Sudha G Tilak's translation of Karichan Kunju's classic work 'Pasitha Manidam' acquaints the readers with the lives and times of Tamil Brahmins

Bindu Menon

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THE temple town of Kumbakonam is known not only for its Chola-era exquisite temples, it is also regarded as the hub of Tamil literary revivalism. A close-knit circle of litterateurs heralded this wave of modernism in the 1930s and brought out the Tamil literary magazine ‘Manikodi’, which became a platform for many creative talents. Among the many writers who were influenced by this avant garde movement was R Narayanaswami, better known by his pseudonym Karichan Kunju.

A polymath who wrote over a hundred short stories, novellas and dramas, Kunju’s lone novel ‘Pasitha Manidam’, published in 1978, is hailed as a classic. Sudha G Tilak deserves commendation for rendering it into English and acquainting non-Tamil readers with the lives and times of the Tamil Brahmin community of the Thanjavur belt.

The book is a dispassionate portrayal of the social milieu of the caste conscious Kumbakonam, and, above all, of the inner temporal and spiritual conflicts of humankind. The novel primarily follows the angst-ridden life of Ganesan, who after being afflicted by leprosy, embarks on a journey to the town of his childhood. Kunju deploys a conversational, staccato style with little care for literary devices. He would rather present the harsh naked truths of life in its barest form. So we get to know about the depravity, poverty and vacuous morality within the Brahmin community, rendered in a brusquely truthful manner.

Ganesan is a complex character and his counterfoil, Kitta, even more so. Both face a childhood scarred by poverty and deprivation and deploy their sexuality in different ways for survival. On another level, ‘Hungry Humans’ explores the core philosophy of the novel: hunger and its many manifestations — gluttony, lust, greed and, on a higher plane, hunger for the highest truth. Both Ganesan, who is trapped in a homosexual relationship, and Kitta, who uses his unbridled libido as a tool of power with the hapless women around him, realise that hunger is never satiable. But Ganesan is morally and spiritually better wired to overcome this hunger.

Perhaps this explains why the narrative’s pace in ‘Hungry Humans’ is somewhat inconsistent. The parts dealing with Ganesan’s life have a measured tempo but the narrative is juddery when it comes to Kitta’s. Too many characters and events seem to mar the flow as if to counterpoint the messiness and utter futility of Kitta’s life. In contrast, there is a hunger for redemption in Ganesan as he embarks on a pilgrimage to his past, in Kumbakonam.

Incidentally, Kumbakonam is where Swami Vivekananda, in 1897, uttered those stirring words, “Arise, awake and stop not till the goal is reached.” Ganesan is the arisen, awakened soul, cleansed like the Biblical leper, who realises that human beings will continue to consume and be consumed. Only one must know when to stop.