Boy Who gives a True Picture of "Periyar"

[P_R]

Often antiquity is confused with greatness. There are some not so great literary works that have been celebrated in the past just for their antiquity and there are some really good works in the modern era lost amidst mediocrity. It must be considered that it is very difficult for a modern literary work to be named as a classic.

Well put. I see a similar analogy of regarding the intensity of ideology and literary merit in the Dravidian movement.

Heck, I vaguely remember reading a book that dismissed Bharathi's literary stature. Critiqued the lack of basic knowledge of grammar of Tamil poetry, unoriginal metaphors, inappropriate analogies and inconsistent expression. All this while acknowledging that he is an important Tamil thinker in the 20th century.

With my feeble skills of literary evaluation I find the critique harsh. But I was impressed by the separation of literary merit from the intensity of opinion. I am curious to know if many Dravidian litterateurs would pass muster.

Here I would also like to admit my considerable underexposure to the Dravidian literary giants. But I have made some attempts to prod through Anna's novels, Bharathidasan's Pandiyan Parisu, some poems of Suratha etc. I was quite underwhelmed.

I was particularly disappointed with Anna's writings - which I landed after reading a few of his impressive parliamentary speeches. I was only led to the conclusion that story-writing was not his line. Which is fine. But what concerns me is the laudatory statements made about his literary contributions. I try and subtract some measure of fulsome praise -which has come to become our cultural signature. Even after that I am still believe he is genuinely thought of as an important literary contributor to the movement. That leads to me view with suspcion the literary merits of a body of work, which - as I mentioned earlier - I am significantly underexposed to.

Which is why I want to know if I am missing something, as you make a strong statement like:

The blatant truth is that dravidian movement has been the major driving force behind modern tamil literature.