Alagu Subramaniam Analysis

Alagu Subramaniam was a Tamil short story writer from Sri Lanka. He was one of the authors and editors of the scholarly magazine, Indian Writing. Mulk Raj Anand and Iqbal Singh distributed one of his short stories in their compilation Indian Short Stories (New India Publishing Company, 1946). His short stories were published by various journals, for example, Life and Letters Today and the Left Review.
His short story 'Professional Mourners ' reflects the old traditions and practices by Tamil people in Sri Lanka.

Plot
Death of the narrator’s grandmother: The story begins with the narrator’s grandmother’s demise. People have gathered around the house in order to mourn for her death.
Death is being celebrated: The narrator’s uncle, ‘Master of Ceremonies’ organizes a funeral for his aunt. He orders drummers, fishermen and professional mourners to attend the funeral. His uncle is concerned about

End of the funeral: The speaker’s uncle’s friends who are educated insist him to apologise to the mourners for his harsh behavior towards them. They sympathize with the mourners. The story ends as they sing verses in praise of the speaker’s grandmother.
Justification of the title
The title of the story PROFESSIONAL MOURNERS by Alagu Subramaniam is an apt title as the story revolves around the lives of mourners at that time period. Most of the times, they are ill treated and looked down upon. They do not have a say and are deprived of the most basic things like expressing their grief and sorrow even when their mother dies. Those of the upper caste force down their decisions on these mourners, and the mourners have no choice but to succumb to them.
The mourners are even denied the right to stay back and grieve for their deceased mother. Instead they are forced and dragged along to weep for somebody of the upper caste.
They were looked down upon in the society and often faced discrimination due to their profession. Despite facing all this, they did not utter a