In the Hindu magazine, Ashokamitran has a piece about a mysterious telegram that Thi Jaa sent him:
On 20th August 1982, I received a telegram from Tiruvarur, a town then in Thanjavur District, Tamil Nadu. “Urgent meet my wife and brother waiting TNagar boarding point for 558 bus between 21 15 and 21 45 hours tonight ask them cancel journey eviction postponed – T Janakiraman.”
As usual, it wasn’t the best of times for me. But T. Nagar bus boarding point wasn’t too far away. It had been some years since I had seen Janakiraman’s wife. And, of course, I had no idea about his brother. Janakiraman had moved to Delhi quite some time ago. Obviously he was now in the south as his telegram revealed. If his wife was to take a bus at T. Nagar, she must have been staying at some friend or relation’s house in Chennai. Why did Janakiraman send the telegram to me?
In the process of answering the question, he has several interesting things to say about Thi. Jaa., that I did not know till now:
He had translated two books on difficult topics like astronomy and atomic physics. He had also compiled an anthology of Tamil poetry in English translation.
But Janakiraman’s forte was the short story. He had the distinction of being serialised in translation in The Illustrated Weekly of India, then considered “almost a Nobel Prize!” He startled R.K. Narayan during a live radio broadcast that he never revised or took a second look at his manuscripts.
A very nice piece (much better than a recent one he wrote about A K Ramanujan). Take a look!
Tags: Thi Jaa
