கழக ஆட்சியர் வ.சு.வரலாறு 0
7
The untimely death of Tiruvaranganar, th Father of the Kazhagam, in 1944, followed by that of Nilambikai Ammal next year, was a double blow under which the publishing firm could not but reel for a time. It now became necessary for Va Su's wife, Mangayakarasi, to shift to Palayamkottai with her two daughters, so as to be able to look after Tiruvaranganar;s children and the aged mother-in-law., During the next eight years, Va Su gallan-tly contined at Madras, cookming his own meals, and living a life of simplicity, austerity and infallible regularity. And he laboured with redoubled dedication and saw that the progress of the Kazhagam didn't suffer, whether in Madras or at Tirunelveli, He bought the Janasakthi Press for Rs. 20,000, re named it Appar Achakam, and had it opened by Omandur Ramaswami Reddiar in 1948. This gave a push to the Kazhagam's book-publishing activities and helped it to build an opulently diversified body of publications in a variety of formats;; mini, medium and large, paperback, calico, rexine,popular, and gold-lettered deluxe! learned commentaries on Tolappiyam, and other works of grammar;; the whole ensemble of the Sangam Classics;; the minor but no less significant literary forms (ula, kalambakam, thoothu, Kuravanji, andadi, pillaithamizh etc.) ;; the celebrated Tirukkural in a diversity of editons, one of them (with Mu Varadarjanar's paraphrase) achieving a sale of a million;; the classics of religions divination and ecastasy like Tirumandiram, Tevaram, Tiruvasagam and Tiruppugazh;; philosophical classics like Meikandar's;; the Sangam Classics in prose or in summary reecitals;; collections of speeches and conference papers;; historical and scientific works;; secular literature like fiction, essays and drama; children's literature; the works of Maraimalai Adigal; translations; research monographs in Tamil and in English; biographies, dictionaries..........well, God's plenty, in fact. The Kazhagam's list is a composite and comprehensive library by itself. No wonder it has been remarked that the Kazhagam, as an instittution, is older than the Annamalai, and Madurai Kamaraj Universities; and its record of scholoarly publications in Tamil is more outstanding than that of the University of Mazdras.
