Reading Sundara Ramaswami’s Tamarind History as an Anthropogenic Narrative written in an Earth Centric Way

Abstract

When the developing world seems to be swayed by the late currents of modernity overlooking the environmental concerns and climate change, Sundara Ramaswamy's Tamil novel Oru Puliyamarattin Kattai (1966), translated by Blake Wentworth in 2003 as Tamarind History in English explores the themes of the changing interaction between humans and nature in a fictional Indian town in the context of historical and social-political changes. It highlights nature nurturing not just life at earth but also facilitating the imagination of the creative spirit of the mass of humanity. The novel also looks at nature as the ‘Subaltern’ becoming the victim to the games of the power-hungry-race of humanity. The paper analyses the telling of the life story of the specific tamarind tree at the main crossroad of the narrator's hometown in the novel as the author’s attempt at telling anthropocentric history in a novel earth centric way.