Something I wrote for this magazine.
The Pulp Fiction World is murky and dangerous for women; at every corner lurks temptation and disaster. At any moment she could be abducted to be used sexually and killed or she could fall into the hands of her uncle who leers lasciviously at her and her fortune. Her entire presence is distilled to two facts; at all times her honour could be decimated and she could be led astray never to be mentioned in polite circles or she could lead a quiet virtuous life and no matter her status, deliverance would come in the form of a rich, educated, and sensitive man and all her previous cares would be forgotten.
If that sounds like a subversive kind of chick lit, meet the other woman in Pulp fiction, an archetype herself but modelled on whom exactly? She is spunky, knows Karate, can defend her honour, and if necessary, hatch plans to escape from the lair of the evil scientist. She wears t shirts with sexy aphorisms that are too tight, is aware of her erotically charged relationship with her male colleague and hides it with matter of fact diversions or bullies him into looking at her as a sexual object through coquettish jealousy.
If all this sounds complicated and overwrought, you must excuse my feminist professors for teaching me to read meaning into the patriarchal writing. Lets take a step back and look at it again. You might as well strike out the first two paragraphs (but please don’t coz I crafted them meticulously and will get back to them in a bit) because these women are only marginal figures in pulp fiction, serving only to drive the action forward which will be take over by the men.
Ahh, the men! While the women are sexual objects, there to arouse one into thinking and action with names that slip out like semi-orgiastic exclamations Asha, Leela, Pushpa, Kamini, and Kanchana, the men are their antithesis. Devanathan, Shankar Lal, Narendran, and Sasivaran; thinking individuals with thick moustaches and hard skulls, capable of keeping their cool even when a gun is pointed at them, especially if a gun is pointed at them, these are the men for whom its written.
The Sabapathy, Velupillai, and Ravis of the world buy these magazines and fantasise about the Kaminis and Kanchanas of the seedy underworld who run to them with heaving bosoms seeking their brawn and brain to rescue them from the clutches of evil and in return give them the promise of eternal devotion and undying love or just an unforgettable night of passion!
The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction has excellent translations from select authors and a marvellous translator’s note which I urge you to read. If it seems like my delicate sensibilities are wounded by these portrayals, you could not be further from the truth! Full of energy and suspense, these are page turners that offer you value for money.
Sometimes you also find social messages woven in; this authorial angst is quickly masked in the action of seedy underworld men but these flashes of conscience (as I’d like to term them for my own slotting purposes) are topical.
Most of us may not know Rajesh Kumar, Indra Soundararajan, Pattukottai Prabhakar (on an aside, whatta name!), but we do know the 80s movies. The spate of detective movies that came out was astounding and for the longest time, I assumed our Kollywood had been “inspired” by the film noir genre.
Maybe their inspiration was a little closer to home! The evil politician rapes any woman he comes across; the virginal sister of the hero is abducted on her way to typing class (why this obsession with typing classes? Was that the mark of a girl with a useful mind who didn’t want to waste her intelligence making kaara kolambu for her in-laws? Was the rhythmic click clacking of typing such a charged atmosphere that it became synonymous with buxom youth and hidden desires?) and the hero is hired by her brother or happens to be her brother.
While he was the carefree youth cavorting with the rich girl in Woodlands Drive-in or in Ooty singing melodious duets in the first half, he’s called upon by Dharma itself (in the form of the hand-wringing mother) to fight the good fight during the second half and boy does he! Single handedly he busts a prostitution racket or reforms the villain who had some mountain cave he hid in, or sometimes, just for our viewing pleasure, there were crocodiles thrashing in a glass tank in a Technicolor basement of an abandoned bungalow!
Sounds familiar? Before we knew heroes who flicked cigarettes, every Tamil family was familiar with these worldly wise heroes and damsels in distress from their steady Pulp fiction diet. Mention Pattukottai Prabhakar (bear with me while I fixate on this name) and if you happen to be in a room with individuals over a certain age (*cough cough* older people), they immediately rattle off Resakee, Tamilvanan, Pushpa Thangadurai and Ramanichandran as though you’re playing some weird Antakshari with them.
Published in weeklies such as Kalkandu, Dhinamani Kadhir, Anandha Vikatan, Kumudham and Kalaimagal, these titillating tales of crime and punishment were condensed lectures on modern day morality. Then there were other publications; super novel, ungal junior, and today crime, these were not freely distributed among members of the family. The writers were the same; the subject was the same but the language presumably was less constrained because they needn’t fear corrupting the minds of young girls from good Tamil families.
These ten rupee novels may have been mid-morning escapes for many but in them lie nuggets of the era they were written in. The reader can glean what the common man was feeling and thinking. These “pulp” reads are a treasure trove for a mind keen on understanding the sociological issues of an earlier era. It is more accurate than History and certainly more fun and racy!
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