Once an Actress

This is the English translation of the Tamil novel 'Oru Nadigai Natakam Parkiraal' by Jayakanthan, a famous award-winning Tamil writer.

Jayakanthan has won the two most prestigious literary awards in India - the Jnanpith Award and the Sahitya Akademi Award.

Once an Actress is about an intense interplay of emotions in a relationship punctuated by intolerance, separation and eventual reunion.

An essentially cerebral columnist, Ranga is a sensitive person struggling to overcome his feudal upbringing. For an actress brought up on mainstream theatre, Kalyani is a connoisseur of arts of uncommon maturity. Ranga adores Kalyani but seeks constant evidence of her love for him. Kalyani finds her life's meaning in her involvement with Ranga. Love for her is sincerity, honesty and compassion, not its overt demonstration. This unsettles Ranga. A helpless victim of his chauvinistic pettiness with its thin veneer of intellectual gloss, Ranga seeks and obtains separation from Kalyani. The eventual reunion with a now disabled Kalyani is a moving denouement.

Kalyani is perhaps the most sensitive woman character created by Jayakanthan. The novel offers rare insights into the inner reaches of the human mind. It is a perceptive portrayal of the low-intensity conflict between a sentimental man and a self-sufficient woman.

About the author

Jayakanthan (b 1934) is known for his original thinking and thought-provoking ideas. A prolific writer, he has two autobiographies, biographies, several novels and novellas, anthologies of short stories and essays to his credit. He is a Jnanpith Award-winner — a major literary distinction in India — and a recipient of the Chennai Samskrita Academy award and the Sahitya Akademi award.

His novels and short stories often have characters drawn from the lower echelons of life, brought to life by his sensitive treatment. Jayakanthan says, ‘However lowly and decadent the affairs I take up for depiction in my story, I tend to place special emphasis on whatever is elevating and meaningful for life embedded in them. I sing of the glory of life.’