Once An Actress (Oru Nadikai Naadakam Parkiral)

By Dr.K.S.Subramanian

Dr.K.S.Subramanian (1937) belongs to the Thirunelveli District of Tamil Nadu and presently lives in Chennai. He has Masters Degrees in Physics, History, and Business Management and a Doctorate in Public Administration. He served the Government of India (IRAS) from 1960 to 1975 and the Asian Development Bank from 1975 to 1998, retiring as a Director. Since his return to India in 1998, he has been involved in literary and social pursuits. He has translated more than 30 Tamil literary works into English. The translations cover 11 novels, 7 novellas, 3 collections of short stories, 7 anthologies of Poetry (including about eighty Sangam Poems). He has also translated a large number of collected essays covering literary and socio-economic themes as also biographical and autobiographical works. He has translated more than 40% of Subramania Bharathiar’s poetic corpus as a part of the proposed Sahitya Akademi publication of the entire works of Bharathi in English translation. His translations have been published by Sahitya Akademi, Macmillan, Katha, East-West Books, New Horizon, Tamil University, International Institute of Tamil Studies, Central Institute of Indian Languages, Kanaiyazhi Pathippagam and others. He has presented a sizeable number of Papers in Tamil and in English in different fora. These include Papers on eminent creative writers of Tamil such as Subramania Bharathi, Na.Pichamurthy, Laa.Sa.Ramamirtham, Thi. Janakiraman, Ka.Naa. Subramanyam, Asokamithran, Jayakanthan, Venkat Samnathan, Sirpi Balasubramaniam, Erode Thamizhanban and others. The papers also encompass literature – society interface and development – humanism challenges. He was the compiling editor of Jayakanthan Reader, one of the pioneering efforts in this genre in Tamil. He has collated and brought out seminal articles of the Father of India’s Green Revolution, C.Subramaniam ( a Bharath Ratna Honouree), published by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. Seven volumes of his Tamil articles and Papers have been published, covering literary, social and developmental themes. He has received a few awards in the field of literary translation. He is a trustee of National Agro Foundation involved in comprehensive rural development, and also a trustee of MOZHI Trust, a resource centre of Tamil language and culture. He is a former member of the Tamil Advisory Board of Sahitya Akademi.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pustaka Digital Media
• Release date: Mar 16, 2016
• ISBN: 6580208301091

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Once an Actress

Author :

Jayakanthan

Translated by:

K.S.Subramanian

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About the author

Jayakanthan (b 1934) is known for his original thinking and thought-provoking ideas. A prolific writer, he has two autobiographies, biographies, several novels and novellas, anthologies of short stories and essays to his credit. He is a Jnanpith Award-winner—a major literary distinction in India– and a recipient of the Chennai Samskrita Academy award. His novels and short stories often have characters drawn from the lower echelons of life, brought to life by his sensitive treatment. ‘However lowly and decadent the affairs I take up for depiction in my story, I tend to place special emphasis on whatever is elevating and meaningful for life embedded in them. I sing of the glory of life.'

About the translator

Dr K S Subramanian, born in 1937, has known the author Jayakanthan for about four decades and translated many of his works. A senior bureaucrat with the Government of India, he served with the Asian Development Bank in Manila for over 20 years. He has published several pieces in Tamil on social, developmental and literary issues.

Table of content:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Glossary

Chapter 1

He was expected only at four but Kalyani was ready at three-thirty. She did not want to meet him alone, so she had asked Annasami to drop in at half past three.

She sat on a rattan chair in the front verandah waiting for Annasami and indulging in her usual pastime of enjoying the sight of the children playing in the nursery school opposite her house.

The nursery school was surrounded by white and violet bougainvillaea shrubs around bamboo and wood frames; a modest compound wall; children played on the slides and seesaws like animated bouquets, spilling laughter and cheer. Kalyani watched the children with joy and longing, smiling and occasionally sighing with a heavy heart. From time to time, she craned her neck and looked eagerly towards the end of the street, secretly anxious that Annasami should arrive before the other visitor did.

She wanted Annasami to be present at her first meeting with him, perhaps because deep in her heart, she hoped subconsciously that this would be the first of many meetings. She could not figure out if it was her instinct of self-protection or her fears that prompted her feelings. As she sat there unable to fathom her feelings, she hoped there would be many more such meetings with him.

She could never figure out the depth of her feelings. Life's experiences had taught her many things and, at some point, had made her realise that she was not what she thought she was.

She did not quite know herself. She carried unavoidable burdens—her desires, her ideals, her joys and her tastes.

Completing school; her job as a clerk in a government office for a monthly salary of a hundred rupees; being attracted to music and dance; displaying her talent and winning appreciation; luxuriating in such admiration as her life's goal; hoping to become a film star—at her mother's prodding; deriving pleasure every time she had ‘make-up' applied to her face; her realisation that all this was a delusion but not knowing what reality and her true 'self' were... it was all part of an eternal search to see if there was at all something elusive that could give her a sense of satisfaction and fulfilment. She spent hours on end in silence, turning over such thoughts. On occasion, she found her behaviour and mental state strange, defying understanding.

She had not told Annasami the name of the visitor. Had he known that, Annasami might have refused to join them—she was almost sure of that. She had written a letter to him to dispel the mindless animosity that had developed between him and Annasami and establish a bridge of understanding between the two.

It was only through Annasami that she had met him for the first time. A warmth spread through her as she recalled the meeting. She appeared to be enjoying the sight of the children frolicking in the school playground but she was actually recalling the scene at the auditorium one evening, last month.

A few minutes were left for the bell to go and the play to start; suddenly there was a commotion caused by a loud exchange between Annasami and him; she stopped applying her make-up and rushed out to witness the spat through a hole in the screen that covered one side of the stage.

In many auditoriums, there are several such holes in the curtains on either side of the stage. It is anybody's guess if the holes develop naturally through wear and tear or have been made on purpose for people to look through them; they are the windows through which the artistes can get a glimpse of the audience and their response.

Just as the audience enjoyed the performance of the actors, the actors too savoured the appreciation of the audience. In fact, the actors derived greater pleasure in watching the audience's reaction than the audience did in watching the play. What was a play without audience appreciation?

Annasami, the founder of Kalyani Art Centre, would peer through one of these holes and try to size up the general mood of the audience before the start of the play.

The actors would also catch a variety of sights through the slits in the curtains: they would check out the dignitary presiding over the day's play; the special invitees sitting in the front rows; film producers watching plays in search of stories they could adapt to the screen; movie directors who make stars; stars who make directors; friends from other drama troupes watching the success of the play with envy; and above all, the members of the audience applauding the performance or expressing their disapproval by blowing whistles or by mimicking the dialogues.

These slits were also the windows to the emotions the audience displayed while expressing their appreciation... emotions they might hide or disown later for reasons of their own.

Annasami observed the audience most of the time except when he had to play his part in a scene. Sometimes he would rush in to share the appreciation of the audience with Kalyani.

‘That actor gave such a touching performance in Scene 8 and somebody in the audience burst into tears and wiped his eyes with his hanky...' He would promptly relay such details to Kalyani.

It was quite useful for Annasami to peep through the holes and register the positive reactions of the critics and other worthies in the audience; he could use that to confront them if they later found fault with the play or wrote adverse reviews in contrast to their actual response during the performance. It helped him to identify such people and dismiss them as false or perverse characters. It also helped him to console himself.

Kalyani would also look through these holes—rarely though—to see if there was any shouting or commotion among the audience.

* * *

That evening, last month, when she met him for the first time...

Kalyani was half way through her make-up in the green room, unhurriedly getting ready for her appearance in the third scene when she heard the commotion in the auditorium. Applying her lipstick without any sense of urgency, she tried to spot through the mirror, if Annasami was around—to ask him to find out what the matter was and sort things out. He was not there. But in the midst of the din outside, she could hear Annasami's booming salvos in English drowning everything else.

So she rushed through the passageway to the stage and looked inside the auditorium through one of the holes in the screen, to the left of the stage.

There she saw Annasami—his bag tucked under his arm and, not even noticing that his towel, usually draped on the shoulder, had fallen down, he was waving his hands furiously and yelling at somebody. He seemed to be foaming at the mouth and it was difficult to figure out what he was saying. Twenty to thirty people surrounded them. All those who had assembled to witness the play were gradually moving towards the scene of the commotion.

Kalyani stood close to the screen, cupping her ears, to make sense of what was happening through all the din. If sound rises above a pitch or drops below a particular level, clarity becomes a casualty! Eventually, out of the melee of sound, this was what she could gather of Annasami's words.

"All because you have a pen in your hand, should you be writing whatever you please? Then others too can attack you with whatever they can lay their hands on. As a critic, should you not restrict your comments to the play? Why write things about a person's life outside the theatre? You may as well report for a yellow journal. What the hell do you know about drama? I have been in this field for thirty years. You are a mere infant, a toddler; you were not even born when I started out. You have the cheek to come here! Did you imagine we'd take whatever drivel you dished out, out of fear that you were a critic?...Get out.'

Annasami was holding forth in flawless English.

Kalyani looked at the person at the receiving end of Annasami's attack. He was standing there calm and unruffled. She could clearly hear his words, marked by poise and assurance.

Okay. What do you want me to do?

Annasami responded to this question by jumping up and down and yelling some more. Apologise! Apologise! These words rang out through the surrounding commotion.

Kalyani wondered why Annasami was telling the entire world that the man should apologise.

But the man held his hands across his chest and asked Annasami: 'If I don't...?'

Again, there was more shouting. She made some sense of the words that filtered through the noise:

I can drag you to court and claim damages. I'll have you sacked from your job. Do you know whom you're dealing with?

The man picked Annasami's towel from the ground, handed it over to him, and said: Good. Do it. You've asked me to get out. I'm leaving.

When he turned to leave, Kalyani thought that was the end of the controversy.

However, four or five persons rallied behind the man. Possibly, they were journalists like him. They started yelling at decibel levels well over Annasami's. However hard she tried, Kalyani could not pick up even one word from all the shouting.

Suddenly the crowd started swelling and the commotion increased. The crowd polarised into two groups—one on Annasami's side and the other in support of the journalists.

Kalyani worried that the clash might turn ugly and violent.

The stage workers, the musicians, the organisers of the event, and the actors—except those who had already put on make-up for the first scene—came together in support of Annasami and participated in the melee.

Kalyani thought that it might be necessary for her to go on to the stage with her partial make-up and appeal for calm; she removed the silk scarf she had tied above her forehead in a triangle. This proved unnecessary.

Without the support of the stage and the mike, the man climbed on to a chair and appealed for calm; the appeal rang out like a command.

Nothing serious has happened here. Please go back to your seats. The first bell has gone. The play is about to start. He calmed down those in the back rows who were standing in an agitated mood. Then he went to his journalist friends, put his arms around them and pacified them. He told the musicians and the stage workers rather sternly: Get back to work.

Annasami, who had been shouting and jumping around all the while, was perturbed that the matter had assumed such proportions. As if making peace with him, the man dragged Annasami behind the stage and said: Come on. Let us talk it over inside.

Kalyani, who was watching the entire scene from behind the screen, rushed to the make-up room and resumed her seat in front of the mirror. She pulled up the scarf and tied it in place like a Crown above her forehead.

As if totally unaware of what had happened and as if she had not seen even a little bit of it, she applied lipstick; then she saw in the mirror Annasami and the man entering the room.

The man was telling Annasami: ‘Sir! If you had used one harsh word against me in private, or if I had done likewise, it would have been a matter only between the two of us. Because you shouted at me 'Get out' in the presence of so many, they treated it as an affront to journalists. I am really sad that I was the cause of this ugly scene. Ask them to ring the second bell. Let the play start. I have some other work. Sir, you must take these things sportingly."

The man sent Annasami away, sat on a chair in the corner, and lit a cigarette.

Under the pretext of lining her eyes and eyebrows that had already been tidied up, Kalyani watched the two, without their knowledge.

Annasami was anxious to order the second bell to be rung and to stand near the stage for the actors to pay the customary namaskarams to him.

But before he moved on, he held the man's hands and said, Mister Ranga. Please don't go. I'll be back in a minute. He seemed totally transformed.

Kalyani knew all about Annasami's short-lived temper tantrums and smiled to herself. She had half-registerd the man's name while Annasami was speaking to him. Turning over that name again in her mind, she had a good look at him through the mirror and realised with a chuckle, "Oh! You're that Ranga!'

She had heard a lot about Ranga—Rangasami.

* * *

Ranga was associated with a large company, the market leader in publishing daily newspapers and weekly and monthly journals in a number of languages. He was a well-known name among the vast number of Tamil readers of his company's publications.

He had made a name for himself about ten years ago, through the stories he wrote for some time in a Tamil weekly journal published by that group. He had then joined the journal as its Assistant Editor. His stories instantly attracted praise, then the praise began to be laced with criticism; later on, they received condemnation, and finally they faced a ban from the publisher.

Kalyani had not known that he had stopped writing fiction. She used to be very fond of his stories. She was then working as a clerk in a government department.

His name used to appear in the other sections of the journal and she knew that it was the same writer making other contributions to the journal. For a long time afterwards, she did not see his stories.

At that stage, he had become a dreaded political journalist—he had the uncanny ability to draw comments and remarks from the big political leaders through clever interrogation and land them in embarrassing situations.

There was no reason for her to have been aware of this aspect; it was not her field of interest.

During the press meets of the visiting political leaders, his loaded questions and his clever manoeuvres that would deny them escape routes had endowed him with a star-value among his journalist colleagues. He was an adept at trapping the bigwigs and cornering them into making indiscreet observations.

After seeing the banner headline in the next day's newspaper, the leaders would rush to issue their denials! He magnanimously published those denials too with due prominence.

At the end of the press conference, he would tell his colleagues to expect a denial from the leader the next day. And it would be a double victory for him when the denial came in!

On many occasions, he had been instrumental in precipitating major political controversies. Many leaders had shouted at him in a manner totally unbecoming of their stature. Some dignitaries would frown with displeasure when they saw him. On such occasions, he would feel satisfied that he had had an opportunity to understand their true nature. Even if a leader insulted him or was infuriated with him, he would stand his ground with a smile, as if saying, ‘I am a journalist. All these are just news items to me.' Without a trace of irritation at their behaviour, he would raise his questions calmly and with a sense of duty. Therefore, some leaders would try to cajole him and ingratiate themselves with him.

A sense of integrity and fair play with no specific party loyalty, and a self-confidence and freedom of spirit not influenced by any cajoling—these may be essential qualities for a journalist in America or Britain. But, in India and particularly in Tamil Nadu, whenever there was even a minor indication that some journalists possessed these qualities, they would pay for it—with trouble coming from unknown quarters.

Ranga had paid such a price by losing his job as a reporter two years earlier. Unable to resist the pressure from very "exalted’ quarters, the owner of the publication in which Ranga worked, had to act. But not having the heart to lose the services of a person of Ranga's competence and commitment, the owner prevailed upon him to work as the publication's art critic. He had no idea that the world of art and culture—as much as, if not more than the world of politics—was a hotbed of prejudices, unhealthy patronage and unseemly pressures.

But as far as Ranga was concerned, the loss was not his.

Kalyani knew that the storywriter Ranga had started working as an art critic in the same journal. During the same period, Kalyani had resigned her government job and become a full-time actress. She felt a strange affinity for him for having shifted to a job associated with her own field.

But she had not met him face to face so far, nor was she bothered about whether he was a young man or an elderly person. She had never allowed her mind to wander along those lines. Mention of his name only brought to her mind some of his play reviews, words he had used, words that would plunge and pierce the reader's hearts; and some of the stories he had written ten years earlier.

His comment about Annasami as ‘an amateur officer' had gained