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Book Review
Autobiography
AVAN (Autobiography): Ra. Ki. Rangarajan; Gangai Puththaka Nilayam, 13, Deenadayalu Street, Chennai-600017. Rs. 75.
THIS WORK, an autobiography of a writer, Ra. Ki. Rangarajan, who is well-known for his writings, mainly through the Kumudam, felt a need to write down his experiences in the print world, if not to the literary world, by sheer accident. In a sense, it deals mostly with the writer's struggles in the field of journalism and writing.
As a boy, he was a "rebel" at home preferring to study Tamil than Sanskrit. His relationship with his brothers and others at home is quite interesting. All he had as a passport to the world of Tamil writing was his handwritten magazine. And his childhood friend, and his own unshakeable faith in himself as a writer. Good enough.
He has met nearly all the literary bigwigs of his time, political leaders and literary giants like Rajaji and S. Radhakrishnan. His encounters with Va. Ra., Devan, Ki. Va. Ja, Na. Pichamurthy and M. V. Venkataram are hilarious and poignant.
Apart from these, his meetings with very important people like Rasikamani to Kannadasan and the privilege he had of meeting the creative industrialist, Pollachi Mahalingam, give the reader an unusual pleasure in reading. His meeting with C. Subramaniam gives another facet of C.S's personality, hitherto rather unknown.
By his own admission, he was licked to shape by Kumudam and its editor, S.A.P. While his tributes to him are understandable and well placed, the reader may get a different dimension of S.A.P's personality, quite unwittingly though. The author uses the technique of mild alienation as a variation from the first person narration in which he wrote a novel earlier. While he refers to himself in the third person, it has not quite worked out satisfactorily in the sense that it fails to convince the reader as a true introspective self-enquiry. Some of his experiences are direct, and some are handed down. Here comes the dichotomy in technique.
His thumbnail portraits of the people he met are used as mirrors where he attempts to see himself though in reflection giving the impact of a literary morphing. His information about Doordarshan is factually incorrect. And questionable.
The world of journalism and publishing in the pre- and post-Independence India has undergone such a sea change that this book will serve as a source book of history.
S. GOPALIE
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