VamananA reader once wrote to author and editor Tamilvanan, that fear wracked him at every turn. The editor’s reply was short: “Hang my photo in your room. All your fears will vanish.”The relationship Tamilvanan, with his signature hat and dark glasses, a curious blend of Tamil assertion and Western styling, forged with his readers, young and old, and his enormous confidence in his own public persona as an author and editor, are reflected in that answer. His self-assurance rested on his faith in the effectiveness of his writing, rooted in a native intelligence and a gift for lucid exposition.In his centenary year, many of those readers, particularly the ones who found him while still at school, remember the man and his magazine for his slogan, “Thunive Thunai” (Courage is our companion), and for introducing them to the habit — and the pleasure — of reading.Through this colourful journalistic persona and the crisp writing in ‘Kalkandu’, the magazine he edited from its founding in 1948, he held the attention of a vast readership for more than a quarter of a century, until his premature death in 1977.The headmaster of a respected English-medium school who subscribed to ‘Kalkandu’ was surprised to discover that his aged mother had become an admirer of Tamilvanan for the clarity with which he explained the concepts of the Bhagavad Gita to his readers.When the impact of his public image is considered alongside his journalistic instinct, one gets a sense of the Tamilvanan phenomenon of the early decades of the 1950s. A real-life incident illustrates the point: two muggers who had waylaid him fled in the mistaken belief that he was a policeman in plain clothes, after being rattled by his loud, uproarious laughter.After a brief stint as a helper and assistant on the Pudukkottai-based Tamil monthly ‘Ponni’, in 1944, Tamilvanan joined ‘Grama Oozhiyan’, published from Thuraiyur near Trichy, as a sub-editor. Its proprietor was A V R Krishnaswami Reddiar; Vallikkannan was its editor. It was here that Tamilvanan became fascinated by the lucid prose of N Pichamoorthy (considered the father of free verse in Tamil), particularly his use of short sentences to explain things simply.Reddiar came to know of the young sub-editor’s admiration for Pichamoorthy’s writing and one day took him to meet the writer, who lived in a small house at Chettikulam near Thuraiyur. Introducing Tamilvanan, Reddiar told Pichamoorthy: “Here is your rasika.”Pichamoorthy received the young admirer with affection. “Thambi,” he told him, “always write in a simple style. Avoid long sentences. Do this and one day you too will become a renowned writer.” Some time after this meeting, Vallikkannan left ‘Grama Oozhiyan’, and Tamilvanan became its editor. He remained there for about three-and-a-half years, until the magazine folded.He then proceeded to Chennai, where, under the guidance of the seminal Tamil publisher and editor ‘Sakti’ Vai Govindan, he edited ‘Anil’, a children’s magazine. In the city, he teamed up with schoolmate Tirunavukkarasu, who later helmed the prestigious ‘Vanathi Pathippagam’, and together they published books for children under the ‘Jil Jil’ imprint. The reprints of the cheaply priced Tamilvanan-authored titles impressed printer P V Parthasarathy so much that he recommended him to his partner, S A P Annamalai, editor of Kumudam. That recommendation led to the birth of ‘Kalkandu’ as a sister publication of ‘Kumudam’.Under Tamilvanan, the 32-page ‘Kalkandu’ became so famous that ‘Kumudam’ was advertised on its back wrapper with the words: ‘Have you read Kumudam?’Kumudam’s editor SAP recognised that Tamilvanan was inseparable from the identity of Kalkandu. He beautifully summed up Tamilvanan’s relationship with the magazine to his sub editors: ‘’There is no Kalkandu without the personality of Tamilvanan. Just as Mother India sells because of its editor Baburao Patel and Blitz for R K Karanjia, Kalkandu sells on the force of Tamilvanan’s personality’’!While SAP and Tamilvanan shared mutual respect, the latter would call upon SAP in the office only rarely and speak to him for only a few minutes. It is said that SAP would marvel at Tamilvanan’s animated conversation and dynamism. Once when SAP was downcast because of a new bus stop outside the gate of the office which was causing a lot of inconvenience to his employees, Tamilvanan is said to have driven straight to the police commissioner’s office and instantly had it shifted!Sometimes Tamilvanan’s derring-do and adventurous spirit swept him into troubled waters. He had driven solo to Bangalore in his Herald car but while returning rammed into a house near Porur. He came home soaked in blood while his car had to be extricated from the debris the next day.Tamilvanan’s fearlessness was not confined to his travels. He had the reputation of being as good a speaker as a writer, but at a felicitation function at Abbotsbury in Chennai for state assembly speaker C P Adithanar, his extravagant remarks were construed by ruling party volunteers as an insult to DMK founder Anna. He was belaboured by them and his car vandalised. There was also an incident in Hong Kong in which actor M G Ramachandran is said to have attempted to assault Tamilvanan in Hong Kong when the latter called on him at his hotel. MGR was apparently angry about more than one thing Tamilvanan had written about him: That he was an ageing hero and that he was not a good politician.Tamilvanan also proved successful as a fiction writer in the genre of detective novels. He created the character Sankarlal, the Tamilised version of Sherlock Holmes, and had him work out his skills of detection in exotic countries and climes, marshalling to good effect the knowledge of various foreign locations he had gained during his wide travels.Tamilvanan had even written a book on how to live to a hundred. Sadly, he lived to just cross fifty. Yet, in an extraordinary continuation of his legacy, his elder son Lena Tamilvanan carried on his father’s work as editor of Kalkandu for more than four decades after his untimely death, while his younger son Ravi Tamilvanan has expanded the publishing house.‘MASTER OF ALL’Ramanathan of Devakottai, while learning Tamil under the savant Thiru Vi Ka, came across the word ‘Vaanan’ and named himself Tamilvanan with the latter’s approvalMade and sold products like ‘Tamil Toothpowder’ and medicinal oils for shoulder pain and joint painEstablished a publishing house in the name of his wife Manimekalai. With the reputation of being a ‘master of all subjects’, he wrote books on a wide range of subjects which sold wellIn the pushback against Ma Po Si’s glorification of Kattabomman in the 1950s and early 1960s, Tamilvanan portrayed the Poligar as a plundering dacoitTried his hand in the world of films, dubbing six other-language films into Tamil. He wrote the story and dialogues and produced ‘Kaadhalikka Vaanga’ (1972); it was his last(The writer has authored several books on cinema)
