Kumari Malar

Kumari Malar monthly magazine

இந்தப் பக்கத்தை தமிழில் வாசிக்க: குமரி மலர் ‎

Kumari Malar (1943-1983) was a monthly magazine that came under the editorship of A.K. Chettiyar. It did not publish any fictional works and dedicated completely for general knowledge and researches.

A.K. Chettiyar

Editor

A.K. Chettiyar had travelled around the world many times. He was known for his writings on these travels and experiences. The first documentary film on Gandhi was taken and released by him.

Publication

Right from his school days A.K. Chettiyar was attracted to Gandhi. He started Kumari Malar in April, 1943 with the aim of spreading Gandhian principles and general knowledge among people.

Since it was during the period of second World War, the British government imposed many restrictions on publishing magazines. Hence A.K. Chettiyar planned to publish Kumari Malar as a book which was also a monthly magazine. As per his plan this magazine came out as an individual book for each volume every month. To denote this, a caption reading ‘A book every month’ also appeared in the first page.

This magazine came out with same cover page layout for all volumes with only the background colours changing for each volume. It was not sold in any bookshops and sent only to those who voluntarily subscribed. Number of copies printed was only around 500 and it was priced at 50 paise. It was printed at the Saadhu printing press owned by the brother of Thiru. V. Kalyanasundaram.

Kumari Malar magazine: Table of contents

Content

Kumari Malar contained articles on the topics like Tamil literature, psychology, handicraft, spirituality and politics . In each volume it contained many articles, preaching compiled from various books and important contents published from other magazines.

Annuals that came out every year contained information on rare documentaries, global news and other information. World travel experiences of A.K. Chettiyar were published in these volumes as well. Advertisements which were useful to people appeared in each volume.

Contributors

Rajaji, Bharathidasan, Raya. Chokkalingan, Periyasamy Thooran, S. V. V., P. Sri Acharya, Ve. Swaminatha Sharma, Desiyavinayagam Pillai, S. Vaiyapuri Pillai, L. Shanmugasundaram, T. P. Perumal, P. Amirthalingan, K. A. Nilakanda Sastri, T. S. Avinashilingam Chettiar, T. K. Chidambaranatha Mudaliar. Narayana Iyangar, N. Subbu Reddiyar, T. J. Ranganathan, S. Rajagopalan, A. N. Sivaraman, T. N. Subramanian, T. N. Kumarasamy, Na. Pichamurthi, Ku. Pa. Ra., Mu. Arunachalam, K. Chandrasekaran, Ku. Azhagirisamiy, Gowri Ammal and Venkatalakshmi had contributed to this magazine among many others.

Kumari Malar publications

Other information

• A.K. Chettiyar’s travel experiences were compiled and released as a book under the name of ‘Kumari Malar veliyeedugal’.
• All travel books of A.K. Chettiyar were published through Kumari Malar publication.
• A.K. Chettiyar had special interest towards old magazines and manuscripts. He had travelled to many places and collected these rare books from the attics of many houses. Among them the contents relevant to the pubic were published in Kumari Malar.
• Many rare poems and articles of Bharathiyar which were published in early magazines like India, Chakravarthini, Karmayogi and Swadesamitran got republished in Kumari Malar.
• Short stories of Tagore were published in this magazine.
• Many translation articles and stories published during the editorship of Ve. Swaminatha Sharma.

Termination

Kumari Malar magazine was stopped in 1983 with A.K. Chettiyar's death.

Document

Some volumes of Kumari Malar magazine were available in Tamil digital library

References

• Kumari malar magazine: Tamil digital library
• A.K. Chettiyar: A note on his life
• A.K. Chettiyar's Kumari Malar articles-1
• A.K. Chettiyar's Kumari Malar articles-2
• Viduthalaikku munthaya Tamil sirukathaigal -2 (pennezuthu - 1: 1907-1947); Yaavarum publication

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