Entertainment Podium

Charu Nivedita : A Rebel with a Vision

Charu Nivedita, I heard this name for the first time only few months back. I was traveling with a french friend of mine who happens to be this literature geek and he was boring me with details about Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde among other things. All of a sudden he pops in the name ,Charu Nivedita. I found myself all ears to what he was talking about. Come on!, a french guy comparing some of the best English authors and playwrights and pops in an Indian sounding name in the same breath!! My curiosity grew and a real conversation started taking flight. I wanted to know more about this guy who was a Tamil writer and yet had found ardent fans in a community that does not understand a word of tamil. After hearing my friend’s highly animated description of Charu and his works, i started wondering, Does good literature really have no barriers?

I decided to do some more research on this guy and a simple google search with the name “Charu Nivedita” produced about 11000 results, huh! pretty decent. But after reading some of the top search results i started getting a feeling that my friend might have been mistaken or misinformed about this author and his literary skills. But one word stuck to my mind and kept repeating itself. “Sex”. That was the word found on ever single article about Charu and it was not posted in good light. People were attacking this poor guy left, right and center for his views about sex and liberalization. Since i found those posts highly biased, i decided to do some old-school research and bought his new book, ZERO DEGREE, that was translated from his tamil best seller that went by the same name . That was kind of a revelation for me. In the past 25 years, I have lived in as many as six countries and was immediately  able to identify each character in Charu’s writings as the people i came across in different places, Charu had given a Tamil name to them, so that his Tamil readers could relate to it better. I was hooked!! This author has broken international language barriers and has given some of the best Global Tamil books ever.

But why was he disliked and disrespected by some of his colleagues from Tamil litarary world.  No prizes for guessing!! The authors who had till now kept their readers inside a small circle and who’s writings for the past ten years have been about run-of-the-mill traditional values and society imposed cultural restrictions were losing steam. They were neither able to digest nor keep up with the fresh ideas that Charu was propagandizing. To make matters worse, Charu went a step ahead and released ebooks of most of his Tamil works, something that is unheard-of in the tamil literary world. This new venture helped the industry tap into sections of Tamil readers living out of India. 

To summarize, Charu’s writings have been inspiring young ignited minds as opposed to the other So-Called giants of Tamil Literature who have been capitalizing on the cobwebs built around the minds of people who refuse to beleive that GLOBALISATION is the next big thing. 

You can catch Charu Nivedita and his most recent articles on his website, www.charuonline.com .

Tags: Charu Nivedita, literature, rebel, rebel author, tamil literature

George Bernard Shaw

In all history, among all men born and buried, George Bernard Shaw is the only person to have received an Oscar and a Nobel Prize in Literature. As a noted novelist, play wright, critic and socialist, Shaw was instrumental in mocking at the pretentiousness and farce behind the Victorian era of theatrics. Being an active member of the Fabian society that aims at gradually bringing in reforms, his plays are generally centered around a cardinal social theme that is intended to create awareness among the masses, needless to cite his humongous sarcasm and wit, if not sometimes cynicism. He is perhaps the most sardonic person who had ever lived if i could also count in the unborn.

Shaw who was born in Ireland on 26th July 1856, was in his later years, of the view that the only time when his education was hampered was his period of formal education! Having influenced by his mother’s interest in music, Shaw’s career in art started as a musical critic who rendered unbiased opinions to magazines. His initial days as a novelist were futile and demoralizing with none of his works being published. As he gained popularity thanks to his sneer, wit and biting comments, acceptance for his works grew, as a result of which he ended up writing 63 plays.

His superior language and powerful delivery of views would probably make an atheist become an archbishop! His highly acclaimed plays like the Apple cart, Man and superman, Saint John, The Doctor’s Dilemma, Heartbreak House, Pygmalion and many more reveal a relentless mockery at the callous society, governance and medicine. Such powerful works aimed at social reforms were the paramount reasons for awarding him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925. He received an Oscar for his works in making the movie Pygmalion (based on his own play).

I would love to share a few of his thought provoking quotes if not for copy content! Yet I succumb to the temptation and quote a couple. Just to give you a clear idea, he could be so acute as to say “Observation is commonly mistaken for cynicism by those who don’t possess it”; or could be so cynical as to say “Martyrdom is the only way a man can become famous without ability” !!

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