Who can forget this dialogue from the Vikram-starrer Anniyan, “Anju paisa thiruduna thappaa? (Is stealing of five paise is wrong)” or the detective novels starring Ganesh-Vasanth?
Any ardent reader of Sujatha’s works will not be able to forget these. Even after his demise, his writing has continued to grab the attention of readers. And now, fans of Sujatha have a reason to be happy, as a memorial souvenir called Sujatha Ninaivu Malar is to be released at the Chennai Book Fair, in commemoration of his fifth death anniversary on February 27. Rangarajan, who renamed himself later as Sujatha, wrote many popular novels, short stories and essays.
He was a science writer who proved his mettle writing about robots in En Iniya Iyandhira and Meendum Geno way back in the 80s. He was the first literary personality who introduced various forms of short poems such as Etku and Sci-fi-ku apart from introducing Venba form of poetry to the readers in his chaste and lucid writing. Besides, he has written screenplays and dialogues for many films like Indian, Mudhalvan, Sivaji and Enthiran. His popular novels like Karaiyellam Senbagappoo and Pirivom Santhippom were well received by many when they were later turned into films.
“Basically he was an engineer and always had an interest in writing about science,” says Sujatha, his wife. She contributed an article about her days with writer Sujatha, in the memorial souvenir.
“When he got the opportunity to write in Kumudam, he was asked to write under any pseudonym, since there was another writer Ra Ki Rangarajan, working for the magazine. To avoid the name confusion, he chose my name as his pseudonym,” she said.
“I was never obtrusive about his writing. If I read anything interesting that he wrote, I shared it with him — sometimes he cared and sometimes he didn’t,” she added. For the past five years, while celebrating his birth anniversary, she presented awards in his name along with Uyirmai Pathippagam, to young writers under six categories, such as novel, short story, poetry, prose, small literary magazines and blogs.
“He was not only a writer but also a face behind developing voting machines. But he never even received a Padmashree award and that is my only worry” she concluded.
Writer Manushyaputhiran too shares the same concern. “He was not even awarded with the Sahitya Akademi award,” he said.
Manushyaputhiran, who has the rights for publishing the works of Sujatha, also contributed an article in the souvenir on his association with the writer.
“Whenever he had the chance to speak in literary circles, he used to begin by reading my poem Kaalgalin Album, even though we hadn’t met before. He came to know me only through my poems. Eventually, we got introduced to each other and he provided all the help in my literary career,” he said.
Till this day, his Uyirmai Pathippagam, has brought out eight volumes of short stories, besides novels. They published around 80 titles of works done by Sujatha.
“In this book fair, we are bringing his science essay collections,” the writer added.
Vikatan Prasuram, the publishers of Sujatha Ninaivu Malar, said, “Writer Sujatha contributed to Ananda Vikatan to a great extent, and much more than to any other magazines. We are proud to bring this memoir for the first time. This memoir will have poems, short story, essay, a novella, a novel, interviews, question and answers and rare pictures of Sujatha.”