The work of his desires, and love for phrases, awaits a reprint

By Express News Service
KANNUR: Eighty-three-year-old Njattyela Sreedharan spent 25 years travelling throughout three states. Collecting books and magazines, he additionally spent some huge cash which he knew may by no means be recovered via what he was doing – compiling a multi-lingual dictionary.“It isn’t about money. This is the work of my life, the realisation of my dream,”  Sreedharan says.

His work – unparalleled, as former Kerala Chief Secretary Okay Jayakumar places it –  connects Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada. Titled ‘Chathur Dravida Bhasha Nighandu (A Dictionary of Four Dravida Languages), and printed by the Kerala Senior Citizens Forum, all 500 copies have been bought out inside two weeks of its launch final yr on November 1, the formation day of Kerala. But he’s now with no writer for a second version, with the primary writer citing monetary constraints.

“This huge effort of Njattyela Sreedharan needs to be recognised properly by the government and the people concerned,” says P Okay Pokker, former director, State Institute of Languages, Thiruvananthapuram.Though a fourth commonplace dropout, Sreedharan’s ardour for languages and a steely dedication to understand his dream has introduced him to this present day.

“Kerala Senior Citizens Forum had stepped in as publishers when the Kerala Sahitya Akademi and the Kerala Bhasha Institute had turned their backs on him,” mentioned Nandan, who had directed a documentary ‘Dreaming of Word’ about Sreedharan and his dictionary.  Sreedharan’s romance with phrases began from his childhood when he had learnt Sreekrishna Charitham Manipravalam and Balaramayanam of Kumaran Asan.“I could recite many portions by heart from these books even before I reached the age of 10,” mentioned Sreedharan.

Unfortunately, he needed to discontinue his research after Class IV and shortly began working at a beedi manufacturing facility the place the elders requested him to learn aloud newspapers and magazines for them. “Those assignments ignited my passion for reading,” Sreedharan says.  When he was 17, he started giving courses for older individuals and later grew to become part of  the literacy mission campaigns. A two-year stint at a beedi-making unit in Palakkad helped him be taught Tamil. “Learning Tamil was a turning point in my life as I became more passionate about words and its connections to other languages,” he says.

Later, he landed a job as a short lived employee with the irrigation division. After retiring in 1994, he has devoted his life to the dictionary.“That my educational qualification wasn’t high would have been a factor for big publishing doubting the authenticity of the work,” he says.Priced at Rs 1,500, the dictionary has 856 pages and 15,000 entries .