Ponniyin Selvan Varalaatru Peravai

Yesterday Myself and my brother in law and me had a discussion on – What is
real literature? He is a voracious reader. ardent fan of PS has read it
minimum 7-8 times. His voracious reading has taken him into the blog world
where he bumped upon such topics. In those forums they have certain thumb
rules I guess

1. Literature should not be SWARASYAM (Can I replace it with the word
“Interesting” / “Entertainer”)
2. It should be YEDHARTHAM
3. YEDHARTHAM is always (Most of the time) painful
4. SWARASYAM & YEDHARTHAM dont go hand in hand

We concluded our discussion when we started surfing the TV channels -
Chandramukhi was being telecast in one of the channel. he says – Manichitra
Thaazh is Yedartham and Chandramukhi is Swarasyam. Manichitra Thazh is
classic / Chandramukhi is Entertainer. In their opinion who ever writes in
“Vegu Jana Pathrikkai” is not an “ilakkiyavaadhi” and things that are
published in such magazines are not literature. So in that lines Kalki is
not an ilakkiyavadhi. Ponniyin Selvan is not a literature. Did we have
discussions in this line before?

~Udanx

hi

Nice topic. i guess its more to do with individual’s preferences, and
they keep changing as well.

on that subject, not sure how many have watched this yourtube video
earlier. its nature at its very best – every minute is thrilling, and
am sure all of us will see a moral in this

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM&feature=related

— In [email protected], “dmaloo” wrote:
>
> Thank you Vijay, yes it is nature at its very best and amazing
> footage.yes, a lesson for all – watched it again and again for its
different attributes.

the patience of the lions initially to spring the trap – waiting for
the opportune moment to strike – letting the prey come well into their
grasp.

the alertness of the herd, despite being so close, they were alert to
run off, it was unfortunate for the calf – maybe its lack of wordly
wisdom, let its guard down – to stray too close to the front and not
side the herd.

the thirst of the calf to survive – its indomitable spirit to live.
despite all the mauling, was in tears as it walked off finally -
never expected it to survive. it had a croc and so many lions on it -
life’s lesson learnt – it takes one shrug to loose all your troubles
and be free, however great your troubles are.

the resilient spirit of the herd of buffalo – though their initial
response was to run, but they regrouped when they saw one of their
suffering.

the herd mentality – despite numerical superiority – if you watch
closely its only when buffalo that repeatedly charges the lions -
every herd needs a leader.

the opportunism of the crocodile – you never even notice it lurks in
the waters, the lions planned their attack – but the crocodile’ strike
- was so swift and stealthy.

even though their prey has gone into a crocodiles mouth, the spirit of
the lions to get it back

lastly, the lion that is tossed by the buffalo – even in mid air, it
strikes out, lashing at it opponent.

vj

Very well described Vijay…
thanks for sharing.

and Malathi has rightly compared the acknowledged ones with those
which are not.

anbudan / sps

>
> In Simple terms, cant we say, a literature is something, which makes
> sense irrespective of the time period? Or rather which lasts in the
> memories of people even 100 years or 1000 years after it is
written.

if we talk about good and bad arent we going into the quality.
sometime back we had a list of novels published in tamil. ran into
1000′s . but most are out of print and not available to the public.
isnt it injustice to the writer, publisher and upto the proof reader
for them to be left out.
i think literature is anything at all that people write for other
people to read( of course we should exclude letters and wills)
however i remain sympathetic to the cause of loveletters which must
be included in literature.
i wonder if people even write love letters these days???
venketesh

> Our sanga padalgal, tirukural, avvayar padalgal, kamba ramayanam, or
> the recent times Bharathiyar, bharathidasan et al…we read and
> re-read irrespective of the time period they were written. In that
> context, I think PS can be classified as a literature.
>
> swarasyam – yathartham….may be true superficially, but what moral
we
> learn from them, what is the goal….yathartham can just picturise
the
> emotions of an individual, but what it tells the reader? SPS rightly
> pointed out about the goals, and the purpose of literature.
>
> Anything which talks about something in a micro level will never
last
> long. It can be a good read for a few years, but am not sure whether
> it will affect the people after a few generations.
>
> Somethings are even referred as classics and I remember reading
> somewhere a definition of classic as ‘something which everyone
talks
> high about, but no one reads’. Probably yathartham falls in this
> category
>
> Regards,
> Satish
>

Venkatesh,

Am I getting it wrong? Is there any thing which we call literature is
of bad quality? Only good quality work will surface over time. Junk
will be discarded in the natural process. So if a literature survives,
surely it will be of good quality. If whatever is written, except
letters and wills are literature, what do you thing – will all the
novels published in ‘Pocket Novel’,'Crime Novel’ etc will be treated
equal with PS? both are literature as per your definition, right?
Which will survive the test of time?

Anything should have a goal, purpose and should address this
irrespective of the time period. It can either be swarasyam (PS) or
yathartham (alai oosai) but should be for a specific purpose. If i
read something today and is not relevant, whats use of reading?

I feel nature (or should I say time) always handle things in a
balanced way. As we got only the cream of Thevaram and the rest were
destroyed by nature, only the cream will survive and rest will
perish. May be in a short time, it can termed injustice to the author,
but after 1000 years??

THAT IS THE GREATEST PHILOSOPHICAL QUEST FROM THE VEDIC ORIGINS !

REGARDS/ SPS

=============

Dear SPs, very well put..I would rather say Puranaanuru or Sanga
Illakkiyam instead of Shakespeare or Paradise lost though just for a
comparison.

I believe it is positive and very important to develop a likeness and
taste for both – the classical as well as the mundane. The problem we
have most people think they can only appreciate one of the two, and
mostly do not want to make any effort for appreciating something more
difficult or challenging. It is easy to read PS than it is to read
Sanga Illaiyam of course but we would lose glorious literature if
nobody like our Vairam made the effort to read it, is it not?

On the same lines am reading Arvind Adiga’s White Tiger, the most
recent Pulitzer winning novel, am only a few pages into it. The
library here in US had a book discussion which I was a spectator of,
for this novel. One gentleman there asked a question to me – why are
you Indians so keen on selling your poverty/other weaknesses to the
rest of the world, we in America have lots of problems too, nobody
writes books and wins prizes for them. Interesting point, isn’t it
not? (Adiga’s argument was that his book raises awareness, also not
to be dismissed).

Malathi