Editor's Version - A Life In Letters

 

EDITOR’S VERSION

A Life in Letters: Kuru Aravinthan

By Mrs. Nageswari Srikumaraguru, Lecturer, Annamalai University (Canada), for Iniya Nandavanam

When the Canadian Tamil Writers’ Association chose to confer its highest recognition—the Lifetime Achievement Award for Tamil Literary Service—on Toronto-based writer Kuru Aravinthan, the gesture felt both celebratory and timely. For more than three decades, Aravinthan has written fiction, essays, and children’s literature that trace the arc of a life stretched between homelands, from Kankesanthurai in northern Sri Lanka to the multicultural neighborhoods of Canada. His route to literature began in a modest home library, where the rhythm of Tamil magazines and storybooks set the pace for a lifelong conversation with language.

Aravinthan’s family story is rooted in learning and public service. His father, Arunachalam Kurunathapillai, hailed from Maavitapuram and served as Principal of Kankesanthurai Nadeswara Junior School; he also held elected office as Second Constituency Representative and later as Chairman of the Kankesanthurai Town Council. His mother, Lakshmi, is from Sandilippai. After early years in Kankesanthurai and Colombo, the family’s path, like that of many Sri Lankan Tamils, bent toward migration. Toronto would become home. Before leaving Sri Lanka, Aravinthan studied at Nadeswara College, Mahajana College, and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka, going on to work at the Maharaja Organization in Colombo. He migrated in 1988, later building a career as an accountant and part‑time teacher within the Toronto District School Board. 

His wife, Malini, a writer in her own right, has also worked as a teacher and accountant. Literary affinity runs through the family: his elder brother K. Sivagananathan served as General Manager of the Bank of Ceylon; his brother‑in‑law P. Kanakasabapathy was Principal of Mahajana College; and the writer Kuramagal (Vallinayaki Ramalingam) is his cousin.

The first spark came from the periodicals that circulated through the family’s home: Ananda Vikatan, Kalki, Kalaimagal, and Manjari, alongside children’s magazines such as Ambulimama, Kannan, and Arumbu. “That gave me the opportunity to read a lot during my student days,” he recalls, “which gave me the confidence to write.” As a student, he entered a short‑story competition organized by the Jaffna Students’ Circle, with Mavai Anandan, Ceylon Wijendran, and Mavai Kanagarasa among its organizers, and won. At Mallakam Hindu College, he received Bharathipaadal and the Tirukkural as prizes—proof that words could open unexpected doors. His first published story, “Anaiyadha Deepam,” appeared in the Eelanadu Sunday Magazine. Soon, he was contributing to Veerakesari, Eezhanadu, Arumbu, Gnanam, Thinakural, Thinakaran, and Jeevanathi.

Migration reshaped both the canvas and the courage of his writing. “I realized that what was considered wrong in my homeland was right here, and what was considered right there was wrong here,” he says. The freedoms of Canadian life emboldened him to address war, dislocation, and belonging with a frankness that might have been difficult back home. Major Tamil Nadu publications—Vikatan, Kumudam, Kalki, Kalaimagal, Kanaiyaali, Yugamayini, and Iniya Nandavanam—began to feature his stories, and his fan‑club‑run short‑story review competition drew participants from fourteen countries, a sign that his themes of love, dignity, and memory were resonating globally.

Language itself became a site of experiment and debate. When he titled a collection “Sathivirathan,” coining a term that describes a man faithful to his wife—as a counterpart to the established “Pathivirathai”—critics questioned whether a writer had standing to mint new Tamil words. Professors Subramania Iyer and Karu Muthiah publicly defended the choice, noting that poets and writers have always extended the language and that dictionaries are filled with words first shaped by literary usage. At the First World Tolkappiyam Conference in Canada, his notion of an “Aaram Nilathinai” (a sixth land division) sparked spirited discussion. For Aravinthan, such arguments are signs of a language alive to possibility; he believes talent will find its readers despite neglect.

Community has long been central to his practice. When he arrived in Canada, resources for Tamil instruction were limited. He and Malini began offering free Sunday Tamil classes to neighborhood children, later moving into formal teaching roles with the Toronto District School Board and the Peel Board. He served as President of the Ontario Tamil Teachers’ Association. Together, they created Tamil Aaram workbooks, produced children’s song CDs, and made a Tamil Aaram video filled with cultural dance and songs—materials designed for Canadian classrooms and living rooms. For the past twenty‑five years, he has served as Chief Editor of the children’s magazine Tamil Aaram and the youth magazine Vathanam, nurturing an audience that can speak Tamil with ease and pride.

Mentorship naturally followed. Aravinthan has conducted short‑story workshops both in person and online, curating the first collection of short stories by Tamil women in Canada—Neengatha Ninaivugal (published by the SOPCA Foundation)—and later Aaram Nilathinai Sirukathaikal, featuring twenty‑six women through the Kiramathu Vathanam Women’s Organization. In all, roughly forty new writers have emerged from these programs, and another cohort of forty women is now writing essays about their ancestral villages in Sri Lanka for a forthcoming volume. The work is as much cultural mapmaking as it is literature, stitching memory and place for the next generation.

The body of work is both broad and widely read. In the diaspora, he has written more than 150 short stories; his 100th, “Tamilini,” was highlighted by the online magazine Sirukathaikal.com. “Oru Appa, Oru Magal, Oru Kaditham,” published in Kalki, drew over 265,000 readers, and several other stories have crossed the 100,000‑reader mark. Taste varies, he concedes, but the numbers point to a rare connection with audiences across borders and decades.

Recognition has kept pace. Among numerous honors are the Uthayan Gold Medal (Canada), the Veerakesari Millennium Malar Best Short Story Award (Sri Lanka), the Ananda Vikatan Coral Festival Award for the short novel “Neermoozhki” (India), the Gandharvan Memorial Prize (Tamil Nadu), the Nakulan Short Novel Award for “Ammavin Pillaigal,” the Kalaimagal Award (Ramaratnam Memorial,) for “Thayumanavar,” the Canada Tamil Mirror Literary Award, the Uthayan Literary Excellence Award, and the Gnanam Kalai Ilakkiya Panai Award (Sri Lanka). He received the Mahajana College Best Achiever Award, the FeTNA (USA) 2024 First Prize for “Kaalam Seitha Kolam,” the Governor’s Award for Best Journalist (Toronto), and the Toronto Education Council 25 Years Teaching Service Award. His English short story “Freedom Is Free,” written to mark Canada’s 150th anniversary, was translated into French and published. In drama and screen narration, he received the Janagan Pictures Award and stage recognition for “Annaikoru Vatthami.” Each accolade signals not only the reach of his stories but also their steadiness of purpose.

If there is a thread tying together accounting, teaching, community organizing, and writing, it is an ethic of responsibility—to family, to readers, and to the language itself. The same steadiness that guided him through migration animates his experiments with form and vocabulary. It also shapes his practical advice to new writers. “Everyone has some talent,” he says. “Since there are many public media, you can bring out your talent through it. Even if you are not noticed in the beginning, if you have talent and keep working, readers will look back.” He is clear-eyed about the relationship between freedom and craft: the diaspora may allow more daring, but readers reward honesty and skill above all else. And, he likes to remind skeptics, “Many of the great Tamil epics are love stories.”

He returns, finally, to gratitude: to editors who opened doors, to readers who stayed, and to the communities that made space for stories. The Lifetime Achievement Award, he suggests, is not a full stop but a renewed invitation—to keep writing, keep mentoring, and keep the conversation between homeland and diaspora alive. “Writing is the only field that can easily reach everyone,” he says. “Act with the belief that it can.” With that, he offers warm greetings and thanks to the readers of Iniya Nandavanam.

Pull Quotes 

1. “The freedom of expression in Canada gave me the courage to write boldly.”
2. “I coined Sathivirathan to balance Pathivirathai—language grows when writers take risks.”
3. “If you have talent, readers will find you.”
4. “Many great Tamil epics are, at heart, love stories.”
5. “Our workshops brought nearly 40 new women writers to print.”
6. “Writing is the only field that can easily reach everyone.”