Sujatha, the unforgettable Tamil Icon

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SUJATHA, THE UNFORGETTABLE TAMIL ICON<o></o>​

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For Tamil readers, Sujatha was like a member of their own families. Sujatha was the pen name of Sri Rangarajan, the popular Tamil author, who passed away recently at the age of seventy two years.
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Sri Rangarajan, who was a scientist by profession, having graduated from St.Joseph’s College, Trichy and completing his post graduation in Electronics from the Madras Institute of Technology, Chennai, took up writing from his college days. He was a classmate of the former President Dr.Adbul Kalam at Trichy.
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His service in BEL, <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1:City><st1lace>Bangalore</st1lace></st1:City> was very noteworthy. He headed the team that first introduced electronic voting machines to <st1:country-region><st1lace>India</st1lace></st1:country-region> and was rightly honoured with the VASWIK award. Besides, he was also honoured by the National Council for Science and Technology for popularizing science among the public through media. The Government of Tamilnadu honoured him with the Kalaimamani award. These are but just dry facts about the writer. But his achievements in the Tamil literary world are astounding.
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Sujatha became a household name for readers of popular Tamil magazines Ananda Vikatan, Kumudam, Kalki and the like. His rich knowledge of science, philosophy, spirituality, cinema, cricket, music and Vaishnava culture was reflected in all his writings. He was endowed with quick wit and humour and his grip over the Tamil language was immense. He established his own style of writing by Tamilising common English words as also converting nouns into verbs based on the context.
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He had penned nearly 250 short stories, starting with his first story that was published in Kumudam in 1962. Oru Iniya Malai Pozhudu was one of his most popular short stories. He wrote a series of science fictional stories called the Jeano series, besides the popular science fiction En Iniya Iyandira (My Dear Machine). He penned 100 novels including Eppothum Penn (Always a Woman), on the lines of the work of Simone De Beauvoir’s ‘The Second Sex’. He wrote Sorga Theevu, a detective novel through which he introduced the popular characters Ganesh and Vasanth, the lawyer-detectives to the readers. Later he penned many short stories with these characters. Ganesh and Vasanth were characterized so well and they became so popular that we started believing that they were real. The adult jokes that these two witty characters cracked added spice to the stories, without seeming vulgar or obcene.
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Sujatha also wrote plays and screenplays for popular Tamil films like Roja, Indian, Ninaithale Inikkum and Nadodi Thenral, to name a few. He recently completed the script for the movie Robot, based on his works En Iniya Iyandira and Meendum Jeano. Hence he was very close to famous film personalities like Shankar, Maniratnam, K.Balachander and Bharathi Raja. His knowledge of cinema was fully exhibited in his novel about the cine world, where he had covered all the nuances, politics and exploitation of the big bad world of cinema.
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His essays and articles were very popular among the readers, because they were very informative, interesting and inspiring. Kanaiyazhiyin Kadaisee Pakkangal (collection of the last pages of the literary magazine Kanaiyazhi), Ezhuththum Vaazhkkaiyum, Srirangathu Devathaigal, Alwargal-Oru Elia Arimugam, Vivathangal, Vimarsanangal are some of his most popular collection of essays. The essays were simple and introduced complicated Vaishnawa philosophies of the Bhakti culture or the best of world cinema or latest scientific marvels or ancient Tamil literature or characters ranging from the ordinary Gundukannamma or his grandmother to great achievers in the field of science, literature, religion and philosophy to the laymen. We were awed by his versatile knowledge and his patience to read hundreds of books of various subjects in various languages. Readers were introduced to many great writers of English and other languages. One could not hold the curiosity of going through a book introduced by Sujatha.
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The best part of his essays was the right measure of humour added to them. Even simple topics like the cricket matches that he played as a child, in Srirangam, the pranks that he played with his grandmother and in his school, his problems with certain subjects and teachers were all presented in such a lively manner, with so much of wit and humour that one could not but smile or even laugh aloud while reading the essays. Why? Even a grim situation of his time in the hospital to undergo a by-pass surgery was turned into a humourous article, though it covered in detail the procedure of the surgery, its need and its repercussions with medical authenticity. At the same time, he could be very sentimental and touching. His article ‘Appa, Anbulla Appa’ (Father, my dear father) written in 1982 when his father died brought tears in the eyes of thousands of readers.
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His essays were like live interaction with the readers and I wonder how many writers could win so many readers for essays.
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The Tamil literary world has really lost a very valuable star and his loss will be felt by many popular Tamil magazines and millions of his fans around the world. Such great persons are rarely born. We have to be satisfied that he has left such lasting impressions in the form of his writing.
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Sudha Narasimhachar
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