Writer R.K. Narayan once said he was never aware that he was using a different, foreign language because English came to him very easily. In a way, his statement is applicable to some of the great Tamil writers whose mother tongue was not Tamil. They chose to write and translate in Tamil. The trend could be traced to a few centuries earlier when missionaries, including Veeramamunivar (Constantine Joseph Beschi), Robert Caldwell, and G.U. Pope, and civil servants, like Francis Whyte Ellis, made a lasting contribution. “The list of such writers who have enriched modern Tamil literature is endless. Ku.Pa. Rajagopalan, Na. Pitchamoorthy, Ki. Rajanarayanan, Gnanakoothan, M.V. Venkatram, Thirulogaseetharam, Dileepkumar, Sukumaran, Athmanam, Jayamohan, Vimalathithamamallan, Nanjundan, Kriya S. Ramakrishnan, and Po. Velsamy are some of the writers whose mother tongue is not Tamil,” writes Aravindan in Kalachuvadu, the literary magazine which has profiled a few such writers.
Not limited to literature
The contribution of non-Tamil speakers is not confined to literature. Manayangath Subramanian Viswanathan, alias M.S. Viswanathan, fondly referred to as MSV, who dominated the Tamil film world for almost half-a-century as a music director was from Kerala. Barring a few, most of the playback singers are non-Tamils. T.M. Soundararajan, who lent his voice to the two top yesteryear heroes — M.G. Ramachandran (MGR) and Sivaji Ganesan — belonged to the Saurashtra community settled in Madurai. Leading playback singers P. B. Srinivas and ‘Paadum Nila’ S.P. Balasubramaniam (SPB) were from the neighbouring Andhra Pradesh. MSV was the one who offered SPB the opportunity to sing in Tamil films after he improved his Tamil accent.
