Journalism

Gnani’s world with magazines and journalism started while he was studying at St. Joseph High School in Chengalpattu. The high school students were supposed to conduct a magazine. It was a handwritten magazine made of full scape sheets. The magazine was designed in the way, if in case there was a full page color pictures, then a yellow, green and blue glass paper was cut and placed before it as an inter-leaf. Once he joined Madras Christian College, his next handwritten magazine was Vamban. It was circulated among friends who travelled in train every day from Chengalpattu to Chennai.

After graduating in BA at Christian College, he joined the Advertising section of the ‘Indian Express’ magazine. Bitten by Journalism bug, In brief period, he went back to study about it. After studying Diploma in journalism at Chennai University, he rejoined the Indian Express in 1975 as a reporter. In 16.8.1979, Kumudam published a Gnani's letter titled 'Rudraksha Punaigal’ (Rudraksha Cats) along with his photo. The Express management dismissed him on that ground. He successfully rejoined the Indian Express few years later after successfully fighting out this case legally in Chennai High Court.

In the meantime, he worked in a weekly magazine ‘Ashwini’ to run his life. Following that, he worked in the magazine called ‘Ethiroli’ (Echo) ran by Arcot Veerasamy. During the termination of the Indian Express newspaper, he started a bimonthly magazine called ‘Dheemtharikida’ with a help of friends on 1.3.1982. He was just 28 years old then.

After the verdict of the High Court, he joined the Indian Express again. With the money he earned as arrears during that period, he started ‘Dheemtharikida’ once again as a weekly magazine (1.3.1985).

Later, when he left the reporter job in Express, he went to work as a Chief of bureau for the English weekly 'The Saturday Review' which was started by a promotor from Andhra. The promotor also agreed to bring out a Tamil tabloid by the name of ‘Nagaram’ (City) with Gnani as the editor. But unfortunately the project did not take off even after six months. In the meanwhile Gnani wrote articles in ‘Junior Vikatan’ for his earnings. He also wrote articles in the magazines ‘Visitor’ and ‘Visitor Lens’. But his urge to run a magazine didn’t die down. Realizing the fact that it is difficult to run a magazine at the state level with limited financial support, Gnani decided to start a weekly magazine called ‘Ezhu Naatkal’(Seven Days) to be sold only in Chennai. The first issue of ‘Ezhu Naatkal’ was released on 28.12.1986. Soon after he became the managing editor of ‘Junior Post’. He quit the Junior Post after a while. He also worked briefly in English weekly 'Brightness' run by ‘Visior’ management.

During the period of Boers scandal, ‘Murasoli’ published a weekly supplement called ‘Puthayal’ (Treasure). Gnani was at the helm of it during that whole period.

In 1994, he became the editor of the 'TV World', a weekly brought out by ‘Dinakaran’ management. Later, he became the managing editor for ‘Chuti Vikatan' a magazine for children. He felt writing for children to be more fulfilling than to write for adults. But after some time, he even quit that job. Later, He also served as an editor of the Magazine ‘Vin Nayagan’ which was on the verge of its shutdown.

When Rm.T. Sambandham took over responsibility editor as ‘Dinamani’, he took in Gnani to bring out special editions like ‘Pongal Malar’ and ‘Magalir Malar’ etc. As an extension of it, Gnani took over as managing editor of 'Dinamani Kathir'. During that period, his ‘Marubadium Katuraigal’ (Articles Again) and ‘Manidhan Padhilgal’ (Gnani replies) became an instant hit and one of his important works.

In 2002, Gnani gave life again to ‘Dheemtharikida’ and managed to run it for 3 years. However ‘Dheemtharikida’ used to be intermittent owing to financial conditions. Whenever Gnani had money, it got released. When not, then it didn’t. The financial burden to run the magazine had repeatedly paralyzed the release of the magazine. However he did not give up. In 2016, he announced that ‘Dheemtharikida’ could be brought back if there were certain number of subscribers. But it did not materialize.

Since 2016, He remained as the architect and consultant for the Tamil student magazine ‘Pattam’ from ‘Dinamalar’ publications.