Veteran Journalist D.B.S. Jeyaraj Passes Away! - V.N. Giritharan -

I learned through Facebook of the passing of veteran journalist D.B.S. Jeyaraj. I was deeply saddened. My heartfelt condolences to his family members, relatives, friends, and readers who are grieving this great loss.

I did not meet him often. I had met him in person only once or twice. However, he remained in touch with me through Facebook Messenger. Since 2019, every year on my birthday, he would send me birthday wishes through Messenger. He would also send links to his English articles and their Tamil translations. The last message he sent me in that manner came on March 24. It was a post about the singer T.M. Soundararajan. On one occasion, when I wrote to him regarding his article about Brigadier Balraj, he not only responded on his blog but also sent me a detailed reply through Messenger.

At this moment, I also remember that during the 1990s, when members of Thedakam organized a discussion on my novel America, he attended the event and honored it with his presence.

In the photograph included here, one can see lecturer Rasendran delivering a speech, while beside him are seated D.B.S. Jeyaraj and dramatist and journalist P. Vigneswaran. [The photograph here has been slightly enhanced using ChatGPT.]

At the same time, I also recall the moment when he first attracted my attention. In the beginning, I noticed his writings when they appeared in Virakesari, though I did not read them with much interest then. Later, he began writing a column titled “Behind the Cadjan Curtain” in The Island, the English newspaper owned by Upali Wijewardene, who at that time was one of Sri Lanka’s most prominent businessmen. In those columns, he wrote extensively about the emerging Tamil armed struggle in Sri Lanka, especially about incidents such as the shooting confrontation between Uma Maheswaran and Prabhakaran in Tamil Nadu during that period. From then onward, I continued to read his articles from time to time, both in English and Tamil, in magazines and newspapers published in Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka.

In Canada, he initially served as editor of Senthamarai magazine and later published Manjari magazine as its editor. The political views reflected in his writings brought him many hardships. Yet he never lost heart and continued writing until the very end. In recent years, it is noteworthy that his English articles were promptly translated into Tamil in Virakesari by senior journalist Veeragathy Thanabalasingam.

I regard the passing of the distinguished and influential journalist D.B.S. Jeyaraj, who lived during our times, as a great loss to the field of journalism. I deeply feel this loss. My profound condolences.