Tuesday, December 17, 2013

ஊர் சுற்றி புராணம் - Day 1

4 days of a rollercaster ride in chennai, attending literary events and watching films at CIFF-2013.
It all started with a vist to Barathi illam near Triplican Parthasarathy temple. I was inspired to visit the place after Kannan of seer7.com informed me that there was an ongoing series of  events at the place commemorating Barathi's birth anniv. that falls on 11.12.13. On the way while stoppingg to draw som casg from a SBI ATM near the TP temple, chanced upon Kasthuri-Srinvasan Library, a part of Triplicane cutural academy. The Library's working hours was though impossible for me to catch up with: 6.30 am to 9.30 am, hence had to be happy with visiting the door of an institution i have heard a lot about.

At Barathi illam, the anniv celebrations were over. walked through the display of photos reminiscing Barathi's life. Hurriedly left the place to catch up with the inaugral films on CIFF. Woodlands was buzzing with so much life, young and old alike, all eager to have their fill of world cinema. In the que to register for the festival caught up with some gossip on how the fee had shot up to 500 but the bag and book was missing ( these were given a day later).

My first movie was Disciple from Finland. i have talked about this and another movie in an earlier post. in the intervening lunch break tried to catch up with a fav tamil writer Prabanjan, but he was away from his home. Post lunch i wanted to check out some books from 'Archaeological dept' near the Museum and Tamilnaadan's books from Sahithya Academy. These i had to shop during working days.

After much thinking over decided to catch up with the afternoon movie, 'NO' and then finish with Sahithya academy. This oscilation between literary interest and cinema continued to bother me over the next 3 days.. At sahithya academy and other publishing houses i visited later, it pained me to see how the books were left to rot. i wish they gave it away to people who would read than to leave them to rot.

After Sahithya proceeded to visit Kalachuvadu publishing i wanted to enroll for a pre release offer of a book, but instead could not resist buying some books that i dont find in the book shops. the office is located in clumsy corner of Triplicane close to a booze shop.

Left Kalachuvadu ,trying to hunt for the contacts of a tamil orator Aru.somasundaram, who had captivated me with his tamil. ( i would later discover that i have a weakness for the tamil spoken by people from and around Karaikkudi) in an interview on Kalaingar TV, so much that i had decided that i wanted to learn tamil from him, i jus wanted to listen to him speak about tamil. I knew he had written a few translating Shakespeare but not sure which publicaton. I thought it might mostly be Palaniappa and went after them. Their office was a place in contrast reflecting the wealth of the Chettiar. ( but the books condition of left to rot were no different) It was a difficult thing to make queries to these people about a person whom these people had not even heard of.

Before reaching home, on the made queries at Alan tennis academy near porur about a brief exposure to Tennis. I have always wanted to have a hit with the racket but the circumstances have always denied me that pleasure. But this coach understood my disposition offered to let me have a hit and invited me to join him the next day. I came back home witha a heart full of beautiful experiences and as usaual a bag full of books.

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