Why I Started This Blog ?

This Blog is dedicated to my father Mr K P Ponnuswamy.

He was a Man of Letters. At a time when there were not many peer advisors around his family to advise him about his career, he chose to take up literature. Having grown in a carpenter’s family in the midst of sounds emanating from sawing, chopping, chipping, chiseling, planing, hammering, and sand papering, the traditional family work had little effect on the lad who had just got out of school with good marks. He had enough marks in mathematics to land him in an engineering college but then the economic condition of his family led him to an entirely different path.

Those were the days when India was at the peak of its efforts to liberate from the British rule and Hindi was fast emerging as an alternate link language for the entire country. With not many takers down south for this new language he found a scope for a teaching profession in Hindi. Moreover learning Hindi was also part of the freedom struggle fervor. He stayed far away from his house to learn Hindi and later when back home he completed his Intermediate course, bachelor’s degree in Hindi and as years rolled on he went on to complete his post graduation in Hindi too- all on his own through self study. He is fit to be called a Man of Letters as he had mastered in Hindi, a language still alien for most of them in Tamilnadu.

He had written many poems, articles, research papers and book reviews in leading Hindi magazines and journals. The best work of his was the first ever translation of Jayakantan’s short story in Hindi way back in 1962-63. Jayakantan had just started emerging as a prolific short story writer in Tamil and one of his stories “Chattai” (meaning shirt in Tamil) was published in the famous Ananda Vikadan Tamil weekly. It was translated by my father in Hindi and was published in none other than the most popular weekly Dharmayug (the Hindi version of the famous Illustrated Weekly of India run by the same group) as “Kurta” (meaning shirt in Hindi). My father was also a prolific reader of the Indian Express and was a regular name in the Letters to the Editor column. He had a deep interest in “Veer Kavya” (war related literature) and his long time ambition was to do a comparative study of Tamil Literature’s Kalingathu Parani and Hindi Veer Kavya. His early death left his ambition unfulfilled. He was not only well versed in Hindi but also in English, Tamil and Urdu literature.

I have drawn a lot of inspiration from him and so also my siblings. My interest in languages has its roots in his association and the motivation he gave me. His joy knew no bounds when he came to know that I had stood first in my school in the school final exam in Hindi.

The idea for this blog was there in my mind for a long time. I wanted to share with others what I keep learning about new words. On March 11^th when the news about the Japanese Tsunami was broadcast a new word ‘prefecture’ was frequently used and I thought I should start from here.

P.Uday Shankar

Coimbatore- India