By Express News Service CHENNAI: It was an evening of laughter and learning as Jayaraman Raghunathan gave the audience at Arkay Convention Centre in Mylapore a glimpse of Madras in the 1940s and 1950s through the eyes of Devan and his works. The talk which was organised by the Madras Local History Group as part of Madras Day celebrations was titled ‘Madras by Devan’. It was an insightful and fitting tribute to the extraordinary writing genius of Tiruvidaimarudur R Mahadevan, popularly known as Devan, the then managing editor of Tamil magazine Ananda Vikatan. Jayaraman dissected details of Devan’s comics and writings to reveal how his sharp wit and incredible understanding of human nature manifested itself in his writing and was capable of eliciting reactions from the reader — be it laughter or tugging at their heartstrings. He spoke of how the writer challenged the conventional understanding of a ‘hero’ and ‘villain’ in his work, as both were fairly regular middle-class. “The villains in Devan’s works are very happy fellows,” he said. “They may be selfish, but they’re not vicious. They’re very pleasant, loveable villains.” Even when it came to his comics, Jayaraman said he kept his critique of the government and take on living in Madras as relatable. Pointing to a comic he said, “As is evident here, the complaints of traffic in Madras remain the same. The only difference is that today we complain about the Metro and back then they were complaining about the tram.” Through interesting anecdotes, Jayaraman kept the audience hooked and provided a means to travel back in time to what life was like in Madras. He made it a point to pepper his talk with nuggets of information that might have otherwise gone unnoticed. For instance, he said, Ananda Vikatan was fined `500 by the British for Devan’s comic about the 1943 Madras Harbour bombing during the Second World War. He also gave the audience an idea of what Devan was like. “It is believed that he hated films and dance,” said Jayaraman. “Though he was a life member of the Music Academy and was invited to several programmes being the editor of Ananda Vikatan, he did not attend many of them and also did not promote watching films or dance recitals in his family.” Further, the talk provided people who were interested in knowing more about the dynamic writer with many recommendations. One of them being the riveting courtroom drama — Justice Jagannathan. Interestingly, the story featured the crown prosecutor, as they were called at that time, and was set in the Madras High Court of the time which had a jury system. An important aspect of the talk was on the Kalki versus Devan tussle that has been widely written about. Jayaraman drew parallels between Kalki and Alexandre Dumas, while Devan was like Charles Dickens. He said Kalki’s characters were more stereotypical and dramatised while Devan’s were rooted and relatable. “Not a single book of Devan’s was published during his lifetime,” said Jayaraman. “It was Charukesi who went to great lengths to bring out Devan’s writing. Charukesi passed away last year and it is my request to Devan charities and Anand Vikatan to publish all his work as even now, many of his works remain unpublished. This would be a fitting tribute to Devan and Charukesi.”

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