Namma Chennai: The Dravidian City and Its Others in Tirumurti’s Fiction1

Abstract

Tirumurti’s novels are haunted by the specter of non-Dravidian others (Brahmins, Hindi speakers and North Indians) who lurk in the margins of plot development and contribute to the production of Chennai’s difference. The authorial investment on their claims and legitimacy is selectively ambivalent, ranging from internalization of Dravidian ideology to open interrogation of the same. To traverse that uneven trajectory, the author develops a framework built on the foundation of shared concerns (levelers such as water scarcity or love for music) that act as a centripetal force leading to a uniform narrative where fractures vis-à-vis ethnicity and language are ignored. Yet his awareness of Dravidian ideology in the narrative of the nation makes the author create situations where the seemingly unifying patterns are punctured by the centrifugal forces of anti-North and anti-Brahmin consciousness.