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An illusionary arena of dice

  Original Source: https://www.jeyamohan.in/232998/ Date: 10-Jun-2026   It is only the victory that everyone talks and remembers constantly - be it Cinema, Politics or such. Why do commoners like to associate themselves with success? They do not have such a mighty success in their personal lives. Therefore, associating themselves with the lives of such victors feeds them with day dreams. And to be able to become mighty in that reverie.  How numerous are the legacies, stories and memories about such celebrities and victors! But, my mind migrates towards those who haven't triumphed. Talented, capable of achievements - but were defeated by some intangible that we describe as fate, destiny etc. We see those as 'opportunities' in the outside world. Perhaps, it can be described as the endless possibilities of life created by people, moments and thoughts stitching themselves to an ever expanding gigantic web. Numerous are those defeated, faded away and unidentified! Rather than ...
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Sculptors of Modern Tamil Milieu

  Original Source: https://www.jeyamohan.in/211809/ Date: 7-Feb-2025   Dear J, Whom would you profess as the sculptor of modern Tamil milieu? Raj Adhiyamaan   Dear Raj, I have taken just this sentence from your long question. I have answered this myriad times. But this must be repeated constantly.  I function only within the domain of Tamil culture and so I shall attempt to identify the prime contributors to the renaissance of modern Tamil culture. Identifying a singular person will be a grave injustice to all those great pioneers. An intellectual will never commit such belittlement. History is a torrent. It flows out of the numerous contributions by myriad personalities in their respective domains. It progresses through dialectics. Therefore, opponents in cultural perspectives too contribute to the progress of that culture.  The renaissance and the evolution of a culture would always entail web of complex undercurrents. To comprehend it completely and in detail...
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From the footsteps of Maanasaa

Original Source: https://www.jeyamohan.in/202806/ Date: 2-Aug-2024   A malayalam journalist asked me what was I experiencing while writing Mudharkanal. 'How can it be remembered? Its memories would just be tiny droplets, it isn't a truth in anyway', I replied. 'Yes, but so is creative literature, isn't it? Mudharkanal is but a tiny droplet of what you had attained. A reader is able to travel from the linguistic structure to that fullness of experience through his imagination", he remarked. It felt true.  There wasn't any exuberance when writing Mudharkanal, for it had already been 25 years then since I had started reciting on my dream of writing Mahabharatha in entirety. My library was replete with books for that. The list of scholars, including P.K. Balakrishnan that I had visited for that sake is huge.  The list of journeys undertaken in the past twenty five years is more vast than that. But I kept postponing it. 'Maybe later' - a thought on one s...
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Human rights - a historical documentary

  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...
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Blood and tear soaked footmarks

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...
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Ancient, Modern historiography & Fiction - 4

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...
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Ancient, Modern historiography & Fiction - 3

  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...
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