KOCHI: TJS George never believed in letting talent go to waste. When writer S Jayachandran Nair walked out of the then-popular literary and cultural weekly Kala Kaumudi, TJS saw an opening that would change the course of Malayalam journalism.

At the urging of his close friend and writer M P Narayana Pillai — known affectionately as ‘Nanappan’ — TJS moved quickly. Pillai had written to him, insisting, “We should not allow Jayachandran to lie idle. His calibre as editor and writer must be used.” Together, the two men persuaded Jayachandran Nair to take charge of a brand-new weekly out of Thiruvananthapuram.

Thus was born Samakalika Malayalam Varika on May 16, 1997, launched as a sister publication of The New Indian Express. Jayachandran came on board with a promise: he would bring to Varika the best voices of Kala Kaumudi. He delivered, persuading artist Namboothiri, literary critic M. Krishnan Nair, with his cult column Sahitya Varaphalam, and calligrapher Narayana Bhattathiri to cross over.

With that single stroke, Varika arrived fully armed — a cultural powerhouse under Jayachandran’s stewardship from 1997 to 2012. TJS, who gave him a free hand to run the magazine, contributed his own unforgettable essay, Ghosha Yatra (Procession). That work, later included in his autobiography of the same name, won him the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award in 2009.