Devadasiyum Mahanum

That is the title of the Tamil translation of The Devadasi and the Saint. I of course ought to refer to it as Tevatachiyum makanum with a set of dots and dashes above and below the words. It was published by Kalachuvadu Pathippagam and released this year at the Book Fair. It was translated by Padma Narayanan and then reworked to an extent by author Yuvan Chandrashekhar. I then read it through and made some changes.

An interesting observation. I felt that Chapter 4 (Radhika Santwanamu) did not read well. I then checked the English original and found it to be mediocre as well!! Guess I am evolving. But it was too late and I left it as it is.

The Devadasi and the Saint also came out in Telugu a few years ago. As I cannot read that language, I found it to be suspiciously thin as a book. But VAK Ranga Rao assures me that all is well. I assume that that translation is more a capturing of the gist of the book.

In 2008, just after the English version was released, Ananya from Bangalore approached the publishers to translate the book into Kannada. I dont know what happened after that.

The book was adapted as a play by Prasanna Ramaswami and it was brilliant. It had some great singing by Swarna Rethas and Sandeep Narayanan as well.

Now all I am waiting for is the translation to be done in sixteen world languages including Swahili and the Hollywood blockbuster with Judy Dench as Bangalore Nagarathnamma. And an Oscar nomination for Tyagaraja for original music.