City Tour

That craft was very big. But we couldn’t call it a ship. A big craft built for the pleasures of its passengers. In the upper deck amongst comfortably standing, sitting, basking in the sun,lazily swimming in a moon-shaped pool people was Aathma waiting for Nithya.

Not really paying any attention to the book in his hand… he kept glancing at pretty Nithya who was visible every now and then. We couldn’t tell that the craft was going very fast.

Powered by a nuclear power plant in its belly it kept floating on an air cushion.

For Aathma this trip was an important event in his life… In eleven minutes the craft will reach Chennai.

Chennai!

His ancestral place! His great-great-great grandfather’s… family had a house here! And where was it? Triplicane... In Theradi street… Near the temple… the computer told him...

A young man stood in front of him and smiled. He had a small label that said, “guide.”
“Is everything fine?” he enquired.

Aathma shook his head.

“Your wife seems to like this trip a lot!” He said glancing at Nithya dive like an arrow into the pool. “Aathma! Join me” Nithya yelled.

Aathma shook his head.

A gentle breeze ruffled Aathma’s clothes. A sense of joy welled up in him…

“When will we reach Chennai?”

“In thirteen minutes!”

Aathma looked into the distance. The ocean was lazing in an orange hue. The smell of ozone caught Aathma nose. The loudspeaker sparked to life

“Attention... Dear Passengers! Attention! This is the Captain speaking. A warm welcome to all you passengers who have come to see Chennai on this luxury craft.

This is your craft. There is nothing that is not available on board. This craft is a marvel of modern science. Right now we are cruising at five hundred miles an hour. This craft can go on the ocean, go underwater and even hover on land!

If you need an introduction to Chennai since you are here to visit the many places of Chennai, please use the headphones nearest you. Thank you!”

Aathma had finished reading everything about Chennai. Still he felt pangs of anticipation every time he heard Chennai name mentioned. He put on the headphones. He heard a sweet persuasive voice along with some music playing in the background.

Although Chennai or Madras, which was a very important city in South India, existed much before, its formal history began in the year 1639, on the 23rd of August, when Tharmala Aiyappa Nayagan gave permission to Francis Day to build the St. George Fort…

“Day arrived in 1640 in the month of February with twenty five European sepoys and Nagapattan, a Indian expert on explosives. The outer walls of the St George fort were completed in 1640 on the 23rd of April...”

Nithya toweled herself, sat next to Aathma and pressed her ears on his headphones.

“Madras Pattinam was its old name” We do not know the exact origins of this name.
It could have been derived from Matha Raju, who was a king during that time...
Or from a sea-faring tribe called Marakkal rayars, it could have been called Marakkal Rayar before it finally became Madras Pattinam...

Nithya poked Aathma. He lowered his headphones.

“How many times will you keep listening to the history of Chennai? I am bored”

“This is our town Nithya! “We will be going to our home!”

“What will you see in your ancestral home?” “Will there be something stuck on the wall to say that Aathma will be born 350 years from now?”

“It is going to be difficult to even find the house first” “And who knows in what shape it will be”

Most of the homes seem to be in good shape... Hey the guide was enquiring about you...”

“Yeah. He kept looking at me...”

“How do you know that?”

“Every direction I looked he seemed to be there...”

“Cover your chest. You might catch a cold”

“I am hungry”

Why don’t you go down and eat something. I will come after hearing this out.
Be back in five minutes though... We will be reaching Chennai.”

Aathma put his headphones on again.

“While digging the foundation for Mylapore’s Lazarus Church they came upon Manuel Mathras tombstone. Mathra’s family was quite a wealthy family. So it is possible to think it could have come from Mathra’s name.

Mathraza is a Persian word to mean a school or college. There could been an old

Mohammedan school there. So the name could have come from there too...

Anyway the name Chennai stuck.

One by one the passengers were making their way to the upper deck. We are approaching Chennai! Aathma’s heart was pounding! He felt he was approaching his mother...

How far he has come on this journey... He had a holiday on Astro 7. Nithya had a holiday. They caught a shuttle from there to the space station. They didn’t get a reservation and had to wait on the floating station for two days before they got one,
And caught the planetary ship to earth and another trip on earth... a week of stay in hotels, strange journeys, strange rooms, strange faces…

“Why are you so adamant to make this trip? We are wasting our holidays here! We could

have gone to so many new places! They say Helios, the new colony, is like heaven!
You and your Chennai! Be miserable with your history!

“If you didn’t like it, you could have made a trip on your own Nithya!”

“Yeah. I unknowingly made a mistake. Earth is so boring!”

The moment he had heard the news about the discovery Chennai in Astro 7 he was beside himself. He saved money his holidays… and reached here.

“You have seen Chennai. Haven’t you?”

“Once a day… That’s my job!”

“You know all the places don’t you?”

He laughed. “High court, Santhome, Anna Salai, Valluvar Kottam, Kapalesvarar Temple, Kandaswamy temple, fort… What do you want?”

“Do you know Triplicane?”

“Parthasarathy temple is there” Join the third queue.

There on Therady Street is a house…
House?” he looked surprised.

“Why?”

Before he could answer there heard a siren.

”Pay attention. Pay attention” Please stand clear of the upper portions of the craft. The craft is covering itself.

All the people in the upper deck stood in the center. They heard the hum of the engines and a semi-circular plastic wall started to enclose the craft. Suddenly they were engulfed in silence and anticipation.

“Please pay attention. The craft is going to descend into the ocean. We are going to reach Chennai in three minutes… Towards the end of the twenty first century the sea submerged Chennai. With the help of modern science, all the old buildings have been scrubbed, made clean and restored. They are waiting for you! Your craft will submerge and go on the streets of Chennai. There you will hear descriptions of the streets. We will reach St George in two minutes…”

The craft began to submerge.

The craft started to roll in its silvery wake. It was really quiet.

Nagar Valam (1976), Sci-Fi of Sujatha was in limelight during the Tsunami attack. In Jan 2005, an English translation of the story appeared in Sunday issue of The Indian Express. 

The same is reproduced here. Ranga Rengarajan(Sujatha’s son) has done the translation.

--Courtesy Sujatha Desikan

தொடர்புடைய பதிவு:
நகர்வலம் -சுஜாதா

SCIENCE FICTION – Another tomorrow

SCIENCE FICTION is usually celebrated for the glimpses it offers into the future. The crispest definition of science fiction is to call it a literature of “what if?” Due to the protean nature of the genre, it embraces everything from crude interplanetary romances to sophisticated psychological drama. It has been universally acknowledged as the most popular form of fiction for young people and exists in diverse forms, challenging any kind of rigid categorisation. “It attempts to present realities which are different from those we know”, says critic Christopher Evans. “The imagined future, the altered present and the past in which history was different!” Science fiction writers have been perpetually interested in possibilities and potentials.


In his preface to the anthology of short stories written by Sujatha Rangarajan, a major Tamil writer, the author admits that as a subgenre, science fiction has not been widely practised by Tamil writers. However, Sujatha points out many elements of science fiction are present in novels written in the past in Tamil.


Many of his own stories have been published without being classified as science fiction, although they may have possessed many traits common to the genre. Just as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has been regarded as the forerunner of the genre in the Western world, our own epics and myths have elements of science fiction which are truly amazing. Not just rockets Sujatha, in his preface, reminds us that science fiction need not necessarily be concerned with rockets and space odysseys. Dark subjects like the survival of mankind are frequently addressed.


In “Jillu“, set in the future, there is a threat of acid rain after nuclear warfare between India and warring nations. Cities are being evacuated but the child Kumar refuses to board the helicopter without his pet dog Jillu. In the ensuing confusion, both the boy and the dog get left behind. The pity and the terror of the situation is conveyed in terse crisp prose. Sujatha’s knowledge of robotics and computer technology find expression in the stories “Adimai” (Slave) and “Agayam” (Sky).


In “Adimai“, the human is able to hoodwink the robot, but in “Agayam” the robot is juxtaposed against the human as an equal and the ending is left to the wild conjectures of the reader. Jayant Narlikar, in his Return of Vaman, has likewise speculated on the grave possibility of robots eventually taking the place of man, making him redundant.


“Anna Salai” and “Thimala” are stories set in the distant future. “Thimala” is particularly heart warming, for the power of religion and prayer still operates even after the modern miracles of the digital age have come to pass. The experience is described as “thrilling” by the protagonist Athma who agrees to visit Thimala (our Tirupati) to please his wife who still has within her remnants of the forgotten human qualities of love and piety.


“Suriyan” (The Sun) is also set in the future. It is about a few families which live underground to avoid the deadly effects of radiation, a legacy of global warfare. “Mister Munuswamy Oru 1.2.1” is an interesting essay into the psychological depths of the human mind and its capacity for total intellectual transformation. However, the scientific marvel of artificial intelligence is, alas, only temporary and Munuswamy is back to his illiterate life style, believing his short-lived transformation to be just a dream.


On the wings of time In “Oru Kathayil Erandu Kathai“, the same character is shown in two different eras, more or less displaying similar roles. In “Kala Yanthiram” the protagonist gets hold of a mechanical contraption which helps him travel backwards and forwards in time. Being a novice in such exercises, while operating it, he goes back in time to the age of the famous grammarian Tholkappiar and even has the pleasure of adding his contribution to the famous book by the grammarian. But the problem arises while trying to return to the 21st Century. By pressing the wrong button, he comes to 1774 instead of 2024 to which he belongs. This story has the reader in splits as Sujatha gets away with the anachronism inherent to such writing with audacity and brilliance.


Man and the unknown The motif of alien beings peopling our planet is a very common one in science fiction. Patrick Parrinder comments, “Science fiction, when it is concerned with alien modes of being, approaches man through his contact with the new and the unknown. Their concern is with man himself and the literary exercise is a process of discovering what man is and what choices are open to him.”


“Tejaswini“, written in 2001, has a startling conclusion while “Manjal Ratham” has all the weird connotations of life in a strange planet where we earthlings are the aliens. “Upagriham” is about a UFO phenomenon discovered by an aged man who is faced with disbelief and ridicule for his remarks. Sujatha’s anthology, in turn witty, wise and incredibly entertaining, makes imaginative use of conceptually intriguing scientific technology.


An accessible combination of conceptual daring and moral seriousness places the book well above the common run of science fiction. Sujatha says, in Marathi and Bengali, there has been a significant increase of writers experimenting in this category. Kondke’s anthology of stories entitled It Happened Tomorrow includes two Tamil stories.


Even if an author is ignorant of scientific facts, as long as he observes “internal consistency“, if it obeys social and structural rules within the plot, the story will be accepted, says Sujatha. He invites greater exploration of this genre which flouts tradition and invites a re-evaluation of old-fashioned viewpoints.


More than mere craftsmanship Being science fiction, Sujatha’s expertise in plumbing the depths of human emotions is naturally not in evidence. However, the reader’s intelligence and emotions are stimulated through the “thought through” explanatory mode of narration adopted by the author who is much more than a clever craftsman.


There is a constant sense of movement, physical as well as psychological, ensuring the reader’s attention. As Mark Twain once said, “Why shouldn’t truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense“: science fiction, often called the literature of the impossible, appears mainly as an alternative technique for apprehending and coping with our everyday world.


-Courtesy Sujatha Desikan 

கடந்த 25 ஆண்டுகளுக்கும் மேலாக சுஜாதா எழுதி வந்திருக்கும்விஞ்ஞானச் சிறுகதைகளின் முழுத் தொகுப்புமுதன் முதலாக வெளிவருகிறது. தமிழில் விஞ்ஞானக் கதைகளின் முன்னோடியான சுஜாதாவின் இப்படைப்புகளில் நிகழ்காலமும் எதிர்காலமும் அறிவியலும் புனைவும் யதார்த்தமும் கனவும் கலந்து மயங்குகின்றன. கால மாற்றத்தால் புதுமை குன்றாத இக்கதைகள் வாசகர்களின் மனதில் தீராத வினோதங்களைப் படைக்கின்றன.

PREMA SRINIVASAN Literary Review , The Hindu – Sunday, Sep 05, 2004.