Kalki's Parthiban Kanavu Bk 3 - Interlude: Translator's Musings On Kalki

Kalki's Parthiban Kanavu Bk 3 - Interlude: Translator's Musings on Kalki

I find it interesting that Kalki Krishnamurthy was born on 9-9-99. (The year is 1899, of course). In addition to its numerical uniformity, the date is symbolically significant – it is a threshold to a new century. Kalki was a bridge between centuries and generations. He was to later inherit literary and journalistic treasures from people from one generation, add his vital contributions, and pass them on to the younger generations. He was Thiru. Vi Kalyanasundaram’s disciple in journalism and Rajaji’s protégé in politics.

Kalki did for Tamil prose what Subramanya Bharati did for poetry. Tamil prose used to be too complex for common people to understand. The use of words from other languages was common; and the language allowing such mixed use was called manipravalam. Kalki pioneered his own rich, but simple style that eliminated the need for manipravalam. He gave a simplified Tamil prose for others to emulate. Thus, he was a change agent that we should thank for the accessible language that emerged later.

He had strong ties to S.S Vasan, who was the owner of Ananda Vikatan and a luminary in movies and journalism. Kalki started the Kalki magazine after he had a disagreement with S.S. Vasan. Parthiban Kanavu was written and published in the Kalki magazine soon after that change. I have always wondered whether Vasan had regrets over losing the opportunity of publishing Parthiban Kanvu as a series in Vikatan! I will be grateful to any reader who can confirm or refute this statement. Or perhaps I just need to re-read Ponniyin Pudhalvar, Kalki’s biography to see if I can discover the answer myself!

Allegories

Many parts of Parthiban Kanavu assume a new significance when you consider the political and social environment at the time it was written (1941-43). It was the final few years of British rule in India. The Second World War was in progress. The British offered a form of limited self-governance to India in return for India’s full support in the war. There was widespread skepticism as to the true intentions of the British. Indian National Congress had made a demand for total self-governance in 1941. The Quit India movement was announced in 1942. Many political leaders including Gandhi, and young leaders such as Kalki Krishnamurthy himself had been jailed for civil disobedience around that time. Keep in mind that Parthiban Kanavu ran as a serialized novel between 1941-43.

There was a powerful lobby in India who advocated working with the British. Some of them may have genuinely thought of it as a winning strategy for independence, but many did that for short term personal gains and laurels. Could Marappa Bhupathi’s strategic supplication to Narasima Varman be an allegory pertaining to such loyalists? Could Kalki’s use of spies and guises in his stories be a product of its time, inspired by the use of agents by the British police? It is hard to be sure, but I find Parthiban Kanavu to be more interesting when I read it with such theories in mind.

At various points, the characters talk about independence being more important than life. In Senbaga Island, Vikraman asks for an assurance from the Prime Minister that the subjects will not surrender in a conflict, regardless of whether the enemy is good or bad. Ponnan tells the sage that he feels duty-bound to oppose the Emperor, despite the possibility that he, the Emperor, may have divine attributes. What is the need to bring up the goodness in the enemy in these conversations? I believe these were allegories as well. Kalki may have conceded that there is good in the British, but independence is more important than any good that could come out of continued British governance. His thought process might have been like Subhramanya Bharati’s, who thought that a poem celebrating King George’s coronation was not in contradiction with asking the British to leave India.

All references to Valli’s intelligence could be nods to the women empowerment movement of that era. In a similar vein, the choice of Sivagami, a dancer as the central character in Sivagamiyin Sabatham might have been deliberate too. In those days, most people associated dancing with courtesans. The thought of women from good families dancing in public was frowned upon. Choosing dancing of as a career was out of question for women of most social segments. Kalki ran a very successful social campaign to remove the stigma around dancing, specifically Bharatanatyam as an art form. I have wondered if Kalki picked Sivagami as the title character in one of his novels to support that point of view.

History

We saw in the prelude that Emperor Harshavardhana and Pulakesin II were the contemporaries of Narasimha Varma Pallava. There does not appear to be much records of a Chozha king of that era, as Chozhas were minor vassals.

History is written by victors. This history of the era of Parthiban Kanavu was recorded by

• Bana, who was patronized by Harsha,
• Ravikirti, who was patronized by Pulakesin II,
• Chinese traveler Xuanzang (Hsuan Tsang), who was presumably hosted by many kings of that era, and
• Various stone carvings, both in Pallava and Chalukya regions.

Actually, a correction - History is written by generous victors, or at least victors who had the resources and foresight to support and reward poets who would sing their praises; or had the foresight to spend to have their deeds captured in carvings.


Hence, we should provide some allowance for bias when we read historical fiction. For example, Bana is unlikely to have recorded any dubious deeds of Harsha. John Keay talks about many battles of that era in which both sides claim victory. Kalki provides an excellent (perhaps conscious) example for the bias himself. The way he describes Mahendra Varma Pallava’s defeat at the hands of Pulakesin II in Parthiban Kanavu is very different from how he describes the same battle through the Pallava eyes in Sivagamiyin Sabatham.

There is strong evidence that Jainism and Buddhism were dominant at that time, although such dominance has faded in recorded history. Bodhidharma, the founder of the Zen School of Mahayana Buddhism, is said to have been a Pallava prince who went to China on a Buddhist evangelical mission. Jains had success in converting Mahendra Varma Pallava to Jainism for a while. Thirunavukkarasar (Appar) himself is said to have practiced Jainism in his early days. Shaivism, which had the support of Narasimha Varma and several contemporary kings figures eminently in the recorded history of that era. It is interesting the speculate on the missing parts of the history. That speculation could be rich material for several more works of historical fiction set at the same era.

All that said, the story Kalki has spun is riveting, so let me limit my ramblings and let you get back to the story!