Puthumaipithan Enna Solgirar?

As usual, an introduction to something fresh is done by our teacher. One such idealistic influence on students like us was a freshener, the teacher introduced. We have a freshener in Tamil literature. He is called Puthumaipithan. The first respect I could give him is to remove the red line beneath his name by adding his name in the dictionary. This writer is a reformist. The writer became a very popular figure. In the life, he has led; he was blessed with the option to take his pen and paper to reform the country.

Puthumaipithan was the writer of the story, “Kadavulum Kanthaswami Pillaiyum” (God and Kandaswami Pillai). The story is about an indigenous doctor, Kanthaswami Pillai. Doctor Pillaivaal also runs a magazine based on health care. He is like a normal businessman. Note this. He is a just a business man and not a business doctor. Puthumaipithan is very careful not to make him a mercenary completely and not too generous as well. His ‘generous’ nature is found when he asks Kadavul to pay for his tea and the rikshakaran. He also faces a lot of mental conflicts, when he wants to go to his house. Kadavul too seems to be oblivious to the things that are associated with religion.

The integral part is the God’s audition. God is made to check in for an audition for the drama troupe. At last the owner of the troupe finds the ‘koothan’ (player in Tamil), God himself to be unfit for playing. This reminds us of the Charlie Chaplin fancy dress competition, in which Charlie Chaplin himself stood third. Puthumaipithan subtly shows that the world runs on fallacy and false masks.

Not only false masks were problems but the kid that is in the house. The kid asks the father for a gift. Pillai offers the grandfather as the gift. The child, Pillai and also Pillai’s wife show any symptom of xenophobia. They mingle with God. God becomes the only life time member of Pillai’s magazine. This figuratively means God too has gotten affected by the diseases that are created by man.

At last God flees away from the corrupted earth to lead a happy and contented life in the burial ground where he usually lives.

The story, “Paalvannam Pillai” is an awesome read for a reformist mind. A country that is very much interested in the veneration of women was forced to mislead women. Paalvannam Pillai is a clerk in a Government office. Puthumaipithan calls him “veetil Hitler veliyil poonai” (Hitler at house and a cat out). In this scenario all he does is to give him a situation where his wife is in need of milk for the children.

Pillai is not interested in family planning either. He has several number of kids at home. His wife is very weak due to continuous labours of delivery. She is a caring mother too. She could hardly speak to her husband, who would shout at her. Puthumaipithan calls her, “Paalvannam Pillaiyin manaivi” and not her name. This shows the rigidness in the family due to only men speaking. Identity crisis is well brought put.

Out of her maternal instinct, she buys a cow. To buy a cow, she pawns her bracelet. When Pillai comes back home, he finds the cow and gets annoyed. He sells the cow to Suppu Konar at a loss of five rupees to reveal the male chauvinism in the house.

That is how Puthumaipithan excels in his writing career. In the story, “Vellai Roja”, he presents Sarasu, a young widow, who is approached by a young reformist for marriage. Sarasu objects it. She dies the next day. This story is so subtle. The writer puts the characters in a nutshell bringing the extremities of the society. The society is very easily portrayed through the two characters in the story.

Alamu is a character that comes in the story, “Oru Naal Kalindhadhu”. The girl is little, who calls a friend of her dad, ‘pallu mama’. Pallu mama is a character, who offers the protagonist by the end, a penny. The girl rightfully calls him pallu mama because there is a bond among the people. A sensible person will never take a kid’s decent and kind interest in another way.

The plight of the character is very sorry. Being a writer, like Srinivasan in “Mr.Sampath: The Printer of Malgudi” by R.K.Narayan, faces financial shortages and a platform to exhibit his talent. Though the society was coming up in the standards of education, writers had a very bad time. This was also the time, the little magazines came up projecting writers.

In a reference to the art that is divine, Puthumaipithan offers a view in which art must not be encompassed in religion. This is a very forward thinking. Once my music teacher asked a great Saivite scholar, whether it was right for her  teach the Thevaram songs in a different ragam. He readily told that God would come down for the music rather than for the words. Such an art is divine itself. This becomes a theme for his work, “Sirpiyin Naragam”.

In his “Ahilyai Meendum kallanaal”, he brings into the minds of the readers, a conversation between Ahilyai and Sita Devi. Sita discloses her plight in the forest. Ahilyai regrets turning into a woman by the man, who has sent his wife into the woods. She then becomes a stone back. This does not show his atheism.

Through this story, he speaks of men, who speak of independence of other women but hold back their wives due to ego. Every writing those times had something to say for the current society. A man may support his sister’s education; he may raise his voice against his brother in law for beating his sister. Yet he will be the man, who does what the brother in law did to his sister, to his wife. However, the country is still progressing because of the sisterhood found among the women. Puthumaipithan brings out the reality, which is prevalent rather than the jokes on daughter in law and mother in law that are spun to win ten bucks in a jokes contest.

Such a freshener is not in our midst but there is an option of bringing his spirit in every living man. The only  thing is to follow, what is ideal as told by him.