K. Chellappan. File | Photo Credit: The Hindu
Eminent English professor K. Chellappan, who won the Sahitya Akademi award for his translation of Rabindranath Tagore's Blonde into Tamil, passed away in Chennai, aged 88, on Monday (September 9, 2024).
Fondly known as KC in academic circles, he won the award for translation in 2020.
“Comparative studies is his forte, he secured his doctorate on 'Shakespeare and Ilango as Tragedians: A Comparative Study'. He is one of the English teachers who straddled the English and Tamil literary worlds with equal ease. Over 50 students did their PhD under his guidance,” said S. Armstrong, Head of the Department of English, University of Madras.
His other books include The World as a Stage: Shakespearean Transformations, RK Narayan: The Ironic Mythmaker, Literature within/across the walls: Comparative studies in classical and modern Tamil Literature; and Tagore, Bharathi, and TS Eliot: Towards Creative Unity (Tagore lectures),
“He also translated Kuralov, Thenpandi Singam and Meesaimulaitha Vayathilthe works of former Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi,” said Mr Armstrong, one of the students of Chellappan.
Chellappan reached out to literature students through his video recording and he described translation as a fundamental act of cognition and creation because, in every act of perception, there is translation and creation. Perfection in translation, according to him, was a frozen condition.
“He is a versatile teacher known for his down-to-earth approach. As a literary critic, translator, and administrator, he won many laurels. The elements are so mixed in him that the present academics would say here is a teacher. We are all proud to be his students,” said SS Prabahar, Dean of Languages, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University.
In an interview with Frontlinehe said he found it difficult to translate the works of Karunanidhi difficult because of their poetic dimensions.
He would say that, “fidelity to original can coexist with creativity. Of course, one has to take some liberties with the original. Just as TS Eliot said that tradition and individual talent are not opposites, one can discover one's creativity while submitting to the other and one can find one's true self by losing it.”
Chellappan's teaching career began at Rajah's College, Pudukkottai. After working in various colleges he headed the English department of Bharathidasan University. Many of his students are heads of departments and senior professors of literature in colleges throughout the State.
He opted for Sujit Mukherjee's English translation of Blonde for rendering the work in Tamil. “Mukherjee being a Bengali and a writer in English, has been able to get the nuances of the original, linguistically and culturally,” he had said.
Published – September 09, 2024 02:19 pm IST