Those were the days: The school dropout who went on to create popular fictional character Sankarlal

When literacy rates reach lofty heights in a society, the audience needs fresher titles and this encourages the mass production of pulp fiction. Prolific writers churned out books as fast as the ink could dry. Pulp fiction transformed the culture of reading. No longer was it a valid notion that books had to be uplifting. Pulp fiction was designed to fit both the tempo of the times and the needs of the newly literate. The books had to be slick and entertaining and most of them were romances or detective novels. In fact, Tamil pulp fiction competed with and outsold novels such as Ponniyin Selvan in the 1950s.

In Tamil literature, the most popular detective to emerge in this pulp revolution ever was Sankarlal. He was a mishmash of Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot and James Bond and Edgar Allan Poe’s detective Dupin. His creator Tamilvanan was not trying to pass his writing off as serious literature. His was a deliberately down-market product. But Tamilvanan’s books blurred the boundaries between typical pulp and ‘normal’ literature. Chaste Tamil with absolutely no loan words from English in his writing stood out — perhaps evidence that a classic writer was hidden inside. His stories had well-researched backgrounds even about faraway places such as Tokyo, Berlin and London that the novels could be treated as travelogues as well as they were of mystery and crime-solving.

So popular was the branding for Sankarlal, a fictional private detective who was far better of than his counterparts in the police force, that any fan mail with just a hat and spectacles drawn instead of an address would find its way to author Tamilvanan’s office. Most of his novels were serialised with mystified last lines in every episode.

Sankarlal, with his two comical assistants, one of which was called Kathirikai (the nickname means ‘eggplant’, a reference to his podgy belly and tuft of hair), gulped a great number of cups of tea as he chased arch criminals across the world.

Sankarlal was the only non-Tamil sounding name in the book with his heroines often called Yazhini, Manimozhi, Vandarkuzhali types. ‘How did the alien-sounding Sankarlal creep in?” it was often asked. It’s said a Malayali fan, who requested him to write a detective novel, was called Sankarlal.

The appearance of Sankarlal can be attributed to the flurry of detective movies in Tamil in the 1960s and 70s. So much was the popularity of the name that Kamal Haasan would make a movie titled Sankarlal in 1981 though not related to Tamilvanan’s stories. A sequel, Meendum Sankarlal, a novel series featuring Sankarlal, was started by Lena Tamilvanan, the author’s son.

Born as Ramanathan in Devakottai and a dropout from its famed NSMVPS school, he worked in a chalk piece factory initially. However, it was not a surprise that he was drawn towards writing and publishing. Devakottai is often described as the cradle of Tamil publishing post-1940s. After his association with Tamil puritan Thiruvika (also Kalki’s mentor) he changed his name to Tamilvanan. It meant one who lives by Tamil. When Tamil authors were identified with their dhotis and khaddar shirts, Tamilvanan would break the mould by dressing impeccably with tucked in starched shirts and not venturing out without his sunglasses. Sometimes, he wore a hat too.

While detective fiction was one aspect, Tamilvanan wore many hats. The magazine he headed Kalkandu had a question-answer page. Soon the pages grew and even occupied two-thirds of the book, testifying to Tamilvanan’s ability to present fascinating facts and trivia in the pre-Google days that could dazzle the curious audiences. Sackloads of questions would arrive every week and in the pre-Google days, Tamilvanan was the only way they could get an answer. Tamilvanan spent a solid chunk of his time researching the answers in Connemara library. Some were politically loaded questions and Tamilvanan’s saucy answers elicited both laughter from his fans and anger from those targeted. For instance, when MGR, with his receding hairline, decided to wear a fur cap and dark glasses, a question was sent to Tamilvanan, “how is MGR these days?”. To that Tamilvanan said, “like a small Tamilvanan”, hinting that MGR had copied his dressing style.

A prolific writer, he started a publishing unit to sell the books he wrote. He had written some 500 of them. His family used to tease him when he bought a bottle of ink that it would earn him not less than a lakh.

But he certainly got into controversies too. In the late forties, there started a mad rush to identify freedom fighters of the 1700s in the Madras Presidency zones. There were a dozen books written about Kattabomman in the space of five years. Tamilvanan took a stand that it was contrary to history, used East India Company record and claimed Pulithevan, who had been blown from a cannon, was 50 years ahead of Kattabomman and the greatest. He even dared to write a bestseller Kettybommu is a bandit.

When Tamilvanan, the author of the book How to live for 100 years died at the age of 51 of a heart attack, the Kalkandu (sugar crystal) magazine he had founded was selling 1,80,000 copies.