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.
Likewise, Telugu is the mother tongue of P. Susheela and S. Janaki, the two female playback singers who mesmerised generations of fans since the 1950s. Singers K.J. Yesudas, P. Jayachandran, and K.S. Chitra are from Kerala.
Cosmopolitan Presidency
Before Tamil Nadu (initially named Madras) came into being after reorganisation of States on linguistic lines in 1952, the Madras Presidency was cosmopolitan, as it comprised parts of Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka. Drawing of boundaries for States, however, could not produce fissiparous tendencies. A lot of people had migrated to the Tamil land when it was ruled by Mughals, Nayaks, and Marathas, and Tamil land had become a melting pot of cultures, politics, music, food, and cloth. The migrants adopted Tamil land as their own and blurred the line that separated them from the Tamil land through their contribution. It is more pronounced in language and literature.
“I disagree with the concept of mother tongue. I would rather call it a language of circumstances and compulsion. Though Urdu is my mother tongue, I am comfortable in Tamil and my language is strong and has depth because it was enriched by the reading of great literary works in Tamil,” says writer Kadarkarai, who has written and compiled volumes on Mahakavi Bharathiyar and Mahatma Gandhi. Kadarkarai is of the opinion that native speakers, more often than not, remain onlookers, while non-native speakers are impelled to explore. “Creativity has no language, and literature is above sectarian and puritanical ideas,” he says. It defies explanation why M.V. Venkatram, a Saurashtrian, leading a rich and comfortable life as a merchant of zari, decided to become a full-time writer in Tamil and then was forced to live in poverty. He won the Sahitya Akademi award for his novel Kathukal.
The second language
“Tamil became the second language of the Saurashtrians. Tamil occupied their conversation, thought, and writings. They have a respect for Tamil, bordering on fear, and it made them learn the language thoroughly,” says Suba Balakrishnan in the profile of M.V. Venkatram, a friend of T. Janakiraman and Karichan Kunju. Ki. Rajanarayanan never felt the compulsion to stick to Tamil grammar, a practice normally followed by non-Tamil speakers. “He could not read and write in Telugu, though it was his mother tongue. He wrote in a Tamil that came naturally to him and he succeeded in powerfully portraying the life of Karisal land,” writes S.A. Venkata Subburaya Nayakar.
Tulu was the mother tongue of translator and writer T.A. Srinivasan. Tulu is one of the Dravidian languages, which has no script. Though it is close to the Kannada land geographically, even the Kannadigas cannot understand Tulu. A lot of Tulu-speaking people settled in Kerala and Kanniyakumari district of Tamil Nadu. Masal dosa is their gift to Tamil Nadu, while Marathas introduced Sambar.
Poet Gnanakoothan, who famously said in one of his poems that “though Tamil is my breath, I will not breathe it down on others”, was a Kannadiga. Addressing a literary meeting at Kannada Sangh at T. Nagar, he made it clear to the organisers that he was representing the Tamil language. “I may be a Kannadiga, but was brought up by Tamil Nadu. The Tamil language brought me fame. I will read poetry only in Tamil,” poet Ravisubramanian recalls Gnanakoothan as saying. Tamil writer Dileepkumar’s mother tongue is Gujarati. “I am not entitled to any other identity than a Tamil writer, who developed love for modern Tamil literature and contributed to its development and spread,” he says in Kalachuvadu.
