#KiRa Centenary celebrations #Venkiah Naidu,Former Vice President of India - #Special address

#KiRa Centenary celebrations 

#Venkiah Naidu,Former Vice President of India - #Special address  today 13-3-2023.

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It pleases me to be a part of the Centenary celebrations of the writer and folklorist, Ki. Ra—short for the great Tamil writer and storyteller Ki. Rajanarayanan. Ki Ra’s unique career path was one of literary self-discovery—Shri Krishna Raja Narayana Perumal Ramanujam Naicker, spent his childhood roaming about in forests around his home and avoiding going to school. However, “this guardian of the oral world tradition” of Tamil, as he was described, rose to become a visiting professor at the Puducherry University holding the post of Director of Folktales, Documentation and Survey Centre. Ki Ra was also appointed honorary professor of Folklore in the Tamil department of the University of Pondicherry. Through his art of story-telling, his emphasis on the spoken form of the language and his remarkable ability to weave stories rooted in the lives of the peasants of  Karisal region, Ki Ra carved out a unique place for himself in the annals of Tamil literature.

Interestingly enough, Ki Ra is reputed to have been a late bloomer, who did not write much until his late 30s. Ironically, this class VII drop-out won universal adulation and was widely respected by fellow writers. A writer appreciated and celebrated by three generations of readers, it is often said that Ki Ra inscribed a new landscape on the literary map.

The most fascinating part is this new literary landscape which Ki Ra created—built on a vast tract of black cotton soil, called Karisal, deep south in Tamil Nadu. Skirted by the Thamirabarani river, the soil, though fertile, is parched and it is said that it was only in the late 16th century, with the arrival of Telugu-speaking peasants, that the land came to be cultivated. This region and its rustic, earthy, hardworking people form the setting for all of Ki Ra’s works.

Ki Ra’s three novels – Gopalla Gramam (The Village of Gopalla), Gopallapurathu Makkal (The People of Gopallapuram), and Andhaman Naickar (Andaman Naickar) have been seen as literary masterpieces, and quite fittingly, he was honoured with a Sahitya Academy award in 1991 for Gopallapurathu Makkal.

Considered a pathbreaking work in modern Tamil literature, Ki Ra’s debut novel, Gopalla Gramam is based on the migration of Telugu speaking people, Kammas from Andhra Pradesh to Tamil Nadu, flowing from the memory of the grand old woman among them—Manga Thayaru. Ki Ra weaves the story, giving it a natural flow and structure. Ki Ra took particular pride in calling himself a kathai solli (story-teller). It is said that one of his most important contributions was lending literary credence to the spoken language. Till the end, Ki Ra voiced the belief that spoken language was the correct form for literary expression. No wonder then, his novels and short stories had powerful reach and authenticity. In his many short stories, Ki Ra unfailingly documented the lives of the people of the Black Soil like the Rayalaseema region in Andhra—their everyday struggle, travails and facets of their rich and layered culture.

Known as the father of Karisal Elakkiyam—Black Soil literature from Southern Tamil Nadu, Ki Ra, in a move ahead of his times, brought out the first Black Soil dialectical dictionary in Tamil (Karisal Vattara Vazhakku Agaraathi). This is seen as a pioneering step by the great folklorist.

Another interesting aspect of Ki Ra’s multifaceted personality is that for someone with a distaste for classical literature, KiRa was, paradoxically, immersed in Carnatic music. Almost singlehandedly he brought to wider attention regional stalwarts such as Vilathikulam Swamigal and Karukurichi Arunachalam. He thus emerged as a chronicler of the Karisal region.

Ki Ra reached a mass audience in the mid-80s through popular Tamil magazines like Junior Vikatan and Ananda Vikatan and became a household name in Tamil Nadu. Once Ki Ra shifted base to Puducherry University, his fans were spared the trouble of reaching remote Idaiseval. A brilliant story-teller and conversationalist, he is said to have enthralled visitors with his tales and anecdotes.

As early as the 1960s, Ki Ra had fashioned a new voice and innovatively wove the spoken register into the narrator’s voice. Through a narrative interspersed with colourful idioms, phrases, riddles, proverbs, suggestive euphemisms, and sometimes idiosyncratic spellings, he recreated the Karisal world. Unlike the peasants of, for instance, Premchand’s stories, Ki Ra’s peasants are smart and sharp, using their wit and experience to face the demands of a harsh world.

Recognition came late to Ki Ra. Though his landmark first collection, Kathavu, was published in 1965, it was with his first novel, Gopalla Gramam, published in 1976, that Ki Ra took the literary scene by storm. This grandfatherly tale of the Telugu-speaking Naicker community’s migration to the deep south to strike root in the Karisal, structured in oral traditions, overturned conventional narrative forms.

Ki Ra joined the Communist Party of India during its radical phase at the time of Independence. Though he distanced himself from the party soon, he was active in peasant politics until the time of C. Narayanaswamy Naidu in the early1980s along with K.S. Radhakrishnan in Tirunelveli-Palayamkottai central jail, where KSR introduced him to the veteran leader K. Kamaraj.

Active till the very end, Ki Ra started writing a new column for a Tamil newspaper when he was 93. At 97, he wrote Andarandaa Patchi (A Mythical Bird), which was circulated as a handwritten manuscript among his friends. Early in 2021, Ki Ra finally published Micha Kathaigal (Leftover Tales)—the stories that he had originally not intended to publish. Inevitably, all his short stories were anchored in the lives of the rural agrarian community.

On his demise Ki Ra became the first Tamil writer to be cremated with state honours.

I feel honoured to be amidst all of you to participate in this landmark Centenary celebrations of this iconic trendsetter in Tamil language and literature.

Thank you!

Jai Hind!

#Kira

#ki_ra_centenary_celebrations,

#ki_Rajanarayanan, 

#கி_ராஜநாராயணன்

#எம்_வெங்கையாநாயுடு,

#M_Venkaiah_Naidu,

#ksr, #ksrvoice, #KS_Radhakrishnan,, #கேஎஸ்ஆர்போஸ்ட், #கேஎஸ்_இராதாகிருஷ்ணன்

கே.எஸ்.இராதா கிருஷ்ணன்.

ஆசிரியர் கதை சொல்லி, 

பொதிகை-பொருநை-கரிசல்.

13-3-2023.