Translations

  Original Source: https://www.jeyamohan.in/197661/ Date: 10-Mar-2024   He is generally considered as one of Kerala's finest Chief Minister, academician and humanitarian - the late C.H. Mohammed Koya. He established Kozhikode University. The only Chief Minister of Kerala that was from Indian Union Muslim League. He is the only Muslim leader to have been accepted outside of the Muslim community. His numerous quotes and funny stories are still prevalent in Politics.  Once Mohammed Koya said this while justifying a Police violence. "It is the intrinsic wish of the general populace that the police force must be brutal. But when that brutality becomes a problem, the same people become human rights activists. If a crime or misdeed should occur, they would ask what the police is doing and whether their guns are meant for scratching their backs. If they feel that Police's approach is crossing threshold, they would immediately raise up. Neither police nor the people know that limi...

Original Source: https://www.jeyamohan.in/6028/ Date: 1-Jan-2010   In early July'97, retired IAS officer V. Ramamurthy went to the office of 'The Hindu' newspaper, met with its editor N. Ravi and asked whether he would be interested in publishing as a series, his upcoming work on 'the last 200 days of Gandhi' in his newspaper. Ramamurthy remarked that Gandhi's last days had the makings of a Greek tragedy. Ravi agreed to it. Half a century back, Gandhi was killed on 30-Jan-1948 - a Friday. Similarly, 30-Jan-1998 was a Friday. The series on Gandhi's last 200 days began on that day with sketches from Keshav - 'The Hindu's cartoonist. The series ran continuously and concluded by 200th day. It was later published as a book. Bharathi Puthakalayam published in 2007 its tamil translation by K. Ilakkuvan. This is quite an important work among those about Gandhi in Tamil. It provides an experience of co-travelling with Gandhi in those historically volatile day...

Original Source: https://stage.jeyamohan.in/197339/ Date: 25-Mar-2024   In some form or other, there is a history in every fiction and a fiction in every history. The history in a fiction is not really a history in a strict sense, whereas the fiction in historiography is certainly history. We always call as historical fiction only those stories that tell a slightly older history. i.e. If the imagination is let to elaborate the history that we had developed with minimal proof, we call that a historical fiction. When contemporary history is fictionalized, we do not see the history in it. We consider it 'realism'. We have defined a boundary for 'contemporaneous'. For us, the period before independence is historical period. Post that, it's contemporary period. That is why novels like Suthanthira Thagam (Si.Su.Chellappa), Anbe Aaramudhe (Thi. Janakiraman) that have as their background Indian independence movement, do not seem like historical fictions. Whereas, the fictio...

  Original Source: https://stage.jeyamohan.in/197258/ Date: 24-Mar-2024   As soon as the modern historiography began in India, so did modern historical fiction. In fact, both evolved hand in hand. Even in case of European history, it can be understood that the situation was the same - that is modern historiography and modern historical fiction evolved together. What's more surprising is the fact that in 16th century AD, even as the ancient historiography was making way for the modern one, the trend of fictionalizing the early set of history books had begun. Shakespeare arranged his plays inspired by the books on Ireland and Scotland by Raphael Holinshed and Edward Hall. Alexander Dumas fictionalized the writings of French Historical author Pierre de L'Estoile. In Europe, modern historiography could be seen twinned with fictional literature.  India's modern historiography started in 18th century. Even as the history of Bengal was getting written, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee...

Original Source: https://www.jeyamohan.in/197250/ Date: 23-Mar-2024 The short-stories collection "Padaiyal" is a historical fiction like that of "Aayiram Ootrukkal".  They are stories from the period of Nayaks - Marathas. I am writing this article to explain about why such historical fictions are written, how to approach them and the relationship between these fictions and history. All of us have this hallucination that history is an absolute entity like a thing that exists and that it comprises of truths that have been entirely established. Because, we read history as such in our institutions. History is a discussion forum. But it is provided as a collection of information. Only when we realize that historiography is an ideological space where myriad histories are written, can we proceed with further discussion. Ancient communities like India are deeply rooted in ancient historiography. Modern historiography is two centuries old here. Modern historiography is taugh...

Original Source: https://www.jeyamohan.in/197147/ Date: 22-Mar-2024   Respected Mr. Jeyamohan, I recently read your short stories collection Aayiram Ootrukkal. When I intended to buy one of your short stories collection, the categorization based on Travancore's royal family was easier to choose. I was interested in Travancore's reign and its kings and queens. It is my view that the image of India's history is never complete without considering princely states' histories.    The few books I have come across till now about the kings of princely states would either paint a caricature or would heap praise. I had considered Travancore to be different, with a several of these kings being adept at arts like music and painting. I had discussed this with my friends in amazement, which is the reason to choose this book easily. Apart from the kings, information about important figures like Dhalavaai Veluthambi, Padmanabhan Nambi and Maavingal Krishnapillai that's present in th...