PSBB incident has to be taken seriously. Erring teacher, management should be dealt with as per provisions of law. Corollary is to extend the same to St.George School’s activities and the list of other schools where Pandora’s box has been opened.
A year ago, singer Chinmayi Sripada pointed to an English article on the sexually predatory activities of popular Tamil lyricist Vairamuthu and asked if someone could translate that into Tamil. Kalachuvadu Publisher Kannan Sundaram had recommended the translation, writer Perumal Murugan had also supported that in Facebook posts. Later Chinmayi published a video where she pleaded that the article be published in Tamil, and action be taken on the lyricist.
I read the 2400 word article, a fairly detailed one that had interviews with several of Vairamuthu’s victims and sought permission from the author to translate. The author seemed to provide permission, posted comments sounding so in Kannan Sundaram’s post. I assumed that she would, translated the first part of article (1200 words) and sought for publications to publish that. None ventured. Only Kathir News and Valam came forward. (Puthiya Thalaimurai tried reaching me, but I wasn’t interested).
Meanwhile I had also published the translation in http://www.amaruvi.in, with due credits to the original author and the publication. The posts became viral hit in a few hours and the blog was inundated with requests for second part.
Then the magic happened. They had presumably threatened the original author who asked me to take down the article. I argued that she had provided consent in Facebook and I was waiting for an email confirmation. Then came the reply: ‘We have engaged a Tamil writer to translate. Hence desist from publishing your translation as it is copyrighted’.
I wrote back, saying I had already done the translation in 3 hours and they could publish the Tamil version of mine. They refused, saying they had already paid the other writer.
I had reached out to Chinmayi on Twitter as I had done the translation based on her moving video where she had asked for translation. She replied with a smilie. I took that as an expression of her helplessness in the left liberal male chauvinistic media world.
It has been a year now. The other Tamil writer is still translating the 2400 word article.
Meanwhile the Tamil media, we are led to believe, continues to ‘fight’ for righteousness, virtue et al under the euphemism ‘Aram’
ஆ..பக்கங்கள் 