When Mickey Mouse romped around on the screen of Variety Hall Theatre in mid 1930s, little Puvi was playing by the theatre's front gates. The theatre was his only entertainment – he would come there after school and gambol about its compound; peek in for a glimpse of what was showing, and watch intently as his father's colleague hand-painted a hoarding announcing the next movie to be screened. As two-time Sahitya Akademi award winner S. Puviyarasu puts it, “My life revolved around Variety Hall Road.”
Puviyarasu's father V. Subbiah, a portrait artist worked in Swami Painting Shop on Variety Hall Road. “There were about seven – eight artists there who did signboard and portrait painting,” he recalls. The place was like a workshop; for it was there that a lot of leading portrait artists in Coimbatore learned the ropes. And, Puviyarasu grew up watching them at work. Since theatres put up hand-painted billboards as opposed to the printed ones of today, he spent a lot of time in cinema halls.
“Those days, Edison Theatre, which was later named Swamy theatre, ran silent movies,” he says. There would be a man sitting at the sides announcing ‘Here comes the hero' into a megaphone. “The theatre used huge generators that ran on petrol or diesel. They would go ‘daga daga daga…,” he smiles.
Back then, all the schools in the city were either government run or government aided, says Puviyarasu. “They were all Tamil medium schools,” he adds. “To pass a subject, all you needed was double-digit marks. Teachers indulged in lots of moderation.”
As a teenager, Puviyarasu was among the most mischievous in class. “I had a tiny plastic skull that I wore around my neck. The other students were petrified of it,” he laughs. “One night, my friend and I walked all the way to the burial ground in Aathupalam. We wanted to dig out a skull. But all we got was a forearm bone.” The prankster stuck the plastic skull to the bone after polishing it was sandpaper and brandished it like a wand. “I became famous in school for this,” he smiles. “Recently, during a bus journey, a low voice called ‘Oi! mandaioodu!' (skull) from behind. It was one of my school friends. He still remembers!”
His father being an artist, Puviyarasu had a natural flair for art. “During the silver jubilee celebrations in school, I sketched about 30-40 pictures of scientists” he says. It was when he was 14 that Puviyarasu's tryst with literature began. “We ran two magazines called ‘Ulavali,' (spy) a crime magazine and ‘Sudar,' a literary magazine.”
Hand-written, the magazines were brought out once or twice a month and circulated in school. Whenever any writer came to the city, the youngsters would make a beeline to get the magazine signed by them. “Writer Kalki, Namakkal Kavi etc. have autographed our magazines,” recalls Puviyarasu.
“Crime novels were a rage those days. Six volume ones with themes lifted out of Sherlock Holmes were famous,” he recollects. “I read a lot of Akilan, Puthumai Pithan, Ku. Pa. Rajagopalan, etc.” Puviyarasu's Intermediate years in the Government Arts College marked his entry in to politics.
College opened new vistas for the youngster – it was here that he was introduced to Marxian principles.
“There we were, sitting in the gallery (classroom) with blank expressions. We were new to English medium and didn't understand a word of what was taught. Sundaram master, our Natural Sciences teacher entered the class. In his booming voice, he began ‘Thellia aalin siru pazhathoru vidhai' (in the context that a magnificent banyan tree emerges from an insignificant seed). The class erupted in applause.” Sundaram master inculcated Marxian thought in many youngsters those days, adds Puviyarasu. “I'm a Marxian even now,” he says.
Puviyarasu joined Ma.Po.Sivagnanam's party Tamil Arasu Kazhagam and later functioned as its district secretary with Prof. Devaraj. He was also jailed two-three times while taking part in State border agitations. In 1953, he joined Perur Tamil College and studied Saiva Sidhantam. In fact, Puviyarasu played an active role in establishing the Tamil college.
“When I was a high school teacher in Athipalayam, I gave a 100-day discourse on Kamba Ramayanam to the villagers in the evenings,” he recalls. Men and women arrived in droves to listen to Puviyarasu. After a day's hard work, they would sit around him with hurricane lamps in front of a chathiram with stars overhead. “I would begin at eight in the evening and go on till twelve.”
In 1977, Rainbow Theatre on Trichy Road screened the 3D film, ‘House of wax.' “A short-film was screened in between. It had just three characters in it – a couple and an escaped convict. I was so impressed by the film that I wanted to make one myself,” says Puviyarasu. He thus wrote to Kamal Hassan, asking if he would be willing to act in it. “It was the first time I wrote to him. I had heard that he was fond of my poems.” Thus began his friendship with the actor. “Even now, he discusses his scripts with me,” says Puviyarasu.
In the early 70s, Puviyarasu along with writers Kovai Gnani, Ilamurugu, Nithilan, Mullai Adhavan, Sirpi, Tamil Nadan, Meera, Bala, Sakthi Kanal and Chidambaranathan founded a literary movement that created quite a stir in the Kongu region. Called the ‘Vaanambadi Movement,' it propagated writing with social inclination. “We spread progressive views and socialistic realism,” says Puviyarasu. “We ran a magazine called Vaanambadi. It was later banned in colleges. There was a time when students circulated one copy amidst the entire college, secretly.”
