The bitter sweet experience of having a well dug on ancestral land was one among many of the tales shared during the centenary celebration of the Tamil short story organised by the Tamil Nadu Progressive Writers and Artists Association at Bishop Heber College on Saturday.
‘Neer’, the story of how a well-cutter manages to leave his imprint on an urbanised family, was narrated by storyteller ‘Pava’ Chelladurai. It was among the events lined up for the evening session of the celebrations, which had Magsaysay awardee and Carnatic singer T. M. Krishna and film director P. Ranjith as its chief guests.
The evening began with the screening of the short films that had emerged among the top 5 entries in a competition held as part of the celebrations.
Dealing with a variety of topics, from inter-caste love and a senior citizen’s overarching love for books, the lessons that life teaches a hungry college-goer, to an unlikely tale of green grocers who turn highway robbers, each movie was a showcase of the short story as a film script.
Earlier in the day, Tamil writer and district-level Union president S. Tamilselvan mediated a forum of speeches made by over 10 short fiction writers, including Prapanjan. Littérateurs R. Nila and A. Vennilla (‘The Tamil Short Story in World Short Fiction’) , Manimaran and K. Udayashankar (‘The Role of Progressive Writers in the Centenary of the Tamil Short Story’) were among those who presented papers.
Film maker P. Ranjith, whose Rajnikanth-starrer ‘Kabali’ has made him among the eagerly followed new talents this year, was clearly the toast of the youthful audience at Bishop Heber College yesterday. His arrival for the valediction of the event had students cheering and clapping loudly.
Singer T. M. Krishna and director Ranjith jointly gave away the top 5 prizes to winners of the competitions in short story-writing for students and short film-making organised for the general public.
The play ‘Mari Endroru Aatukutti’, written by K. Parthibaraja, was staged by Maatru Naadaga Iyakkam.
In his speech, the head of the Sowdambika Group of Schools and president of the centenary celebrations committee, S. Ramamoorthy recalled the rich link of the Cauvery delta region to the Tamil short story genre. Poet and district-level association deputy president Nandalala were among those who conducted the proceedings of the centenary.
