Jewels of Triplicane .. .. Sahitya Academy winner Thiru TES Raghavan

 

Thiruvallikkeni aka Triplicane is a famed land…   It is a place where religion, nationalistic fervour, patriotism, sports, education and the individual dignity have interspersed for the benefit of the State and the larger interests of the Nation.

The place acquired its name from the famed temple pond ‘Kairavini’ – the pond of lilies – thus becoming ‘Thiru Allik Keni’ – the pond consisting of lily flowers.  Our lives dwell around the Great Sri Parthasarathi Swami which has existed for thousands of years, sung by  Sri  PeyAzhwar, Thirumazhisai Azhwar and Tirumangai Azhwar ~ with inscriptions  of Pallava King - Danti Varman dating (779-830).  

Triplicane houses some best historic educational institutions driving home the point of scholastic excellence for decades.   Triplicane was the seat of freedom struggle  Mahakavi Subrahmanya Bharathi lived in Triplicane and from this place freedom struggle germinated. Another jewel in the crown from Triplicane was Freedom fighter -  Theerar Sathyamoorthi, who represented Chennai and also was a Mayor.  The greatest Mathematician – Srinivasa Ramanujam lived in this great place. The patriarch of Tamil language – Shri U Ve Swaminatha Iyer taught at Presidency college and lived in Triplicane  .. .. and there are so many jewels, some of which have not had their due fame .. 

Today is another proud moment for Triplicane and we at SYMA feel doubly happy at the honour for the son of  recipient of a great award – S Parthasarathi, is a well known face in Triplicane and is a Committee-member, donor of SYMA !!

 

There are awards and there are awards of honour .. .. then there is one category whereby awards gets honour because of the recipients !  The Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, is an organisation dedicated to the promotion of literature in the languages of India.  Founded on 12 March 1954, it is supported by, though independent of, the Indian government. Its office is located in Rabindra Bhavan near Mandi House in Delhi. The Sahitya Akademi organises national and regional workshops and seminars; provides research and travel grants to authors; publishes books and journals, including the Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature; and presents the annual Sahitya Akademi Award of INR. 100,000 in each of the 24 languages it supports, as well as the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship for lifetime achievement.

The Sahitya Akademi Award is a literary honour in India, which the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, annually confers on writers of the most outstanding books of literary merit published in any of the 24 major Indian languages such as English, Bengali, Punjabi and the 22 listed languages in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution recognised by the Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi. Established in 1954, the award comprises a plaque and a cash prize of Rs.1,00,000/-  The award's purpose is to recognise and promote excellence in Indian writing and also acknowledge new trends. The annual process of selecting awardees runs for the preceding twelve months. The plaque awarded by the Sahitya Akademi was designed by the Indian film-maker Satyajit Ray.  Prior to this, the plaque occasionally was made of marble, but this practice was discontinued because of the excessive weight. During the Indo-Pakistan War of 1965, the plaque was substituted with national savings bonds.

Today’s news reads :  Politician-writer M Veerappa Moily and poet Arundhathi Subramaniam are among the 20 authors who received the Sahitya Akademi Award for 2020 at a ceremony here on Saturday. While Moily received the prestigious award for his epic poetry ''Sri Bahubali Ahimsadigvijayam'' in Kannada, Subramaniam won the award for her poetry collection, "When God is a Traveller", in English.

The other winners in poetry include Harish Meenakshi (Gujarati), Anamika (Hindi), RS Bhaskar (Konkani), Irungbam Deven (Manipuri), Rupchand Hansda (Santali), and Nikhileswar (Telugu). Nanda Khare (Marathi), Maheshchandra Sharma Gautam (Sanskrit), Imaiyam (Tamil) and Sri Hussain-ul-Haque bagged the award for their novels.

Apurba Kumar Saikia (Assamese), (late) Dharanidhar Owari (Bodo), (late) Hiday Koul Bharti (Kashmiri), Kamalkant Jha (Maithili) and Gurdev Singh Rupana (Punjabi) have received the award for short stories. The Akademi has named Gian Singh (Dogri) and Jetho Lalwani (Sindhi) the winners for their plays, while Mani Shankar Mukhopadhyay, popularly known as Shankar received the award for memoir (Bengali).

The award, which includes a casket containing an engraved copper plaque, a shawl and an amount of Rs 1,00,000, was presented at the award presentation function.

The executive board also announced the Sahitya Akademi Translation Prize 2020 in 24 Indian languages on Saturday. The English translation of Kannada novel ''Ghachar Ghochar'', written by Vivek Shanbhag and translated by Srinath Perur, and the Hindi translation of Thiruvalluvar''s ''Thirukkural'' by T E S Raghavan won the award among 22 others. "The books were selected on the basis of recommendations made by the Selection Committees of three members each in the concerned languages in accordance with the rules and procedure laid down for the purpose," the National Academy of Letters said in a statement. The translation prize carries an amount of Rs 50,000 and a copper plaque which will be presented to the translators of each of these books at a special function to be held sometime later this year, it said.  

Thiru TES Raghavan [Thirumalai Echampadi Srinivasa Raghavan] is a Hindi Pundit, worked in Hindu High School and has been residing in Thiruvallikkeni for long.  Respects to you Sir and happy to be friend of his son  S  Parthasarathi (popularly Fallam).

A couple of photos of the great person – taken from SYMA events .. .. .. (in fact I am holding the copy of Hindi translation of Thirukural made by Thiru TES)

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

18^th Sept. 2021.