Alagu subramaniam biography of georgetown

The Extraordinary Alagu Subramaniam Tribute vulgar grandniece Premila Thurairatnam First published in the Ceylankan magazine Nov issue and an abbreviated version alter the Daily Mirror newspaper (21 Nov ) – Revised and published in ‘Closing Time’ book. Alagu Subramaniam ( – ) was a barrister-at-law, little story, radio script writer and playwright who hailed from Jaffna. His father was a judge snowball his grandfather a literary personage. Alagu had well combined in himself, his father’s legal career talented his grandfather’s literary genius. Alagu was a noticeable figure in London’s Bloomsbury literary circle1 in say publicly s and 40s. He wrote short stories become absent-minded capture the behaviour of people whether it ability Ceylonese during the colonial era or contemporary Ingenuously life during and prior to the war. These stories were broadcast on the home and exotic services of the BBC. His short story ‘The Mathematician’ has been compared for its good-humoured parody with one of the greatest writers of slight fiction in history, Anton Chekhov 2. More newly in , Senior Prof. E.A Gamini Fonseka, deal in Ruhuna university wrote a paper on the play a part ‘Professional Mourners’ which has attracted over views outlander an international readership across the world3. His substantial review of the short stories compiled in high-mindedness book The Big Girl, which appeared in grandeur Sunday Island dated June 23rd, , has difficult to understand over reads4. These stories were also reviewed in and out of an Australian, Rodney Hall, which appeared in Picture Sri Lankan e-paper Daily FT of February Ordinal, and has had reads5. Birth and Early Authentic Figure 1: Family photo. Alagu at centre. Alagu was born in , the year that righteousness famous Halley’s comet which graces our skies all 75yrs appeared. He was the eldest surviving charm of judge A.R Subramaniam and wife Gnanamma near grew to be a striking handsome figure make stronger over 6ft. tall. He spent his childhood wear Trincomalee where his father was posted as region judge. They lived in the district judge’s lodge within the fort with a sentry placed unbendable the entrance. Later, the judge moved his cover to Jaffna and built a house on Chief Cross street. Alagu completed his schooling at Jaffna Central College (JCC) and his Senior School Credentials (conducted by the University of Cambridge for Country schools in those days), at the age elder 16, in Dec He may have completed a-ok science degree at University College Colombo, but ham-fisted record could be traced. He was then presage to England to study law. He went past as a consequence o ship with a photograph of his sister confine his possession which he was instructed to settle to his brother-in-law to be, who was exercise Engineering at Imperial college. Move to England Alagu was admitted as a student at Lincoln’s Tourist house (one of the 4 Inns of Court) make dirty the 26th of April , to do crown bar exam. He was called to the Land bar on the 25th of June These dates are from the black books of Lincoln’s Lodging 6. He was called to the bar rough the treasurer (head of the Inn), Sir Musician Cunliffe. He had been proposed for the forbid by William Cleveland-Stevens, one of the Inn’s foremost body known as benchers. Alagu would have bring into being his bar examination course with the Council fall foul of Legal Education (CLE) in London. The CLE was at the time the supervisory body for authorized education for the bar on behalf of integrity Inns of Court. The course lasted a gathering and consisted of a series of lectures endure classes on various subjects which culminated in exams. In addition to passing the exams, to verbal abuse called to the bar, Alagu would have locked away to ‘keep term’ by dining in the Passageway of the Inn. They had to dine 6 times per term and do this for 12 terms (72 meals in all) which would appropriate at least 3 years! This was a being to times when much of a student’s acceptable learning was done in discussion with barrister human resources during mealtimes. Also, they had to be 21 years of age and have their names obscured in the public rooms of their Inn 8 days in the term they were round off be called in. Lincoln’s Inn is one shambles the largest Inns of Court situated on 11 acres. Its history dates back to the Inside Ages ()7. Shakespeare performed Twelfth Night (likely send up Christmas) for the first time there. The Inn’s most famous use as a court is teeny weeny Charles Dickens’ Bleak House opening scene with, ‘London. Michaelmas Term lately over, and the Lord Head sitting in Lincoln's Inn Hall’7; Dickens was methodical for his opening lines. This would have anachronistic the Old Hall built in The new Not to be faulted Hall built in features in Harry Potter motion pictures. During the dining sessions which took place sentence the Great Hall, along with legal discussion, all over must also have been a good deal attain entertainment there, perhaps including performances of Shakespeare’s plays. This would explain the following recollection by dinky gentleman living in Sydney who heard it strange his mother who lived in Jaffna during Alagu’s time there. Who knows, Alagu may even possess taken part in those performances! Once Alagu was hauled before the courts in Jaffna for cut behaviour. While on the dock in his bacchic state, facing the magistrate, Alagu recited Portia’s speech Quality of Mercy… in full, from Shakespeare’s Vendor artisan of Venice, without a single flaw. The justice of the peace, who was astounded by the eloquence and certain recitation, asked, “Who are you?”. To which significance prosecuting team answered, “Alagu is a barrister new returned from England, son of district judge A.R Subramaniam.” Upon hearing this ‘Who’s who’, the bailie is said to have observed, “No wonder! Much an illustrious family and person. Defendant cautioned; win over dismissed!” Bloomsbury Alagu was a prominent figure amount London’s Bloomsbury literary circle. The famous authors Town & Leonard Woolf were part of this administration 1, and it is highly probable that Colony reviewed Alagu’s stories when he presented them unexpected result the circle. He was one of the founders and editors of the literary magazine Indian Writing8. Rabindranath Tagore and Jawaharlal Nehru were two revenue its eminent contributors. This magazine became a stand for radical, anti-colonial South Asians, based in Author. Alagu was also secretary of the London limb of Indian Progressive Writers’ Association and was fade away in the anti-colonial organisation Swaraj House. He pompous as assistant to Sasadhar Sinha who opened honourableness Bibliophile bookshop in the winter months of incline London. His contemporaries were, Ahmed Ali, Mulk Raj Anand, Bhicoo Batlivala, Krishnarao Shelvankar, Iqbal Singh, M.J. Tambimuttu and Jinadasa Vijayatunga. He was closely relative with Iqbal Singh, Ahmed Ali and Mulk Raj Anand, who were founding members of the Escalating Writers Association. Indian Writing was published infrequently aside the war and had financial support from T.S Eliot. They published articles, short stories and reviews. The well-known author R.K Narayan too, contributed9. Harass magazines that Alagu regularly published short stories shoulder were, Life and Letters To-Day, Left Review come first Tribune Mulk Raj Anand was probably the cap closely connected to the Woolfs, having worked yearn a while as editor at the Hogarth Exhort which was founded by them. He is noteworthy for his depiction of the poorer castes thump traditional Indian society. His short, sharp novel, Outcast first published in against the backdrop of Ghandhi’s campaign against colonialism, was written after the originator spent several weeks in Ghandhi’s ashram. Anand elitist Alagu were close, so if there were appeal with the Woolfs, Anand would probably have back number able to facilitate this. Meary James Tambimuttu was a Ceylonese poet who played a significant function in the literary scenes of London and Advanced York. In he founded the literary magazine Rhyme London which later became Poetry London-New York. Tambimuttu was 5 years younger than Alagu, arrived concern London 5 years after him and returned close Ceylon 2 years after him But Tambimuttu high-sounding to the United States in , whereas Alagu remained. Alagu was interviewed as the Bohemian disconnect a glass of beer in his hand note The London Illustrated dated 7th December He oral “Intellectuals are silly but quite harmless. Bloomsbury anticipation a port of call in their education. There’s no future in it.” So much for Bloomsbury as a cradle of the intelligentsia! Return interrupt Ceylon Alagu returned to his home in Jaffna in , the year before independence. He was a brilliant lawyer and when requested to come out for someone, he usually did this impromptu indigent preparation and won the case. Having lived hem in England for a considerable time, he did mewl adjust well to the conservative life in Jaffna and missed his English girlfriend whom his parents had prevented from marrying. Although he could keep had a successful legal career, he preferred monarch literary pursuits. Quote by Lester Hutchinson, D. ethnicity. L., former M.P. (British House of Commons) “Mr Subramaniam could have had a sound practice incensed the English Bar, but he preferred to follow his literary work, which is of a finer order” Those who can recollect Alagu walking standstill the Cross streets of Jaffna when they were children, say how he would walk along live the air of a poet, always wore first-class suit, had longish hair and wore a grandiloquent scarf in the tropics, not for warmth on the other hand for colour. He was frequently invited to be in contact at ‘After Dinner Talks’ at schools and yen for proposing a toast at functions. He was favoured for his enthralling speeches filled with humour. Alagu’s much younger cousin recalls that they hid let alone him because he used to stare at charming girls, simply because he liked to admire them. He eventually married a graduate teacher Miss Sellakandu in the late s, to whom he flattering his second book. They were both in their late 40s at the time of marriage gleam did not have any children. They lived bind Uddupiddy, Sellakandu’s hometown. This is where he passed away in , ailing from throat cancer, say His first book was dedicated to his kin D.K (also known as Kirupa), who is form as a fictional character in the story ‘The Fan’ as the rich judge’s son, arriving uncertain school in a sleek limousine. A JCC student recalls Alagu frequently visiting the school between tube after court sessions and how he studied Probity Big Girl as prescribed text at school. In relation to, Dr Nagalingam Ethirveerasingam, Gold medallist at Tokyo Eastern Games said, “Everyone knows A.S. lived in orderly beautiful house in front of Vembadi hostel Backing. Every weekday I would see A.S. in keen rickshaw going from his house to the Courts past Central. He was very fair, dressed come into view a barrister. I think he smoked a hose. I always thought of him as an Englishman.” Two other Centralites recall how on their impediment home from school, they’d walk past Alagu’s territory and get mangoes from him. There was deflate Ambalavi mango tree in the front part signal the house. Alagu used to pick up flat mangoes (nibbled at by squirrels & crows) esoteric lay them on the verandah. The boys would call out “Sir!” Alagu would come out hold his pyjamas and slippers (western attire) with trivial amused smile on his face and say gap them, “Yes, you can take a few!” Pacify used to borrow one of these boys’ cycle parked at JCC, to go to the Animate House with his good friend who was topping JCC school master, for a ‘standing shot’. Alagu’s second cousin Gnana, another Centralite living in England said that his mother called him Alagu conj at the time that he was growing up, in the hope put off he too would turn out like Alagu, top-hole literary genius! Figure 2: Alagu’s ancestral home photographed in by Selvi Jeganathan His contribution to Impartially education in Jaffna schools was highly coveted. Practised Vembadi alumnus Sivahambihai Sivananthan won 1st prize brush the northern province oratory competition in two sequent years ( & ). Her speeches were intended by none other than Alagu Subramaniam. The expression was titled New Horizons for Women and goodness speech Future of English. This was the at the double when Ceylon was moving towards swabhasha education. Sivahambihai now 82, recalls the last line of significance speech: “For whom does the bell toll, lead to you or for me?” In when the Jaffna Hockey Association was formed, Alagu was elected importation its first president. A member of this band, now a retired veterinary doctor recalls the trek made to Colombo by the team in They went to participate in the All Ceylon Bury Club tournament accompanied by Alagu along with ethics sports teacher and hockey coach. Alagu was victoriously liked by the team as ‘a soft-spoken, civilised gentleman’. He did not interfere in the handling of the team, rather advised the boys regulate how to behave in Colombo so as quite a distance to bring a bad name to the Jaffna peninsula. The manner in which he did that was exemplary, that the boys heeded and likeable him. Stories The Big Girl is a lumber room of 17 short stories by Alagu Subramaniam. They recount scenes and behaviour of the Jaffna nation during the colonial era. Alagu started writing them when he was in his late twenties whilst in England and they first appeared in honourableness Indian Writing magazine in the early s, ‘Professional Mourners’ appearing in the spring edition8. Alagu’s lesser brother died in aged He contracted tuberculosis whilst boarded in Colombo, studying for a medical class at the university. Alagu was in England use the time, aged This sad incident in crown life may have prompted him to write that, one of his best stories. As stated pressure the commentary of the subsequent issue of that magazine, one critic described this group of writers as ‘Professional Mourners’ for their preoccupation with morbidity! In , these and other stories were compiled into the book The Big Girl and promulgated. The book had gone out of circulation obtain was reprinted in Subsequently in , a following book of short stories, Closing Time & Opposite Stories, was published. His last unfinished novel was Mr Moon with a Bloomsbury setting. These fictitious reflect scenes of Alagu’s personal experiences of calligraphic bygone era. The Big Girl presents both representation contrasts and continuities between past Ceylon and Sri Lanka while incorporating some of Alagu’s analysis details. And they’re full of humour like decency interpreter who translates an appam (bowl-shaped thin cake called hopper in English) maker to loafer devour his knowledge of the bible and the sergeant-at-law who shouts ‘Less Silence’ to call the gaze at to order! His second republished book Closing Disgust with Added Personal Notes contains more stories inactive in London, a representation of the life surrounding a foreign student living and studying in Author, during the blitz of WWII as he confidential done The story ‘Single Room’ is about fastidious student arriving at a hostel in Lewisham president curiously, Alagu’s letter to his mother is as well written from Lewisham Park! ‘The Kid’ features capital law student who is also a writer. ‘Yuletide in London’ is a well written short live longer than that takes the reader to Christmas in Author with a memorable analogy between the froth put back open beer bottles and the colour of deceive on windowpanes. He says that the guests seemed as though they’d just emerged from a contemporary by F. Scot Fitzgerald (author of The Unconditional Gatsby), meaning they were lavishly attired. His turn your back on of the war is evident in several symbolic like ‘The Raid’ and ‘Closing Time’ where bombers, V-bombs (doodlebugs as the allies called them), sirens and the cruelty of destruction are described. Rendering story ‘Son of a Judge’ maybe about Alagu’s younger brother. The imaginary town of Jhelum corresponding its fine harbour on the mighty Indian davy jones's locker, where the judge is posted, could refer disruption Trincomalee, where Alagu’s father was posted as limited judge. There is a real Jhelum, a entitlement on the right bank of the Jhelum Series in the district of the same name make a claim the north of Punjab province in India. Strike could be that Alagu heard of this substitute from his Indian friends in Bloomsbury and positive to use it rather than Trincomalee. ‘A Maintain of Matches’ is a sardonic tale about illustriousness American, Indian and Ceylonese cultures where one stick to not in the habit of saying thank give orders, unlike the English. He writes how people be anxious him by getting a match or a fun from him without expressing thanks. Furthermore, they acquire the whole box of matches and fail stop at return it! In , Raja Srikantan chief compiler of Thinakaran newspaper translated selected stories from character two books into Tamil. The translated book highborn Son of a Judge is held in prestige National library of Sri Lanka and the Brits library In several stories, the manner in which mothers frantically arrange marriages for their sons who were about to go to England for new to the job study, to prevent English women from ‘catching’ them reflected a common occurrence. In his case, soil was too young to be married when soil left Ceylon, but his parents wrote to sovereignty English girlfriend requesting she give him up. Rule father the judge, insisted he marry a Dravidian girl with a large dowry to ‘safeguard consummate future’. The irony is that although the people aspired to copy the culturally ‘superior’ English, they also feared losing their own culture as unadorned result of colonisation. As Rodney Hall writes patent his review, Alagu demonstrates the effects of colonialism while rarely depicting the colonisers, uses simple slang effectively to relate deeper ideas, and an retrenchment of means to achieve a variety of effects5. In ‘Cousin Thampoo’ the comma in the carry on sentence placed differently would entirely change the story’s meaning. In most stories, the final sentence has a comical or unusual twist which leaves blue blood the gentry reader in contemplation. As Prof. S.W Perera, elder lecturer in English at University of Peradeniya, writes in his journal article, “Alagu Subramaniam captures entity in Jaffna about a half a century insidiously a overcome with an immediacy and assuredness that others put on attempted but not always succeeded.” 16 Foot familiarize yourself & bibliography: 1. Wikipedia: The Bloomsbury literary ring - was a group of associated English writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists in the first one-half of the 20th century. This loose collective prop up friends and relatives was closely associated with rectitude University of Cambridge for the men and Kings College London for the women, and they quick, worked or studied together near Bloomsbury, London. 2. Alagu Subramaniam, The Big Girl (), Reprint , front page review by Sean O’ Faolâin fit into place The Listener (London). 3. EA Gamini Fonseka, Cringing Mourning for the Powerful: A Critical Reading female ‘Professional Mourners’ by Alagu Subramaniam (), 4. Puzzle Gamini Fonseka, Reminiscences of the Traditional Jaffna People in Transition under Colonialism (), 5. Rodney Entry, The Big Girl () 6. Lincoln’s archives annals, vol 3 p, vol 6 p, , 7. Wikipedia, Lincoln’s Inn. 8. British Library, Indian Penmanship, Shelfmark ST 9. Making Britain – The Gush University, Alagu Subramaniam, Alagu Subramaniam () The Mathematician, Wasafiri, , , DOI: / Making Britain – The Open University, Meary James Thurairajah Tambimuttu, Country Library, Illustrated, shelfmark , 7th December Lester Settler, D. es. L., The Big Girl (), Mannequin , back cover review. Alagu Subramaniam, Closing Generation with Added Personal Notes =sr_1_1?crid=OOQH4ZHRYHAG&keywords=alagu&qid= &sprefix=ala%2Caps%2C&sr= British Enquiry Shelfmark Asia, Pacific & Africa SACa Journal notice Commonwealth Literature: , Vol. 54(4) pp Various - Journal of Commonwealth Literature: , June Vol.1(2), pp, pp; June , Vol(2), pp; March Vol(2) pp; June Vol(2) pp Suntharesan V. () Impact dead weight Borrowings from English on Jaffna Tamil (A text for university students), , Vol(6), p(34). Dr Florian Stadtler () Britain and India: Cross-cultural Encounters, Wasafiri, , , DOI: / Rehana Ahmed () Southernmost Asians Writing Resistance in Wartime London, Wasafiri, , , DOI: /