Face to face with Pattukottai Prabhakar

Q: Now that you’ve three dimensions, are you able to spare your time for your family?

A: My family members are my friends. I do shopping and go to cinema with my family on more occasions than with my friends. I don’t waste my time in unproductive talk or action, but, return home after I finish my work. So, there’s no chance of any complaint against me from my family. I never see my family and my work as two separate things. For me, both are one.

Q: What is it that gives you immense satisfaction as a writer?

A: Writers are like mothers. That is why their creations are called ‘Padaippugal’. Whether it is a short story, novel or a cinema, you require a nucleus. Writers give life to that nucleus.

Q: You are a public figure. What do you consider as your service to people?

A: My writing and my themes, everything is centered on the welfare of the society. I wrote a novel against suicide. One of my readers and his family had decided to commit suicide. On reading my novel, he changed his mind and solved his problem through borrowed money. He wrote an eight-page letter to me. I was very happy that an entire family had been saved by my writing. “Kanavugal ilavasam”, my novel on the progress of women is now part of the curriculum, an ancillary in Seethalakshmi Ramaswamy College, Trichy. “Maram”, a short story is a lesson in another college. My crime novels and humor stories are a source of happiness to people. I consider all these works as my service to people. Also, I keep helping people through some service centers. This is for my self-satisfaction and not for advertisement.

Q: Tell us about the thing that made you happy in recent times?

A: My short story “Innoru thaai” was translated into English and won the consolation prize in the competition for ‘translated short stories’, published in the golden jubilee issue of Sahithya Academy journal. The theme of the story is that wife is another mother. This is my recent happiness.