A 'catholic' emperor's story, from his view

CHENNAI: In 1998, a novel about an emperor was published in a first-hand account in Tamil, which began like this: “My name is Krishnan. As a mark of respect to my ancestors, I have adopted the surname Devarayan.”

Although novels based on historic events were aplenty those days, it was the first time someone had tried a first-hand narrative in the genre. Written by veteran Tamil journalist

Ra Ki Rangarajan

, `Naan Krishnadevarayan' was about Krishnadevaraya, the most powerful emperor, who ruled the

Vijayanagara kingdom

for 21 years (1509-1530).

Ra Ki's book

was different from other Tamil novels that had been popular till then. Suganthy Krishnamachari, who has translated `Naan Krishnadevarayan' to the English `I, Krishnadevaraya', said it was challenging, as she had to capture the flavour of the original while translating the novel to English.

But what made Suganthy choose the book was the unusual route that Ra Ki took while writing his novel. Ra Ki's book is different from other Tamil historic novels, she said. “In other novels, the royals were always stiff and formal, even in the company of loved ones. And so you had a prince addressing his mother as ‘thaaye' or his father as ‘thandaiye.' Nothing wrong with that mode of address. In Ra Ki's book, Krishnadevaraya addresses his mother as `amma,' and he is just Krishna to her. It was perhaps the first historical to be written in such a breezy style,” said Suganthy , who is a Chennai-based journalist.

But what's the relevance of the novel? “In Ra Ki's book, we find Muslim characters and Christians too, and it gives us an idea of how catholic this king was in his outlook. Despite being a staunch Vaishnavite, he was never prejudiced against any religion. In the very first chapter of the book, we find the emperor has plans of building a mosque for his Muslim soldiers,” she said. “We have strong characters like Gayatri in the novel. She is well read, she travels alone, she fences, rides horses, and marries a European,” added Suganthy .

When Suganthy decided to translate it, she read it again, after reading up some historical accounts. “I found that many of the descriptions in Ra Ki's book were all based on historical accounts. I had to capture the flavour of the original, so I was careful while translating,” she said. Published by Westland, ‘I, Krishnadevaraya' will be discussed at the Madras Book Club on Monday (April 24).

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