Writer Aranganathan passes away

Writer Aranganathan passes away

Tamil writer Ma. Aranganathan, creator of the character Muthukaruppan — who symbolises (का प्रतीक है) multiple dilemmas(दुविधाएं) of contemporary(समकालीन) Tamil society — died in Chennai on Sunday. He was 83 and is survived by wife, son Justice A. Mahadevan of the Madras High Court, and a daughter. Born in Thiupathisaram, a corruption of Thiruvenparisaram, the native place of Vaishanvite minstrel Nammazhwar’s mother, Aranaganathan had a deep knowledge of ancient Tamil literature, Saiva Siddantha, western literature, cinema and modern Tamil literature. He read widely on literature and film and had published four short story collections, two novels and three essay collections.

A former State government employee, he ran the Tamil literary magazine Munril for many years. “His short stories and novels are nothing but his travel from Kanniyakumari district to Chennai. His literary history is fictionalising the memory of his soil,” says literary critic Tamizhavan in his preface to the collection of interviews published in Puthu Ezhuthu by S. Shanmugam. “While I see him and his writings as a continuation of the long Tamil poetry tradition, he extended the continuation to prose. He never seeks to dramatise or give theatrical effect to his stories. Instead, he has proved a story need not have an end,” said writer S. Ramakrishnan.