Chaff and Grain - Stories by SVV - A Must Read & Enjoy with a Hearty Laugh

This novel Chaff and Grain written by Famous humorous Writer S.V.V and published by The Alliance Company. A must read and enjoy with a hearty laugh. Thought provoking Humour, Soul searching Satire in Lucid Indian Style. Laughter is good for you.

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SVV (25.08.1880 - 31.05.1950): The intriguing initials which deligted a generation of sober and serious reader of 'The Hindu' from about the mid - 1920's to 1930's. The initials belonged to Shri S.V.Vijayaraghavachariar, an advocate from Thiruvannamalai. His prolific writing in "The Hindu" and "Ananda Vikatan" on the everyday events of life with a humorous perspective have delighted generation of readers.

Of S.V.V., the english essayist who made his bow regularly in "The Hindu' an english civilian of the time Hilton Brown said in the course of an address before the East India Association: 

"There is a man in Madras called S.V.Vijayaraghavachariar who is writing the most delicous stuff light as a feather, satirically humorous, not untender, most intimately revealing the Hindu life; splendidm spiteful stuff which can bear direct comparison of mutatis mutandis with the work of our own E.M.Delafield."

These collections are to be read, reread, treasured and read again and again. You can be sure to be delighted every time you read them.

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FOREWORD: 

This book is a trove. The owner invites you, good reader, to its riches. Come and take as much of it as you can. It will suffer no diminution and S.V.V. will feel all the happier.

You need no great intellectual outfit - no science, no theology, no debasing politics, no overpraised geography. But bring a small heart, a child's capacity of innocent laughter. This however you must have. No price can but it. Without it, what can S.V.V. or any one do for you?

On my first voyage, I kept much to myself, not being a good mixer. After a week a European gentleman accosted me in a friendly manner and wished to ask me some questions. I was agreeable and the conversation was somewhat like this.

Do you smoke?

No.

Do you drink?

No.

Do you eat animal food?

No.

Do you play bridge?

No.

Do you join the deck games?

No.

Do you bet on the Ship's run?

No.

Do you make love to the nice girls here?

No.

Then, why don't you throw yourself over-board? Well, that is one view of life. Mine was slightly different. So long as there was a cause to work for, bigger than one's self, friends to love and be loved, and beauties of nature and of art, one need not grudge one's days on earth.

Among the beauties of art, a book of humorous writing which does not hurt people's feelings or take away their reputations takes high rank, if not the highest. The joys it gives are pure and noble. Of course you must not give yourself wholly to them. Nor do envy the person who makes his living by joking for others' amusement.

But I am straying being old and garrulous. I was asked to introduce S.V.V's baby to the world. It is a superfluous office. Having done it, I ought not to be guily of any more superfluity. Let me bow and retire.

Tirupur

19-10-34.

Rt.Hon'ble V.S.Srinivasa Sastri.

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PREFACE: 

Inside these pages some may find chaff, and some may find grain. I have therefore modestly called this book, "Chaff and Grain". But, between ourselves, to be honest, the modesty is only assumed. I fancy I hae packed it with pearls.

My wife one day came to me with our male offspring - aged one. "Say Appa, child, say Appa" she coaxed. "Abu r-r-r" sang out the Infant Phenomenon.

"See, see, how wonderfully the child has picked up Appa. Padma's child is three years old, adn has not yet learnt to articulate even one syllable" she said, filled with maternal pride.

Well, it was her child.

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CONTENTS:

01.Rao Sahib Sengilian; 

02.O.S.49; 

03.Words of Comfort; 

04.Brightening Journalism; 

05.The Geography of Madras; 

06.A Visit to the High Court; 

07.Friends's Wives; 

08.Purpose in Life; 

09.A Son on Hand; 

10.3sh. 6d.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: S.V.Vijayaraghavachariar (1880-1950), Indian essayist, columnist. A practising lawyer at Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, south India, he won wide acclaim as a writer of essays in a lighter vein, first in the monthly Everyman's Review, and later in the Saturday pages of the Madras newspaper, the Hindu. His initials, S.V.V., were his nom de plume, throughout his literary career. S.V.V's 'An Elephant's Creed in Court', a scintillating satire on the credal war between the two subsects of Vaishnava Hinduism, appeared in Everyman's Review in the early 1920s. While humour that delights in the incongruous, the ludicrous, and the droll was his native gift, he could ring other notes as needed, and on the strength of the large number of his 'loose sallies of the mind' during the 1920s and 1930s, S.V.V. often provoked comparison with 'Elia' (Charles Lamb), E.M. Delafield, 'Y.Y.' (Robert Lynd) and Jerome K.Jerome. In his regularly weekly appearance in The Hindu, S.V.V. became almost an institution, a subject of animated discussion in lounge or club, at the Marina Beach, or wherever his fans happened to meet. Essays such as 'Don't Meddle with Coffee', 'Buttons', 'Dreams', 'Worry Over Slippers' and 'Country Cousin Abroad' were applauded for their humour and humanity, whimsy and wisdom. S.V.V's humour, it was noted, enhanced rather than diminished its subject, and he found occasion for laughter even in the weary, stale and seemingly profitless things of everyday life. In his late later years, S.V.V. moved to Madras and devoted himself entirely to writing in English and Tamil, publishing several volumes of essays and light fiction. Among his English titles are Soap Bubbles, More Soap Bubbles, The Holiday Trip, and Mosquitoes in Mambalam. Whether in English or Tamil, the S.V.V flavour and its tonic quality were the same. Never vulgar, cheap or dull, the essays seemed to the discriminating to be the distilled essence of the experience of innumerable middle-class homes in south India.