Tamil cultural history through a translation of U Ve Sa’s essays

Chennai-based historian and behaviourist Pradeep Chakravarthy on writing history for the modern age

Pradeep Chakravarthy first chanced upon history when rootling through the junk in his ancestral house in Palayamkottai as a child. “I was born in that house and although I was raised in Madras, I spent my childhood summers there. The upper storey of that house in which nearly six generations of my family had lived was filled with old books, toys and clothes. The pages had notes filled with old fading ink, the clothes smelt of another time, the toys of a simpler childhood. It got me interested in the past. I have loved history as a kid and it has never been boring or irrelevant to me; it is something I want to tell the young about. More so in these times,” says Pradeep.

In the quest of taking history to the young, Pradeep has two books that were recently launched. The first is Essays of U Ve Sa – The Man Who Revived Ancient Tamil Literature (published by Niyogi Books), a co-translation from Tamil with Prabha Sridevan, retired judge of the Madras High Court. The book is part of the ‘Taking Tamil to the World’ project by the Tamil Nadu Textbook and Educational Services Corporation and private publishers to promote the rich literary history and culture of Tamil Nadu, and was released at the Chennai Book Fair last week. The second is Leadership Shastra (published by Westland) that looks at leadership lessons from 14 historical personalities of medieval India.

“I wanted to look at history beyond dead rulers and the battles they fought. Human nature does not change, our needs have not changed although the context may have. Leadership Shastra is a slim book that aims to improve our performance at home and work through lessons from rulers such as Ahilyabai Holkar, Jahanara, Babur, Serfoji II and Shivaji and the kings of the Ahom dynasty of whom much is not known. I wrote the book, after extensive readings of history tomes, both old and new. We have to draw from the past, to understand the present, to change the future,” says Pradeep who is pursuing a doctoral thesis on the administrative guilds and the place of women in the Pandyan kingdom through temple inscriptions.

Sangam literature is a cultural landmark of the Tamil people. UV Saminatha Iyer, popularly known as U Ve Sa, who lived from the mid-19th to mid-20th Century was known as ‘Tamil thatha’ (Tamil grandfather) and is credited with painstakingly collating, editing and publishing most of the Sangam literature which was found as palm manuscripts and was scattered across the Madras Presidency. U Ve Sa’s translations written with scholarly vigour tell the epics, especially Silapathikaram and Manimekalai without grandiose language, all the while remaining loyal to the original text.

“I wanted to translate U Ve Sa’s autobiography En Sarithram. But that had already been done and when I met Prabha ma’am we decided to do his essays Naan Kandathum Kethathaum. Our history of the period is mostly from the eyes of Westerners, and not much is known about the daily lives of people. Translating his essays gave us a treasure trove of human interest stories,” says Pradeep. In a recent webinar that discussed the book Prabha had said, “We became the richer for doing this.”

The authors picked a set of essays, translating from two volumes each, peppered with fun anecdotes of U Ve Sa’s days as a teacher and researcher in Madras and other scholarly essays on women in ancient Tamil Nadu, Tamil and music. “Many of the essays are humorous,” says Pradeep, adding, “We have kept it in language simple enough to read without taking away the power of his voice.”

Translations are our guides to another time and territory. This one hopes to guide the modern reader.