Death Anniversary: KVS Vas-the Chanakya of Journalism

The late Kalki Krishnamoorthy, a former editor of the weekly Tamil magazine Kalki and a prolific writer of short stories and historical romances is acclaimed to be one of the topmost journalists in Tamil. He is credited to have contributed in making the Tamil language modern by his writing.  
Such a man described an Indian born Lankan Tamil Newspaper Editor and also the author of historical romances as A sixty ton Russian Tank for the latter’s forceful writing.  
The man was the late K.V.S. Vas, the former Editor-in-Chief of the Virakesari and Colombo correspondent for the Hindu, Kalki and other foreign journals. 
Born in Kumbakonam in Tamil Nadu and graduated with a Masters Degree, he joined Virakesari in 1933 as a translator, as he was good in both English and Tamil.  
Later he was promoted as a Reporter, News Editor and then the Editor of the paper. He retired from full-time journalism in 1975 and passed away on August 30, 1988.
On the 31st death anniversary of a man who had contributed to local Tamil journalism, we must also record some of his 
other achievements.  

"He was a multi-faceted and multi-dimensional personality who could imagine another person’s feelings"

He functioned as a JP since 1978 and wrote fiction under the pseudonyms Rajani and Valmiki. Some of the titles of his works are Nandini, Padmini, Aasha, and Tharini.  
He wrote a history book namely Eelaththin Kathai. The special feature of which is that its contents were serialized in the weekly magazine AnandaVikatan (Tamil Nadu) in 1956.
He had written over 45 fiction and thousands of articles on various subjects. His works were published in 14 books. Vas retired from service in 1975 as Editor-in-Chief for more than 15 years and 40 years as a newspaperman in different capacities.  
Even after retirement, he continued to work as the Sri Lankan Correspondent for the Hindu and also for a Malaysian newspaper.  
He had also contributed several articles to the Daily News and had written two books on history, the first of which was the Kandy Arasi (Queen of Kandy).  
He was a fine human being, kind and compassionate.  
Further, he was a multi-faceted and multi-dimensional personality who could imagine another 
person’s feelings.  
Mr Vas was also a scholar in Sanskrit and as a Hindu, he worshipped Vishnu and followed Vaishnavism. Through his writings, he spotlighted the plight of the then suffering people in the hill country.  

- H.H. Wickramasinghe,  
Worked under KVS Vas