A ‘budding’ poet one day walked into my office at the
Express Estates, Mount Road
with a big dream. He wanted to translate the works of Michel Foucault into
Tamil, and he wanted to know whether the New Sunday Express (the Sunday paper
of the New Indian Express where I worked from 2000 to 2010) would carry it. It was a shocking news to me, as I was struggling with the French philosopher’s “The History of
Sexuality” then. How would this gentleman translate Foucault into Tamil?, I
wondered. I didn’t want to disappoint him. I told him I would check it with the
editor and get back. I never told the matter to the editor. He neither reminded
me about it, as poetry and short stories overtook Foucault in our later
conversations. One day, he came to see me with a file full of sketches and a
book. Titled “World’s Great Short Stories”, the book was an anthology of
selected short stories written by some of the best authors of world literature.
“Sir, this is for you. Please keep it,” he said. He soon opened the file and
took out a set of sketches. “I am coming from Adimoolam sir’s house. He was
busy when I met him in the morning. The table was full of papers with
unfinished sketches. I am lucky. He has given me some good ones that he
finished in the morning,” he said.
“Why don’t you keep some with you?,” he asked, and handed over
some sketches to me. I never met that 'budding' poet after that.
Even though I knew K M
Adimoolam as a popular abstract artist, I never got a chance to see his works. So
I kept the sketches in a new file and thought I would frame them whenever I
could find time. Years passed, and I shifted four houses with the file. When
Adimoolam died in 2008, I took out the sketches from the file to see whether
they were safe. Bhima, a boy with a lantern, a deer and a man with a bird…They
were all fine. Although I found a safe place for the sketches near the
bookshelf, I didn’t make any attempt to frame them.
It was only when my seven-year-old started drawing a pumpkin
on a paper which had dark sketch marks on the other side I decided to frame the
sketches that the 'budding' poet gifted me in 2001. I didn’t shout at Mihika, my daughter, for scribbling on an important
piece of art because it was I who had told her to use one-sided paper for her
painting exercises. She didn’t want to return the paper as she almost finished
drawing the pumpkin. For her, only the pumpkin side was important. So she kept
on arguing for the pumpkin and, I, for the deer on the other side. Finally, I somehow
managed to get the deer from her.
I don’t remember the face of
the budding poet, but I still remember him for the sketches and
Foucault-factor. A week ago, I tried to remember his name. No idea. Called a
friend and former colleague, who responded positively: “Shanmugha Sundaram?”. I
was surprised. “I haven’t forgotten the name because it's a nice name,”
he said.
I don’t know whether Shanmugha Sundaram had translated the works of
Foucault into Tamil. But I have done my job. I got the four sketches framed
today, thanks to SS and Adimoolam sir.
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