in the face of adversity. All of the stories also display his
respect for women and advocacy of woman's equality, if not
superority, which is a constant theme in all his works. In fact,
I cannot think of another thamizh writer whose concern for women
and for woman's issues can match JK's (the one possible exception is
the Izham thamizh writer se. yOgan^Athan.) Each of the stories also end
with a power-packed punch line which defines its major theme. 

I will begin with the earliest of these stories: 'poRukki' 
written in 1955. Briefly, the story revolves around muniyammA,
or 'mimimmA' in Madras lingo, who sells steamed 'Appams'
(steamed rice noodles extruded fresh from rice flour and spice
 premixed and kept ready just before extrusion; it IS hard work!),
on the street and sells them to her poor customers early in the morning, 
her son 'sabApathy' (or affectionately 'savvAdhi' in his mother's
lower class, Madras city lingo) and the elected councillor of the
Madras city corporation - sun^dharam n^Ayudu. MuniyammA is a hard
working, godfearing, traditional woman, and probably
a single mother, who respects authority and
power. savvAdhi, her good-for-nothing son, is a parasite who
lives off his mother's earnings from her hard work, but probably
he is as much a victim of the 1950's Indian capitalist society,
as he is a parasite. In other words, his idleness may be partly 
forced by circumstances and agencies beyond his control. The
councillor is just another parasite, but more dangerous and hence 
more reprehensible. It is not economic forces which make him
out to be a parasite, living off the hard work and gullibility
of the poor like muniyammA, but he chooses to be a parasite and
an exploiter. 

As the story opens muniyammA calls out for her son savvAdhi
who is as usual whiling away his time instead of helping her
in attending to her many customers who have a hard day of work
ahead of them and themselves have little time to spare. After a few minutes 
savvAdhi appears on the scene with other lowlife friends just like 
him, only to wheedle out some money from his mother so that he can
go to one of the thamizh movies with his friends. Just then the 
corporation's public health officers swoop down on muniyammA and
take away her meagre tools of trade, thereby also depriving the
assembled poor customers of their morning breakfast, because
the officials declare that there is a cholera epidemic and they 
have to root out these unhygeinic, roadside "restaurants" to
control the epidemic.

As muniyammA loudly castigates them with choice abusives, the
councillor happens to drive by and asks why they are raising hell. 
savvAdhi, tells him what has happened and, in a moment of bravado,
asks the councillor why he is not helping his constituents 
against the high-handedness of his corporation officials. The
councillor is in no mood to brook this affront to his person and
authority  from such lowlife and tells him off, calling him in
the process a mongrel dog (\bt parA n^Ay \et), and drives off in
a huff.

A few days later, it is election time and the councillor "SImAn
sun^dharam n^Ayudu" is up for re-election and he needs 
now the support of these underclass voters, and also "party
workers" to march around carrying placards and shouting "cast
your vote for sImAn sun^dharam nAyudu" etcetera. And, as at the
beginning of the story, 'minimmA'is yelling for savvAdhi again.
As he promptly appears this time, she shouts at him to go and 
work for their 'benefactor' nAyudu. As the lazy son demurs, she 
shouts at him again to go and work for the councillor as he would 
be paying the workers some pittance which however is a lot for 
the honest, hardworking people like her in straitened circumstances.
At the mention of money, the 'parasite' savvAdhi jumps to action 
and the story ends with this parasite joining the procession of
the ragtag army of 'people for nAyudu' "enthusiastically exhorting
everybody to support (that worse parasite) nAyudu in the coming elections. 
    

The SETTING of the story is Madras city, or more
accurately one of its poorer areas where its industrial workers
and its underclass, live, circa 1950, just after Independence
and probably after the first municipal elections to the 
Corporation of Madras, in independent India.


As I wrote in the previous instalment, the setting of the story is 
the poorer, industrial area of Madras city, post-1950, but probably
prior to 1956.

The PLOT does not involve any overt conflict among the characters
as in a novel, except for the brief show of bravado by the
underclass in the not-so-worthy representative person of
savvAdhi before the exploting councillor. But it does create that
conflict in the reader's mind and leaves her angry and bewildered.

As for CHARACTERS, the protagonist is of course the honest, working
people like muniyammA and her customers and also their ignorant
and irresponsible hangers on like savvAdhi and a delightful
cameo character, a tubercular old man, even poorer than muniyammA.
The antagonist is the rich, exploiting parasite of a councillor and 
others like him who think of the protagonists as mere vote banks to
be seen, but not heard, and that too only once very five years at
election time. But we have even within the protagonists, a nice foil
in savvAdhi to muniyammA and also the tubercular old man who is a
genuine victim. Unlike muniyammA who calls forth our admiration,
and the old man who evokes our compassion, savvadhi is deserving
of our disapproval and rebuke only. Hoever, even savvAdhi is more 
weak and venal than vicious unlike the councillor and his class of people.

The STRUCTURE is mostly situational as is to be expected of a
short story. We meet in rapid order, the honesty, dignity and humanity
of the protagonists, savvAdhi and his parasitic behaviour, the 
councillor and his arrogance and finally his opportunism and the
gullibility, yet shrewdness, of the poor who wish to make hay while
the sun shines by insincerely "campaigining" for him and pocketing
his money. 

The STYLE is superb and original and pure jeyakAn^than! We 
thrill to the rapid fire, staccato and loud lingo of the Madras
city poor, its basic honesty free of all literary
frills, the matter-of-fact patois as opposed to the mannered but
uncivilized speech of the councillor who drags himself to lower
depths and meaner language.

The street scenes, the hustle and bustle of the place
evocatively brought out by the haste and impatience of the customers,
the lazy doddling style of savvAdhi and the impatient language
of the councillor when confronted by the crowd and finally the
electioneering procession of the paid "supporters" all go on
to create the indelible ATMOSPHERE of the story.

The THEME of the story is the contrast between the lifestyles
of the honest, compassionate and hardworking poor and those
of the exploiting, dishonest, power hungry, corrupt and 
morally bankrupt bourgeoisie.

So much for traditional literary analysis! One must read
the story in the original to appreciate it fully. This is a 
story by a secondary school drop-out, who is hardly 23 years
old! The language, even now, comes out like a cleansing storm
sweeping away the accumulated debris of all that came before
it. There is not a single scene askew. Not a single word out
of place. Both the precision and economy of language are
out of the ordinary in comparison to almost everything written
before, and to most that came after. The authorial voice is under
strict control except for the last blast of a punch line 
(\bt ippadiththAn thErdhal thOrum sollukiRAn an^dha Ottup
poRukki sun^dharam; an^dhach chamayam avan kodukkum oru rUpAyk
kAsukkAka adhai nambith tholaikkiRAn in^dha echchiR poRukki
sabApathy! \et) Although the didacticism which so mars the
later jeyakAn^than is not entirely absent, it is strictly within
allowable bounds, preserving the unity of all the above elements
of fiction. It doesn't jar. It doesn't jolt. It just makes the
reader sit up and notice.  Also, there is rich irony in the choice of
name for sabApathy. sabApathy means First in Counsel, or Chief
Counsellor, Leader of the Pack. The spineless, parasite
savvAdhi can hardly be a leader!

The only thing which may be said in 
criticism is that while it may make the reader angry, it does not
make him wonder what might happen to the characters after
the story has come to an end. It is too rounded, too "finito". As 
robindranath and prEmchandh and pudhumaippiththan 
have all said with reference to the Short Story,
even after it has ended it should leve us slightly disturbed,
somewhat curious as to how life might unfold for our characters
next. Here is the relevant quote from pudhumaippiththan from his
essay \bt siRukadhai 2 \et, p. 38, pudhumaippiththan katturaikal,
madhurai: minAkshi puththaka nilaiyam, 4th edition, 1978.

[Begin quote in thamizh]
 ...avaRRil mudivu enRa onRu kidaiyAdhu. adhavadhu, kadhaiyai
 vAsippadhu namadhu chin^thanaiyin chalanaththai UkkuvadhaRku
 oru thUNdukOl. kadhai mudiyumpozhudhu adhaip paRRiya chin^thanai
 mudivadain^dhu vidAdhu. ippadippatta kadhaikaL mudin^dha piRakuthAn
 ArambamAkiRathu enRu sonnAl vichiththira vAdhamAkath thOnRum; AnAl
 adhu thAn uNmai. ... vAzhkkaiyil 'muRRiRRu', 'thiruchchiRRambalam'
 enRu kOdu kizhiththu vittu "hAy"yAka nARkAliyil sAyn^dhdhu koLLum
 padiyAka EthAvadhu irukkiRadhA? vAzhkkai ellaiyaRRadhu; manan^dhAn
 ellaik kanavukaLaik kAnpadhu. kadavuL vAzhkkaiyin kadaisip pakkaththai
 ezhuthividavillai. avarAl ezhuthavum sAdhdhiyappadAdha kAriyam.


Wel, well, well. After having said that, one could say in defence of
this particular short story that life for the poor is monotonous.
It doesn't change much. It would go on pretty much the same way, 
UNLESS there is a revolutionary change in society. Don't we all 
come across the same savvAdhis even now? thAmaraikkani, vadivElu
nAyakkar, thIkkuLikkum thambikaL, thoNdarkal who even now
believe that mu. ka. actually walked all the way during his
padhayAththirai, the guNdAs who demolished babri masjid, bAl
thAkrE's thugs? Only, they are not only more ignorant and venal now, 
but also more viscious. But the optimist in JK could not imagine
it then - or now!

I have used the following additional sources in writing this piece.

	Guerin. W.L. et. al (1992) A HANDBOOK OF CRITICAL APPROACHES
	TO LITERATURE - Third Edition. New York: OUP.

	Dickinson, L.T. (19??) A GUIDE TO LITERARY STUDY.
	New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

	O'Faolain, S. (1951) THE SHORT STORY.
	Old Greenwich, CT: The Devin-Adair Company.

	Poe, Edgar Allan: "Hawthorne's Twice-told Tales," in
	Hough, R.L. (editor) LITERARY CRITICISM OF EDGAR ALLAN POE.
	Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.