Sherlock Holmes in Tamil
By Don Hobbs

On January 6th this year, The Hindu, the online-newspaper of India published an article
in their Metro section about the forthcoming Tamil translation of "The Adventure of the
Red-Headed League." The story, according to the article, was to run for three issues in the magazine, Manari, as "Senthalaiargalil Sangam." The translator was K. N. Srinivas who is better known as Korattur Srinivas in the Tamil literary circle.

I received links to the online artilce from several Sherlockians around the globe, all wanting to make sure I was aware of this particular translation. I quickly began a quest that until last week was fruitless. I sent several emails to The Hindu and the author of the article, Mr. Savitha Gautam, but I had no reply from either. The article mentioned that Mr. Srinivas had his doctorate in Electrical Engineering and was a professor at Crescent Engineering College. Armed with this information, I was able to find the college's website and a quick search of the list of faculty members produced an email address for Mr. Srinivas. I wrote to him, requesting help in obtaining copies of his translation but again, my emails failed to be answered.

All of this transpired in January, within a week of the article's appearance. I am not one who gives up easily. Another search of the Internet revealed a list of Tamil magazine publishers, one of which was Manjari. They listed only a physical mailing address. I promptly fired off a letter to the publisher. I rewrote to them a couple of weeks ago. I have not heard a word back from the publisher or the editor of Manjari.

The long silence was finally broken last week when I had this email from Mr. Srinivas:

"dear DON

good morning with greetings!

i received your mail. thank you.

i will be able to send you a copy of the Tamil translation of Holmes's Red-Headed League.
this i shall do at the earliest.

Mean while, I am bringing 5 Agatha Christie's novels into Tamil by next month. This will be a mile stone work in Tamil literature.
This is for your kind information.

best wishes.

sincerely yours Dr KN Srinivas"

Persistence paid off once again. This will not be the first Tamil edition in my collection but it be one with a special story behind it.

Happy Collecting!!