A writer meets his idol
At the age of 14, Dilip Kumar had become a wage earner for the family. They were members of a mercantile community from Gujarat. These immigrants to Tamil Nadu lived in Coimbatore and Chennai, the state’s capital. The death of this father slammed the doors of formal education shut to him. If he had to educate himself he would have to do it on his own. So, he began his forays into Coimbatore’s Old Market where dealers sorted discarded reading material before being sent on its way to pulp mills and used bookstores. What was to be read, and in which language, he’d have to figure everything out on his own. “I was greedy,” he says, “and I didn’t want to miss out on any of the best any language had to offer.”
English would help him get ahead in life. So yes, he bought Readers’ Digests. Perry Mason, the star attorney of courtroom novels, taught Dilip to “speak” English. There was his mother tongue Gujarathi. In Tamil, which he already spoke well, he read popular magazines — Kumudham, Anandha Vikatan and Kalki.
Then, one day, chanced upon a short story by Jayakanthan. He realized right away that this writer was a class apart. Jayakanthan’s stories featured the working poor. “Why! The man actually writes about people like me,” says Dilip, recalling his amazement. He too wanted to write about such marginalized people, about himself. If visits to Sowcarpet in Madras gave him a memorable cast of characters to work with , his working life supplied him with experiences to write about once he acquired the language skills to craft stories. The acquisition was a slow but steady process .
Dilip discovered the Russian Masters, “whose writing did not suffer for the indifferent translation into Tamil”, American novelists Hemingway and Steinbeck. His reputation as a reader grew in his hometown. So when any acquaintance had books to discard, they thought of him. “For instance, my friend’s bother had left behind a set of books. It could have been James Hadley Chase but it was J. Krishnamurthy’s works,” he says.
From a syllabus, largely guided by chance, his world view widened. There was no mentor – only reliable radiwallahs who looked out for him. He annoyed them with his persistent demands for obscure books and journals. They helped him connect with other readers of serious literature and his network grew.
As part of his job as a clerk at a textile store, Dilip would pick up a piece of chalk and creatively advertise the owner’s brand of innerwear products. He used the titles of JK’s works to do this. (Take for example: andharangam punidamanadhu. Literally translates to “intimacy is sacred.” It could also mean “your intimate parts are sacred.” Therefore, please wear our undergarments.) Such literary references would escape the notice of most. One day, a well-read bank employee walked in and asked to meet the person behind the ads. He quizzed Dilip on what he had read thus far, and suggested new authors including the books of the reclusive writer Chudamani Raghavan. (After her death, Dilip anthologized her work, a collection called “Cannon Ball Tree”.)
So it went, his self-guided literary education.
And then, it happened. He saw an issue of a little magazine edited by none other than star-writer JK. It was slimmer, more heavily-priced than the usual popular Tamil magazines at the tea kiosk. So what if he had to forgo tea for a few extra afternoons and save up to buy this magazine? Dilip soon began to wade through the unfamiliar waters of contemporary writing in Tamil with JK as his guide. Decades later, when he spoke of this incident – a turning point in his life as it were to JK, the man said – why you could’ve watched a Tamil film instead. So much for meeting your idol, that distant beacon, in person!