Tamil writer Devibharathi on his Sahitya Akademi Award-winning novel

Devibharathi's Neervazhi Padooum, winner of Sahitya Akademi Award 2023, is a story of the people of Udayampalayam, their struggles & virtue.

Udayampalayam’s nights were meant for stories. When Devibharathi visited the village during his summer holidays, his periamma (aunt) would spread a mat on the floor at bedtime, and tell the children stories. She told a variety of them: of a mosquito and fox that got married and a tree on whose branches sprouted clothes. The children would howl with laughter at the atrocious things periamma made up. But there was one thing she did not tell them: her story.

Neervazhi Padooum is that story — of the people of Udayampalayam in Tiruppur district near Coimbatore, of Kaaru mama, of Devibharathi’s mother and father. The novel recently won the Sahitya Akademi Award 2023 for Tamil.

The 65-year-old author who lives in Pudhu Vengaraiyampalayam in Tiruppur, speaks to us over phone in between a string of interviews. Devibharathi, whose given name is Rajasekaran, has been writing novels, short-stories, poetry, and political essays since the 1980s.

He says that the opinion ‘The most personal is the most creative’ (popularised by filmmaker Bong Joon-Ho’s Oscar speech), is not always true. “A writer’s job is to find out about lives he knows nothing of,” he says, stating examples of his political novel Natraj Maharaj and the deeply-researched Noyyal, which spans 100 years.  “Neervazhi Padooum is my only novel that can be termed somewhat personal,” he adds.

The novel’s central characters are his mother, father, uncle, and aunt. “It is the story of the people of Udayampalayam, their lives, their little battles, what they achieve in life, what they do not…more than anything, it holds at its core a sense of virtue that some characters uphold in the end,” says the author, adding that among his favourite characters is Savithri, who is based on his real-life childhood friend.

Writing it took the author back in time to relive the struggles of his ancestors. Pain is a recurring theme in his work. “Pain forms the crux of my writing, and world over, writers continue to be inspired by pain of the human condition. I think pain is the core of existence,” he says.

The Kongu landscape he is part of, inspires Devibharathi. “Udayampalayam, for instance, the village where my grandfather grew up, has a dialect, culture, and tradition unique to the region,” he points out, adding that for any work of literature to be effective, it has to be rooted to people’s culture.