In a new initiative to cater to the thousands of its members spread across Tamil Nadu who are more comfortable listening to the lectures in Tamil, Madras Management Association has also started having meetings with Tamil speakers . The third speaker in the series was Kizhambur Sanakrasubramanian, the fourth editor of the 90 years old Tamil literary magazine Kalaimagal . A unique magazine which has appeared, month after month, without fail in the last nine decades. Even during the lockdown period, it appeared in digital form to delight its loyal readers. In the context of many other Tamil magazines disappearing because of market pressures including Covid , it is a remarkable achievement indeed.
The idea of starting a Tamil literary magazine was conceived at a meeting of a few Tamil scholars at the home of P.N.Appuswamy in Chitrakulam in Mylapore. U V Swaminathan ( U Ve Sa ) popularly known as Tamizh Thatha, who was in the meeting, not only offered to edit the magazine but also gave the name `Kalaimagal` for the magazine. R. Narayanaswamy Iyer of Madras Law Journal fame who was in the group offered to print and publish the magazine. A legacy his son and grandson have carried forward for over eight decades. Five years ago the publishing rights were bought over by P T T Rajan, the current publisher of the magazine.
Located in the office of
Madras law Journal on 83, Munda Kanniamman Street the first issue of the magazine came out in January,1932.The annual subscription was fixed at Rs 4 within the country and Rs 5
for readers abroad. It had literature, fine arts, science, children’s stories
and pages exclusively meant for women. From 1500 copies in the beginning, it grew to over one lakh copies during mid
sixties and seventies.
The magazine`s
first editor U.V.Swaminathan, was a Tamil scholar who spent his life time in collecting
rare palm leaf writings of Tamil
Classics known as sanga Ilakkiam ( Sangam
Literature) and got them published at his own expense. But for his initiative
the Tamil world would never have got to know about classics such as
Silappadikaram, Manimekalai etc. He contributed one article for every issue and
the value and esteem of the magazine grew in abundance. He was the
editor of Kalaimagal from 1932 to 1938
He was followed by
K.V.Jagannathan (Ki Va Ja) another Tamil scholar/writer who was the editor for
a record 50 years from 1938 to 1988. He began his career in Kalaimagal as deputy editor
while continuing to serve the Tamil savant in his research and writing work.
Ki Va Ja became famous not only for the
excellent commentaries he wrote about many Tamil classics but also for his wit
and humour as a popular writer/orator. He was also responsible for compiling
popular old proverbs and folk songs
in Tamil.
The foundation for the high literary standards
that the magazine has been maintaining were laid by these two editors. S.V.Ramani,
who followed him was the editor for seven years. Ramani maintained
the standards set by his predecessors and ran the magazine with its inherent
strength.
Kizhambur Sankarasubramanian, grand-nephew of the doyen of Tamil journalism, A.N. Sivaraman, took over as the editor from Ramani is the fourth editor. He has been editing Kalaimagal for the last 26 years.
“ I have been trying to continue the tradition established by my
predecessors by publishing a top quality literary magazine with right values-
no film news, no politics , no juicy
stories or no cover pictures featuring attractive women. There is no place for sensuous or sensational stories in Kalaimagal..
We have managed to survive
without any of the above serving
our 40,000 loyal readers .I hope to continue with this policy
of honesty and integrity for another ten
years until we celebrate the century mark”
During the course of his talk Kizhambur shared some interesting information pertaining to Kalaimagal.
Rajaji, the first governor general of our country was a regular subscriber of the magazine. The magazine still has a copy of the first receipt issued to him preserved for posterity.
When the well known writer Kalki Krishnamurthy and Sadasivam wanted to start a magazine called `Kalki` they approached the Kalaimagal management to help them with the printing of their magazine The first issue of Kalki was brought out with the expertise provided by the printing team of Kalaimagal
There was close connection between Kalaimagal and Bharathi the poet. Though the magazine was started after Bharathi`s demise, a complete collection of his rare works compiled by Periaswamy Thooran was serialized in Kalaimagal for the first time. The magazine also managed to publish the first and original poem written by Bharathi addressed to the Maharaja of Ettayapuram using the block making facility of the time. He had signed the poem with his name `Ilasai Subramaniam`- Ilasai referring to Ettayapuram. It appeared as a part of an article written specially for Kalaimagal by Viswanathan a cousin of Bharathi which was published in one of the issues in 1978.
Though almost all well
known Tamil writers have been featured
in the magazine, Kalaimagal is proud of the fact that well known Tamil writers of
yester years like Akilan, Anutthama, Kamala Sadagopan and Laxmi Rajaratnam had
their first stories published in Kalaimagal. Popular writers of today like
Indira Sounder Rajan and Devi Bala and many others also had started their
writing career with Kalaimagal. Short stories in Kalaimagal had its own stamp
of grade and status. One had to write in Kalaimagal to prove not only
his or her writing skill but also qualitatively satisfy the readers. It almost
became
mandatory for writing in other magazines. “Have you written short stories in Kalaimagal?”
was the
question the writers had to face from the readers and the editors then. The
Kalaimagal office was the forerunner in publishing novels and collections of
short stories in book form.
Kizhambur also fondly recalled his close association with Abdul Kalam, the people`s President of India and his several interactions with him regarding Tamil literature. Many of Kalam`s essays and poems in Tamil appeared regularly In Kalaimagal. Kalam even wrote his first short story for a special Diwali issue of the magazine, which was well received. On Kizhambur`s request Kalam visited Channai to address 500 students selected from 10 corporation schools where he spent more than the scheduled time to answer all the interesting questions posed by the inquisitive students.
Though the magazine never published political news /views , a column tilted `Delhi Thabhal` written by the well known political analyst of his time, K.Srinivasan used to regularly appear in Kalaimagal when Ki Va Ja was the editor of the magazine. Srinivasan, in one of his columns had recorded an interesting anecdote involving the veteran congressman Kamaraj.
Once at a meeting of congressmen presided over by Jawaharlal Nehru he requested Kamaraj who was the President of the party to address the audience consisting mostly of Hindi speaking people. Kamaraj, who could talk neither in English nor Hindi was at a loss for words. He decided to speak in Tamil. After speaking for 3 minutes when he sat down there was a thunderous applause from the audience. Surprised at the response Srinivasan who was reporting the meeting asked the gentleman sitting next to him why he was clapping when he didn`t understand Tamil. The neighbour responded, ` Kamaraj is a great leader. He must have spoken only good things. It is the man who matters and not what he spoke`
Kizhambur`s reverence for the first two editors is palpable. ` There is a chair used by Ki Va Ja when he was the editor. I always felt I didn`t deserve to sit in the same chair that Ki Va Ja occupied. Every morning before I start my day in the office I make floral offerings to the photograph of Ki Va Ja, placed on the chair, located in a prominent corner of the office. I have followed this routine right from the day I joined Kalaimagal as its editor.`
Another interesting information is that motivated by the outstanding contributions of the two legendary editors to Tamil literature, Kizhambur, a popular orator in Tamil, wanted to do something which will leave his mark in the world of Tamil Literature. He decided to give a talk for seven hours continuously, giving his commentary on the three parts of Tirukkural consisting 1330 short couplets composed by the Tamil sage Tiruvalluvar, on virtue, wealth and love. The first event took place in Chennai in front of several Tamil scholars. The second talk was given at National College , Trichy aimed at College students and the third one at the school in Tirunelveli where Kizhambur studied. This effort of Kizhambur is now featured in the Guinness book of Records. Kalaimagal followed this up with the publication of a book containing selected commentaries by various scholars on Tirukkural compiled by him.The first copy of the book titled ` Tirukkural Kalanjiam` was received by the then governor of Tamil Nadu, Shri B. Purohit at a special event organized at the Raj Bhavan in 2018.
`Kannan` the second magazine published by the group was devoted
to children. It was also the launch pad for many aspiring young writers in Tamil like Charukesi. It was launched in 1940 and discontinued in 1967
for commercial reasons.
The Kalaimagal management also published `Manjari` the only monthly digest in Tamil modeled on the lines of Readers Digest both in terms of size and contents. This magazine launched in 1947 also had continuous run for 75 years before the publishing rights were given to another party last year.
The annual Diwali Specials of Kalaimagal are also very popular to date among its readers
P T T Rajan the current publisher of Kalaimagal is a young man who is keen to leave footprints of the magazine on the sands of time so that the younger generation will have an idea of the evolution of the modern day Tamil literature. He along with Kizhambur have initiated an ambitious project to digitize all the issues of Kalaimagal for posterity. I wish them all success in their effort!
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