சுப்ரபாரதிமணியன் திருப்பூரை சேர்ந்தவர். சிறுகதை , நாவல், கட்டுரைகள் , கவிதைகள் என தமிழிலக்கியத்தின் பலதளங்களில் கடந்த முப்பது வருடங்களாகத் தீவிரமாக இயங்கி , அனைவராலும் அறியப்பட்ட ஒரு படைப்பாளி்,இந்திய முன்னாள் குடியரசு தலைவர் வழங்கிய கதாவிருது தமிழக அரசின் சிறந்த நாவல் ஆசிரியர் விருது உட்பட பல்வேறு விருதுகளையும் பரிசுகளையும் பெற்றுள்ளார். திருப்பூர் பகுதியில் குழந்தை தொழிலாளர் ஒழிப்பு, பெண்களை சுரண்டும் சுமங்கலி திட்டத்தை ஒழிப்பது ,நொய்யலை பாதுகாப்பது போன்ற பல்வேறு சமூக பிரச்சினையிலும் அக்கறை கொண்டவர் ,15 நாவல்கள் 15 சிறுகதை தொகுப்புகள் ,கட்டுரைத் தொகுப்புகள் உட்பட 50 நுல்கள் வெளியிட்டுள்ளார் கனவு என்ற இலக்கிய இதழை 30 ஆண்டுகளாக நடததுகிறார் திருப்பூர் தாய்தமிழ் பள்ளியோடு இணைந்து பணியாற்றுகிறார். தொலை பேசித்துறையில் உதவி கோட்ட பொறியாளராய் பணியாற்றியவர். வலைப்பதிவாக்கம் சுந்தரக்கண்ணன்
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வலைபதிவை வாசிக்க வந்த‌ உங்களை வணங்கி வரவேற்கின்றேன் -----------------------------
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கதா பரிசு "92"- இந்தியாவின் பல்வேறு மொழியின் சிறந்த சிறுகதை எழுத்தாளர்களுக்கான "கதா-92" பரிசை தமிழ் எழுத்தாளர்கள் சுப்ரபாரதிமணியன், ஜெயமோகன் பெற்றிருக்கிறார்கள். டெல்லி ராஷ்டிரபதி பவனில் நடைபெற்ற பரிசளிப்பு விழாவில் ஜனாதிபதி சங்கர் தயாள் சர்மா இந்திய மொழிகளின் பல்வேறு எழுத்தாளர்களுக்கு பரிசு வழங்கினார். அவ்விழாவில் எம்.டி. வாசுதேவன் நாயர், என்.எஸ். மாதவன் (மலையாளம்), வைதேகி, விவேக் ஷான்பாக் (கன்னடம்), ரெண்டல நாகேஸ்வரராவ் (தெலுங்கு) மற்றும் 12 மொழிகளின் எழுத்தாளர்களுக்கும் இப்பரிசு வழங்கப்பட்டது. "கதா பரிசுக் கதைகள்" என்ற ஆங்கில நூலை மத்தியச் சுற்றுலாத் துறை அமைச்சர் பரூக் மரக்காயர் வெளியிட்டார். அந்த ஆங்கிலத் தொகுப்பில் பரிசு பெற்றப் படைப்பாளிகளின் சிறுகதைகள் இடம் பெற்றிருக்கின்றன. சுப்ரபாரதிமணியனின் "இடம்", ஜெயமோகனின் "ஜகன் மித்யை" கதைகளின் ஆங்கில மொழிபெயர்ப்புகளும் இடம் பெற்றுள்ளன. அப்படியே எழுத்தில் கொண்டு வந்து விட முடியாது. அதற்கென்று ஒரு ஒழுங்கமைவு தேவைப்படுகிறது. இந்த ஒழுங்கமைவிற்கு தயார்படுத்திக் கொள்வது அவசியமாகிறது. அதுவும் எழுதத் தொடங்குவதற்கான ஒழுங்கமைவில் இந்த முயற்சி முக்கியப் பங்காகி விடுகிறது. வார்த்தைகளின் ஒழுங்கமைவும், மொழியின் இயல்பும் பொருந்தி வருகிற போதே ஒருவன் எழுத ஆயத்தம் செய்து கொள்ளலாம். அதற்காகக் காத்திருக்கிற 'தவம்' அர்த்தமற்றதாகக் கூட அமைந்து விடுகிறது.தில்லி தமிழ்ச்சங்கம் ஒரு பாராடு விழாவை நட்த்தியது. அதில் நானும் உரையாற்றினேன்.---------------- சுப்ரபாரதிமணியன் -




வெள்ளி, 9 மே, 2008

The Missing Files


Translated by

Krishnamoorthy S
You may perhaps be the person who would join me for a drink today. I am very happy to have met you. But I do not see any arrangement for serving drinks. We have arrived at a wrong time. Of course this happens with people who are excited and restless.

The work of cleaning the chairs and tables is in progress. Their shine dazzles the eyes. It seems as if we have worn spectacles that magnify light manifold. They may become dirty and lose their purity in the course of tonight’s stumbling and tottering. The girl who squirts the cleaning liquid on the table looks out of place in this shop. Her irregular-shaped face is not one to attract attention. She may take some more time to complete this purity-ritual. Let us sit at one of the cleaned tables till then.

I shall ask you later what drink you would like to have. I just need some drink to dissolve myself in it; it does not matter what kind of drink it is. I need this to lose myself for a few hours and ensure my sleep with tightly closed eyes so that I may not be woken up by fearful dreams.

Who is going to serve us drinks? No girls, like the one who is cleaning the tables, have yet been appointed as waiters. The owner of this joint was speaking yesterday as if it was his cherished aim to have this managed only by girls. It is difficult to select suitable girls for this purpose. If you know of any girls with ability and enthusiasm for this work, you may recommend them to the owner.

The snowfall outside makes us shiver. I think that is only the fear of being dissolved or completely enveloped in the snow that has made me and you enter the pub.

Moments, which strive hard to lose themselves, make their appearance from time to time. So does the exhaustion in the course of searching for missing persons. This morning, I had gone to a government office in search of a friend of mine who is missing. The officer said that the file relating to my friend was completely lost. He said that there was no need for me to come again as the file was lost. He said that it was my duty to search for the missing file in addition to my search for my missing friend.

I used to meet my friend in the evenings at the petty shop owned by his father at the corner of the south street. Being a chain-smoker, he would be always having something lighted between his lips. I don’t like smoking. I do not understand what pleasure there is in smoking. My friend would say that one could feel the pleasure of nicotine when one inhales the smoke and fills one’s lungs with it. But to me to smoke is like keeping a piece of thin stick between one’s lips. Do you smoke? At midnight this pub would look as if it is enveloped in snow. It seems that lovers of drinks are mostly lovers of smoking also. If you like to smoke now, go ahead, I have no objection. Perhaps you favour only filter-cigarettes like my friend.


One evening I was little late in reaching the petty shop. The streets were almost empty, as most of the shops in the town had drawn their shutters. Only in that shop, rather unusually, a shutter-door was kept half-open

My friend was smoking his favorite cigarette. Tension has been created in the town as a petrol bomb had been thrown in some locality. He had not finished his cigarette when a military van which came there pulled him inside. I saw this as I was approaching the shop. I hurried and broke into a run to reach the van, but stopped short as if remembering military procedures. The speeding van became a dot at a distance and then disappeared.

My friend’s father was hurriedly closing the single open door. He was in a weepy mood. His trembling could not manage to lock the door properly. I took the bunch of keys from him and locked the door. He was on the point of crying loudly. He stammered out one word at a time.

“Let me go to the police station and find out what the matter is. They have perhaps taken him for some routine enquiry” I said.

“The times when people were taken to the police station are over. Nowadays the army is everywhere. We have to go to the army camp only. Let me also come.’

It was not easy to dissuade him from coming with me. You know how difficult it is to manage an old man who is nervous. I shook myself off from him and went to the army camp. The name of the camp was ‘Vasantam.’ There I told the soldier that I had come in search of a friend. It appeared that I could not get past the stiff demeanour of the soldier. He told me that all those that had been arrested recently had been put up in another camp named ‘Vasantam-2.’ The name ‘Vasantam’ tickled me. I felt like laughing loudly uttering ‘Vasantam, Vasantam.’ (Vasantam means the spring season.) The ‘Vasantam-2’ camp was fenced in by a thick row of soldiers. I could get in only in my fourth attempt.

At one stage they said that the army had not arrested any such person. They asked me to report him at the police station as missing. A file was opened in his name in a state government office also. It was a rare photograph that was pasted in this file. The photograph showed him wearing a rose in bloom on his shirt on which were printed the words “Towards Vasantam …” The background showed a hillside, bright green. My friend’s young wife had parted with the photograph as she was told that they required a photo of the person missing. She had given it knowing fully well that she would not get it back. If you were in her position you too would not have agreed to give it away. It was my friend’s wife’s favourite photograph.


When I met her once later and reminded her of that photograph she cried loudly. She said that the memory of her young husband would wake her up in the midst of sleep. Then she could not sleep and had to await the dawn, weeping. It was tragic that his face was slowly dissolving from her memory. She said that anyone who heard of this would think ill of her. When the heroines weep in our films the villain would say sarcastically that they look more beautiful when they cry. But when that young woman weeps narrating something about her husband, her face gets distorted and it pains one to see it. Have you enjoyed beautiful girls weeping or have you felt sorry for them…?

It is the lament of my friend’s mother that discourages me from visiting his house for some enquiry or information. She was affected with paralysis four years ago. Since then her face has become contorted. Two of her teeth at the corner of the mouth jut out of the lips. When she weeps her face would be distorted like the ugly howling of some animal. The cry she lets out beating her breasts would echo in the hills and cause more pain.

You may perhaps be familiar with the face of my friend’s father roaming the streets in search of his son, because he has wandered in all the streets. You might also have seen him searching - with sharp eyes, though he is old - for his son in the valley. While wandering in the dense forests of tall trees he would call his son’s name loudly in the midst of birdsong. If a human name is heard among the screeching and cooing of birds it may be my friend’s name, and the voice that calls the name may be his father’s.

Nowadays he opens his shop only rarely. He becomes agitated when policemen or soldiers buy things from the shop. Previously he would enquire about his son, sobbing. Nowadays he only looks at them silently, his lips trembling. The main reason for his nervousness may be the fact that the policemen and the soldiers buy only cigarettes mostly.

I have no objection to your smoking here. You are at liberty to smoke.

I too have often cried aloud at the height of intoxication thinking of my lost friend. I have also called his name loudly, wandering at the dead of night in streets where the army does not roam. Thousands of names, like my friend’s name, are floating in space. I think that the cries of their families are not much different from those of my friend’s family. There may even be some people known to you, who would be weeping beating their breasts for their missing family members. If you narrate their story it will be just a repeat of my story. People known to you may have been lost. Some may have been killed and thrown on the far-off streets. We may have no other information about some of them. It appears that it has become a routine matter of our lives to search for persons and missing files. If you think differently you may express your opinion freely.


We have reached the height of intoxication. Today it has become my great responsibility to escort you to your house. We may be able to totter to our destination even though the cold and the snow are very severe. We may proceed calling our friend’s name aloud. This would be a proper occasion to search for him.

I never imagined that you would slip so easily. Have you fallen down somewhere overcome by intoxication? … I cannot see you. Have you sunk or dissolved in the snow? … Anyhow, it appears that you too have been lost.

I feel somebody tugging at my shoulder. If it is some beautiful girl I shall be glad. Even if it be some prostitute, that too is a matter of consolation. I have sufficient money to share with her. But when I feel the strength of the hand that tightens on my shoulder, the thought occurs that it may belong to a soldier … I feel I am gradually becoming sober …