Translations

  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...

  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://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...

Original Source: https://www.jeyamohan.in/79162/ Date: 2-Oct-2015 (This article seems to have a translation already. https://thesabarmati.wordpress.com/2015/10/04/toddy-shop-gandhi/ . Didn't notice it until about half of my translation. Proceeding to publish my translation as well). I had been to Vaikom for some Cinema work a couple of days back. Friend Madhupal and Cinema producer Sukumar accompanied me. While returning back, when we were wondering where to have lunch, Sukumar called up his friend and enquired. That friend suggested a toddy shop in a place called Chempu*. This is a place where actor Mammooty was raised. We enquired the place of the toddy shop. It was a shop thatched with palm leaves on the shore of Vembanad lake. Yet, it had several rooms; small rooms to consume toddy in private. It was late afternoon when we arrived, therefore the usual toddy consumers hadn't yet come. Mostly, people had come there for lunch. As Madhupal was an actor, he was given a royal wel...

  Original Source: https://www.jeyamohan.in/168299/ Date: 24-Jul-2022   Dear J, In recent times, whenever I visit the Iskcon temples established in various places, I feel that these temples will form, in future, the support structure of Hindu culture and the modern centers of Hindu worship. The important points that I observed were that these temples follow the same methods of worship in every country they are established, they have the same simple prayer slogan "Hare Rama, Hare Krishna" and anyone who joins that organization, irrespective of their caste, would've the privilege of performing pooja and delivering service. Most importantly, the aspects which we think as not possible anymore due to the apathy of the public and the government, like maintaining cleanliness in temple premises, eschewing from commercializing devotion by selling special tickets, forcing people to buy from the shops that have been setup at the temple entrance are not present in these Iskcon temple...

Original Source: https://www.jeyamohan.in/78988/ Date: 11-Aug-2022   Dear Jeyamohan, I started my literature journey with your short story collection "Aram". It was a good start. As a novice reader, the stories touched me a lot, especially stories like "Yaanai Doctor" (Elephant Doctor), "Nooru Naarkaaligal" (A Hundred Armchairs) and "Sotrukkanakku" (The Meal tally) disturbed me. Reading turns even an ordinary life into a cherishable one. I am grateful to you for providing me with a great start to my reading. I am into my early adulthood now. I am into the world's youngest domain - Software. The usual skepticisms of this age are impacting me a lot. There are a lot of questions on religion and rituals, especially in Vaastu and astrology. My family has deep faith in them. I have not got an unbiased responses to my doubts till now. The response is either 'At your age, your doubts are natural. With maturity you will be OK', or 'All the...

  Original Source: https://www.jeyamohan.in/168246/ Date: 7-Jul-2022   Dear J, Someone had posted this in Facebook. Personalities in Tamil Nadu, who did a great job in preventing people like me, who were born in the 80s and had reached the mid-life stage, from getting ensnared in any party based politics are: Rajinikanth et al in Cinema, Jaggi Vasudev et al in Spirituality, Nammalvar et al in agriculture, Sundara Ramaswamy then and Jeyamohan now in literature... This is my assertion, people with different opinion - move on. What's your perspective? Anonymous   Dear friend, If its asked as to what really is my job, I would like to cite this sentence. I wouldn't place myself in the list. Still, I am certainly trying to create a circle of thinkers who are apolitical. My communication is not with the general community per se. I do not have any correspondence with them. They cannot get through to my writings. Nor do I have the inclination to reach through to them. So, I am not...