"Miss Violet glared through her glasses..." 😊

Celebrating Writers | The MCC Way!

Today’s Musings | On Writing & Writers

19th October 2023

Today I had a visitor who was waiting to meet me. Stephen Annan came up to me and said, ‘Rufus anna, that old gentleman who is doing his PhD, has come to see you’.

I immediately got up and went to the Exams Office Gallery to meet with him.

It was Dr. Krishnamachari, (born 1934) doing his third PhD with the Department of Mathematics, MCC.

He gently handed me a five-page article, neatly typed out, which he said, was for the upcoming issue of the College Magazine.

I was so delighted to see the insightful article, with literally no typographical errors whatsoever on it, and written in such fine prose. I was thrilled to bits.

Overjoyed, I promptly asked Stephen Annan to give him a copy of the recently released issue of the College Magazine.

He also got my official email ID and said that he would send a soft copy of the same via email by today. Then I told Dr. Krishnamachari about the article written by M.K.N in today’s The Hindu. Dr. Krishnamachari said that, he’s always loved his [MKN’s] style of writing, and that, he’s [MKN] been writing with The Hindu quite consistently for many years now! 

[On an aside - this morning’s Editorial section in The Hindu newspaper, had this insightful article by Shri M. K. Narayanan, (born 1934) that caught my attention. What particularly intrigued me about the article was the fact that, he’s been a consistent columnist and a writer for decades. He is also an MCC-ian btw!] 😊

The third article that I chanced upon today, is a handwritten article written yesterday, for their College Magazine, by my Mom’s classmate [during her UG & PG days].

Article written yesterday, by Amma's classmate

And Amma's article! 😊

On an aside, Amma seems to be very good at keeping friends you see. 😊 Didn’t know that they had a vibrant bevy of friends who are keeping in touch with each other, sharing memories and events over WhatsApp on a regular basis. Chweet!

Amma had persuaded her friends also to write for the Platinum Jubilee issue of their College Magazine. [St. Mary’s College (Autonomous), Tuticorin].

Dr. Sudha Rani, Professor of English, St.Mary’s College, Tuticorin, gave me a gentle  reminder today for Amma’s article. I assured her that it would reach her by tonight.

In the meanwhile, guess what? 😊

Amma would have proof-read her article at least a hundred times – over and over again. 😊😊

Well, she had written down the article all by herself, in her own inimitable style, (in spite of the fact that Amma had had a stroke a couple of years ago), and after writing it out, requested if I could type it out before sending it to the Magazine.

After I sent Mom the typescript, yet again, Amma would have called me at least ten times for carrying out a few corrections in the typescript, which I gladly obliged! 😊

She wanted to be doubly sure that the article did not contain an iota of an error in any way, whatsoever!

I was so proud and overjoyed to see such a commitment from Amma, a trueblue literary being!

Yet another person, who contributed an article for our own College Magazine [MCC Magazine] is Mrs. Anne Dayanandan, founder of Campus School.

I remember, Anne ma’am asking me if five citations were okay for the article, and she also added that, she was looking out for more citations. Mrs. Anne, who’s also in her eighties now, then asked me for the word limit so that she could abide by the word count! How meticulous our seniors are, when it comes to the craft of writing!

Then, Mrs. Anne sent her article by email to the official Magazine Email id – magazine@mcc.edu.in

When I looked up the article, I found out to my joy that, the article was perfect to a tee, with no typos or errors of any sort, whatsoever.

I was at awe with her commitment to writing an article without any errors.

Yet another gentleman who’s in his early seventies now, Dr. Nirmal Selvamony—I admire him a lot—because of the fact that, he’s literally flawless in his writings.

Be it his research articles, or his book articles, or his books, or his Tinai series, you cannot find even a single mistake of any sort in any of the pages.

Well, I should also admit that it was Dr. Nirmal who taught me how to edit a ‘camera-ready’ copy, or ‘print-ready’ copy!

Dr. Ganesh, former HoD, Dept of English, MCC, is yet another stalwart who wrote extensively – and his words and pages will never have even the slightest of errors in them. Such was his commitment to his craft – the beautiful craft of writing.

Dr. N. Lakshminarayanan, Formerly Professor, Department of Physics, MCC, had given us a splendid article titled, ‘MCC Physicists and the Making of Modern India’, which was literally ‘literary’ in every sense of the word, written in such a lucid style, in flawless prose – A prose endowed with passion at having known such great legends.

A Screenshot Copy of the Page! 

Even down the years, I’ve admired our students who’ve always strived to uphold the rich legacy of the College, be it in their written or oral presentations.

I well remember the first volume of the Journal that we had initiated in the PG & Research Department of English, MCC, almost ten years ago – titled, Incisive Insights, in the year December 2013 – a Journal of the students, by the students and for the students, which contained critical explorations written by our own UG & PG Students.

Prof. Udhayaraj, (who was doing his MPhil back then), Prof. Anlin Stieda, (who was doing her II MA back then), and Prof. Divya. T, (who was in her I MA back then), were the Editors of this Journal.

Giving us all some memorable snapshots from the first volume of the Journal -

Here goes the preface and some snapshots for us all, from the Journal - 

And excerpts from Vidya Venkat's Article - 

Page 2 

Page 3 - 

Yesterday, again, our students of the I MA & II MA English classes made us all proud when they had their research articles published with Crescent University, Chennai.

Out of the 95 papers presented in the International Conference, only 39 were selected for publication, and I am so proud to say that, all the papers presented by our students have been published by them. 

Special congratulations to Lalitha, Dhanavaishnavi, Brindha, Aaron, Vivilia, Sneha, Jennifer, Jelshiya, Joanna and Sharon on having your papers published. 

Way to go, dear students. We are so proud of you.

'I write eight hours a day...' said the legendary Jeffrey Archer, when he gave a freewheeling interview at the Tata Literary Festival. You may want to read more on that Interview, on our past Blogpost HERE, to get the needed motivation to kickstart on your craft - the beautiful craft of writing!