COVER Mal Lit Survey NEW.pmd
Transcription
COVER Mal Lit Survey NEW.pmd
Kerala Sahitya Akademi Kerala Sahitya Akademi Printed and published by R. Gopalakrishnan on behalf of Kerala Sahitya Akademi,Thrissur 680 020 and printed at Simple Printers, West Fort, Thrissur 680 004, Kerala and published at Thrissur, Thrissur Dist., Kerala State. Editor: R. Gopalakrishnan. 2013 June 2013 June MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 2013 JUNE KERALA SAHITYA AKADEMI Thrissur 680 020, Kerala Malayalam Literary Survey A Quarterly Publication of Kerala Sahitya Akademi, Thrissur Vol. 31 No. 4 - 33 No. 2 - 2010 Oct. - 2013 June Single Issue : Rs. 25/- This Issue - Rs. 50/Annual Subscription : Rs. 100/- Editorial Board Perumbadavam Sredharan - President R. Gopalakrishnan - Secretary & Editor Chandramati - Convenor Members John Samuel R. Lopa V.N. Asokan - Sub editor Cover Design : Vinaylal Type setting : Macworld, Thrissur Printed and Published by R. Gopalakrishnan on behalf of Kerala Sahitya Akademi, Thrissur 680 020 and Printed at Simple Printers, Westfort, Thrissur - 680 004, Kerala and published at Thrissur, Thrissur Dist., Kerala State. Editor : R. Gopalakrishnan Reg. No. 29431/77 Phone : 0487-2331069 keralasahityaakademi@gmail.com www.keralasahityaakademi.org Articles published in this journal do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Kerala Sahitya Akademi. The Editorial Board cannot be held responsible for the views expressed by the writers Editor’s note The year 2013 turns out to be an year of extreme happiness and pride for all Keralites as the Union Cabinet has elevated Malayalam to the status of Shreshtabhaasha, the classical language. Malayalam has thus become the fifth classical language in India, the others being Sanskrit, Tamil, Kannada and Telugu. Malayalam language has a continuous history of more than 2000 years. It belongs to the family of Dravidian languages with a treasury of ancient and modern literary works of high standard. Malayalam is the mother of the world famous visual arts like Kutiyattam and Kathakali. It is in Malayalam that Kautalya’s Arthasastra got its elaborate interpretation and translation after its composition in Sanskrit language. Malayalam has a rich and varied literary tradition , and one of the proposed aims of Malayalam Literary Survey is to introduce it to the non-Keralites by means of translations and critical / cultural studies. Kerala Sahitya Akademi is happy to bring out this edition of Malayalam Literary Survey in 2013. We admit that ,due to reasons beyond our control, the publication of this journal had been delayed quite a lot. Now that the difficulties have been overcome, every effort will be taken to bring out the journal at regular intervals. We hope Malayalam Literary Survey will offer you a platform for discussions , deliberations and fruitful research. R. Gopalakrishnan Secretary & Editor Contents The Politics of the Word Dr. A.M. Sreedharan 7 Ayyankali Literature in Malayalam K.K.S. Das 11 Conventional Life in Modernism Viju Nayarangadi 17 Satan Brush (Story) Thomas Joseph 20 The Ernakulam Years of Vaikom Muhammed Basheer 22 N.A. Karim A Doll As Big As Freddy (Story George Joseph K. 25 The Ones With Cloud Forms. (Poem) Muse Mary 30 The Saga of Survival Kalamol T K 31 Portrait of a Wounded Poet in Ayyappan’s Poetry Vineetha George 34 Ideology as Articulating Identity: The Politics of Resistance in Mother Forest Dr. N. Prasantha Kumar The Mist (Poem) Karoor Shashi 36 40 The Poet Who Walked Before Time on the ‘Bridge’ of Kuttippuram Dr. Sheeja R.S 42 N.S. Madhavan’s Vanmarangal Veezhumbol and Nilavili: A Study in Political Milieu Dr. J. Anjana 46 The “Elephant Logic” in Vyloppilli Dr. Harippad Vamanan Nampoothiri 51 Book Culture in the Present Scenario Dr. Shornur Karthikeyan 54 The Representation of an Ecotone in “When the Lost Soil Beckoned: Life Sketch Narrated by C.K.Janu” 57 Raj Sree M. S. REVIEWS 6 M A L AYA L A M A Monumental Study on Indian Art. Aswathy Rajan 61 Reclaiming A Prophetic Path Sasikumar Manissery 66 Feminine Spirituality Alwin Alaxander 69 L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y The Politics of The Word Dr. A. M. Sreedharan T he word is without bounds. This ability of the word to generate a host of meanings is what makes it immortal and eternal. Words, which originate from the alphabet, are characterized by constant movement. The identity of the word is characterized by its ability to evolve. For this very reason the executional power of the word should be considered on the basis of how dependent it is on the twin aspects of ‘doing’ and ‘making’. It gains a multi temporal, multinational dimension through its movement from the singular to the plural and vice versa. It is this ability of the word that has given it the status of suggestion (dhvani), deviant utterance (vakrokti) and the like. All that involves execution or implementation is dependent on the ‘cathartic’ mode. Aristotle’s main attempt too was to discover how the word, as a tool for implementation, takes on a therapeutic role. The view that the word acquires different kinds of ‘life’ in different people and that it has a vital social role becomes relevant.1 The word has three levels – sound, meaning and perception. It is when it moves from the level of sound (representing the worldly) and meaning (representing the emotive) to that of the sensuous that its historical and social status become safe and secure. Man attains a kind of happiness when, through the power of his imagination, he is able to view a more comfortable world, other than the one in which he lives. This is based on a certain unique character that is inherent in man, and is what accounts for his poetic imagination. Such new types of creativity manifest themselves in poetry in two different ways – by revealing an obvious affinity to the empirical world, as well as by revealing a totally new world which is quite distanced from the former. In a certain sense, it can even be M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y 7 maintained that it is the poet’s romantic faculty that characterizes the first and his imaginative faculty that marks the second. Both are founded on the structural compactness and discrete selection of words.2 Further enquiries into the socio historical aspect of words attain greater relevance and prominence, especially in the context of the outcry of the death of humanism. Literature constitutes the wakeful, equipped working arena of the word. The writer is obliged to defend words through the work of art, especially when life- situations become impotent and ineffective due to overexposure, while in fact, they should ideally become self-critical and discourse-centric. Interpretation loses its mobility when a particular spatio temporal situation constructs a particular category to signify the knowledge-generating methods of a particular society and also when other meanings are imposed on it. Signifiers and signifieds become institutionalized when conventional norms assert themselves on the intertextuality of words. They can be liberated from this condition only when they are reinstated from the level of discourse. The enquiry into the subjective, social, universal and pragmatic levels of words becomes more relevant in such a context. The word is reality : Like many other objects in the universe, the word too is a reality at the fundamental level. Just like the human being, it is not a dependent entity at this basic level— rather, it only has the inherent role of communication and meaning-generation. Although the different activities of the word help in generating subtextual meanings, scientific features like dhvani, vakrokti and saili (style) do not become relevant at this level. Despite its external beauty, the figurative/ metaphorical logic arising from such an appearance cannot be accepted. Even if they are, they do not affect the existence of words. The 8 M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y relevance of such a view which is limited only to sound and sense has already been discussed.3 At its most basic level, the word does not create any disturbance in the reader – to him, it is just a quirk of creation. The aesthete, who dwells in a world of personal experiences and taste, does not attempt to make value-judgments at all. This movement of words, which is devoid of partnership or partiality, is theoretically opposed to the concept of universalization. The word is a construct : It is when words are considered the bedrock of the past, present or future, that they become constructs. The reader here rejects all lexical criteria and ‘builds up’ the word with utmost precision. Language becomes better equipped to resist all forms of distancing and dehumanization. Words become capable of transforming themselves into abodes of those basic concepts which can analyze, with logic and discretion, the racial and cultural attitudes that dominate colonial activities. The secondary life of the word becomes creative and fruitful only in the entirety of its aesthetic consciousness. It is when the mind of the aesthete becomes capable of absorbing semantic subtexts and the resultant state of universalization that the word, as a construct, becomes self dependent. The word is an expression of anxieties anxieties: The word becomes socially relevant when it shares the anxieties of justice. Justice is shaped and adjudicated by life-situations that are unique to social life. The antinomies of right/ wrong, high/ low are characterized by the criteria of justice. It is this sense of justice that is denoted by culture. The subject of literature is marked by a culture that transcends and consolidates the spatio-temporal, and is volatile and wholesome. It is when the word reveals the individual who is a part of culture and vice versa, as well as of culture which is closely related to man and the environment, that it becomes capable of interacting with literature – ie, its emotional, intellectual and The language of the media in fact becomes a proclamation of the crisis of present day existence where one has to make a pact with corporate forces and the various regional power structures. aesthetic values are best revealed. It is in literature that those values, hitherto regarded as subjective, become instrumental in facilitating a holistic world view. It is for this reason that words – and literature which is its offshoot – become signs of the different regional, communal and religious differences. Both language and literature become manifestations of the collective knowledge/ aesthetic beliefs/ world views which are all products of dual authorship. The word is rhythm-based: The word comprises two types of rhythm— internal and external. The first is constituted by our inner senses and the second, by our outer senses. Rhythm constitutes the most fundamental aspect of a person’s individuality.4 Since rhythm is based on sequential patterns it marks the movement of the word from activity to construction. It is the yardstick of time that is used for an activity to be performed.5 For this very reason, it denotes the pulse of everyday life which is characterized by duality of action. Any literary discussion that eschews the unit of the word—which is the most integral feature of language—therefore becomes irrelevant. This is the same logic that lies behind any thought or discussion on prose or poetry. The individual, society, as well as the thoughts associated with them, should be taken into account in such a context. Identity has two sides to it: 1) that which is encountered by the individual and 2) that which is encountered by the society. The former serves to strengthen the aspect of selfimage and the latter, of self-confidence. They also indicate the subjective, as well as social roles that are part of the inherent process of self-development. Such words should be determined / characterized at the levels of enquiry and representation. For this very reason, the study of literature— which is in actuality the abode of words—involves at once a technical and cultural study. The view that man’s cultural standards are determined by words, their meanings and the resultant emotions, also become relevant at this point.6 The various The various thoughts, crises and denials of the self and other issues related to human existence, the signifiers that appear in the context of their representation, the relationship between the signifiers and their signified, are all capable of revealing the new dimensions that characterize the close relationship between semiotics and other sign-based studies. This is relevant to stylistics and psychological studies as well. The consumerist nature of the word: Any discussion on words should also be related to their tendency to focus on consumerist tendencies that are totally opposed to the intellectual. It is the media which helps highlight the development that takes place from the disparities in human actions. This is done with the help of words and signs. Our everyday life which comes under the purview of culture studies, the segregation and dissociation of power, the new models of colonialism are all projected by the media with a kind of violent excitement. The language of the media in fact becomes a proclamation of the crisis of present day existence where one has to make a pact with corporate forces and the various regional power structures. The language of the media leads us to a conflict with the cultural mind which yearns for liberation and the social mind which pulls us back into a state of bondage. Such a distorted form of language, which is used at a time when all forms of cultural investments M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y 9 become a part of the ever-dominant culture and entertainment industries, is definitely more dangerous than most forms of terrorism. This will only help to create a narrow minded society which can never converge at a point or produce any practical result. Although words have a way of changing over from one semantic context to the other, the language of the media is destined to die, like a meteor, a sudden death and lose out on a meaningful life. Words here lose their ability to transform and paraphrase the different conditions of life. Caught in the web of a consumerist world, they are forced to live in a stunted, transient world, and finally give up their life as a consequence. The life of the word is creative and also a realization realization: All actions encounter a state of realization while conditions base themselves on actions. The word, by conforming to a state of creation, being and destruction, becomes action-centric when it is placed in a specific context and also when it achieves a state of realization/ signification. Anubhavas (consequents) that are co- existent with language – which is the outward verbal sign system that gives expression to thought – should also be taken into consideration. The importance of denotation in ‘chaturvidhabhinaya’ (the four stages of histrionic representation) is undeniable. It is denotation which helps the correlatives/ determinants (vibhavas) and the transient emotions (vyabhicaribhavas) – that have different roles and are interdependent – to reveal themselves in language. The imagination of the aesthete becomes more alert when new concepts and thoughts are repeated through words. Such an experience emanates from the written mode of language which constitutes its executional aspect. It is this cultural level that Marar described as the level of catharsis. Viewed from a prime critical position, we would be forced to agree that the greatness of a poet is measured not qualitatively but quantitatively. Such a state of 10 M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y greatness or all-pervasive glory is one which only a saint would aspire for. It is therefore meaningless to label a poet as ‘great’ by measuring the extent of his creative works – rather, it should come from the belief that ‘the greatest poet is a saint (naanrshi kavi), a dictum which the writer firmly believes in. His greatness can be accepted on the basis of a close reading and analysis of four lines of poetry, as well as of four lakh lines. The poet just needs to have a quarter measure of poesy in him—for the rest of the three quarter, he should become a sign of the eminence of humanity.7 It is only when he cuts across the boundaries of dry theoretical norms and transmits the inherent emotion to the reader that this can be achieved. The word as liberation: The social role of the word is based on its capacity to liberate. Words acquire a social dimension only when they encourage thoughts that are integral to society. Although their content and interpretive modes will remain the same, their meanings change according to the contexts. The liberative role is fulfilled by those words which absorb, in certain contexts, the ideas of humanism and liberation. It is the cultural mind of such words that enables the reader to attack the diverse forms of establishment. This has always been the role of words, and of language, which comprises words. This is also what a writer like K. P. Appan means when he says that it is the writer’s anxiety of liberation that constitute the subject of literature.8 The politics/desires/ interests of a unique society are the reason for such anxieties. Writing, therefore, has very clear implications. The politics of the word lies in its practice of liberation. Notes: 1. E.P.Rajagopal, Lokathinte Vaakku, Page 06 2. P.Sankaran Nambiar, Sahityaprabhavam, Page 110 3. Kuttikrishna Marar, Sahitya Sallapam, Page 90 4. K.V. Ramakrishnan, Kavithayum Thalavum, Page 14 5. Nambisan, A.S.N, Thalangal Thalavadyangal, Page 24 6. M.R.Raghava Warrier, Vayanayude Vazhikal, Page 62 7. Kuttikrishna Marar, Sahitya Sallapam, Page 90-91 8. K.P.Appan,Thiraskaram, Page 23 Ayyankali literature in Malayalam K. K. S. Das Aesthetics of humanity T he battle of injustice waged upon the endemic cultures and nation is the continuation of history. Post modern thought and globalization have an effective mechanism to idealize the liberal aesthetic ideologies amenable to imperialist elements. This friction in history has to give rise to a certain beauty and liberty which should become the popular resistance of production and expression. It should rejuvenate the conceits of history. The application of liberation should develop as a popular will. It should consolidate as a national force in the resistence values of the popular culture. Ayyankali becomes the representation and the theory of applied liberation- beauty of the nation. This re-creation in history is the product of social creative and the re-reading of history. Ayyankali is the natural legacy of Kerala nationhood, becoming a creative force expressing the aesthetics of humanity as a culture of liberation. Also he is the national symbol of a social force developing as an invincible political will. Ayyankali is the popular leading force that transmuted national will of liberation into a politcal will and propellant of struggle. Ayyankali literature is the ideological stratum of the same. Malayalam language has gone a long way ahead in the values of expression. Dalit national literature is a struggle that has begun to survive the national art of obfuscation by Literature is ideological expression as well as analytical research. M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y 11 the "main stream literature''-the struggle of nations to find their essence. The ideological war that leads the nation and the language to power and rightful legacy by proper political enlightenment. When Ayyankali joined forces with the truth of liberation he became an ideology in the national ideological streams. It is the mission and duty of history to read deep into the whole sweep of cultural essence of popular revolt. Language Literature Nationhood-a different perspective on values Language is the cultural currency and the medium encompassing the nation the individual and the totality of the spatial temporal and environmental platforms. It is being instrumental in bringing about the union of nations and the consolidation of nationhood. Language develops with the society and turns out to be the cultural force of social development . Malayalam transgresses the geographical region of its origin and spreads across the globe. Literature transcending the divisions of regional communal and religious identities leads nation to its essential values. Language, the medium of popular expression and the tool of intra national and international communication, is the stout link in international relations. Malayalam is the resultant cultural expression of Kerala nationhood. Kerala nationhood is the general culture of Kerala evolved through the course confrontation and reconciliation with different nations with different ethnic values in the specific indian geographical theatre. In the formation of Kerala nationhood specific regional nations and pan Indian nations have confronted and reconciled from time to time. The pan Indian dalit nationhood is the popular force of the original nations language in Kerala history. The quintessence of nation’s originality consolidated itself into dalit nationality before the aggressive cultural invasion of Hindu-Christian and Islamic ideologies and even before the communal segreation came 12 M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y into foce. Today the question of development of language and nations is a national question, also it is a question of democracy. It has an ideological dimension of national emancipation and aesthetics. The invading religions, ethnic, racial and caste systems acquired supremacy over Kerala’s demography.The dehumanization brought about by the invading cultural supremacy degenerated the nation of Kerala into abject slavery. The history of the caste and racial struggle of this horrendous period in the dark ages of history is yet to be explored. Certainly history has never been stationary. The confrontations of contradictions will have its reper cussions in the socio-economic realms. Pulapedi, mannapedi and the tensions in the caste based social pyramid contain the protracted history of struggles even beyond the historical folklore. if a caste woman belonging to the ruling elite becomes a social outcaste to be given away to the slave community when touched upon with a twig or stone is not a legend the political significance involved therein is to be dug deep into. Literature is ideological expression as well as analytical research. Ayyankali movement is the history of a slave nation becoming aggressive and violently making great progress in 20th century over caste based fedual supremacy, at a time when the slaves and the oxen had the same yoke and social stauts. It changed the course of history and re structured the society. The natural culmination of class war is the confrontation of the serfs and peasantry against the ruling class in a caste based feudal social structure. The conflict between feudal forces and the serfdom, between the kulaks and the throne, between the land owners and their tenants, between the planters and the working class was a continuous force in the evolution of Kerala’s polity. The heroes of fabled devotional movement from Ezhuthacchan to poonthanam could not bring about a qualitiative shift in the social structure. Still worse they contributed to the Hinduisation of Kerala culture cowing down in the racial supremacy of the imperious invaders. It resulted in the Slavery of the ethnic society and the glorification of Hindu Aryan invaders. The poetic expression of the Aryanization ws the Sanskritisation of language in the name of modernization. At the time of Kunchen Nambiar Otten, Seethankan (Pulayan) and Parayan ritualistic dances were incarcerated within the confines of Hindu legends. Aggressive Hindu literature appropriated temple arts and folk songs - arts of the grass root sections of the society. The sacred groves of the theatre arts and the ethnic folk music were abducted by the master race. The alienated original nations were manacled to manual labor. The women’s liberation sturggle moved ahead in 1829 in Bengal to end the the practice of Sati under the leadership of Bengali renaissance. The fedual administration of Travancore suppressed Channar rebellion, the struggle for the basic human right to cover the bosom of women, with brute terror of ethnic cleansing. In 1859 Channar women were given the right to cover their breast under the influence of British colonial administration Dehumanization was for all practical purposes the ulterior motive of the caste based production distribution and power equations of Kerala. Ayyankali movement represented the rebellious interest in the feudal autocratic socio-economic structure. This is the socio-revolutionary content of national renaissance. The struggle to move freely, to cover breast, to own land, to get decent education, to have labour rights-the struggle of the oppressed nations snow balled into a concerted landmark struggle within the philosophical premises of liberation and development. Kerala was rocked by insurgency. Ayyankali was its political capital. Official historians and mainstream literary magnates viciously demoted the same as Pulaya mutiny. Yet, transcending regional and caste boundaries, and integrating the oppressed nations on a national level he spearheaded a social movement in the Kingdom of Cohin, forged out a united front with the fishermen of Kerala and nurtured the movement into a general strike in the region. Ayyankali struck at the root of feudal economy making his movement the freedom struggle of a nation and also the class war of a marginalized peasantry. It was the theory and practice of a people’s war. It was also the theory of practice. Ayyankali shattered the boundaries of caste system. Still it did not concentrate on absolute anti-caste platform. The philosophical content that was essentially socio revolutionary made Ayyankali movement a timeless pan Indian revolutionary progression . The drawback of the movement’s philosophical evolution was the economic, class and social refrains imposed by the stigma of serfdom in the fedual production system. Caste and class- the problems of a pluralistic content Caste system is the negation of equality. it is maintained in the Indian social fabric as an institution compartmentalizing its people. In the feudal class structure the struggle against caste based feudal supremacy is a class war in the general class structure context. The specific essence of Indian class structure is caste system. The struggle against the feudal system became a struggle against caste system and vice versa. As caste system is the specific attribute of feudal structure against caste system does not graduate into a universal war against feudalism. The struggle against caste system gives a standing blow to the production equation evolved through feudalism. Only when production equations transformed, production forces are politically enlightened, the supremacy of private M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y 13 ownership is shattered, the working class becomes a potent war head, equality becomes a physical truth and the beauty of Indian society, and the vernal bloom of Indian demography becomes a standing reality the curse of caste system will be convincingly wiped out of the country. But the reformation bills, most often than not, serve to prepetuate caste system. The powers that make the sub sectoral friction in the lower classes a potent weapon to defend the qualitative revolutionary evolution of Ayyankali movement. Well before the Russian revolution of 1917 the oppressed classes in the feudal Structure of Kerala - the serfs of Kerala that had been denied the most seminal human rights- under its own leadership struggled against the powers that be resorting to the weapon of social disobedience and placed its representative in the legislative assembly. This opened a new chapter in world history. For the nation it was a lesson in history and practical political lesson also. It was impossible for Ayyankali to amplify the movement into a political revolution capable of transforming the fedual production chain. The limitations of Ayyankali movement were the class-based weaknesses, political immaturity and the low quality of the production forces . Yet there is no parallel political movement in the world comparable to Ayyankali movement Struggles created a qualitative political value and imparted a defensive blow upon the production hierarchy. Ayyankali movement brought forth the politics of social revolution in Kerala. Still, unable to discern the significance and pertinence of this singular political event, Keala’s casteist and religious cultural mainstream could place Ayyankali on the pedestal of Gurudev (great master) and slight him into one of the many heroes of renaissance. But absolute renaissance as such being indifferent to social reformation impulses, yields to decadent feudal production hierarchy and becomes a 14 M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y 'Earth ! you are the red lethal combination Your day will dawn. You will be the beacon’ poor appendage of feudal cultural reformation. We have to recognize and acknowledge the historical lesson that Ayyankali is the social revolutionary of mainstream Kerala renaissance. Violent aggression against dehumanization-it was the working strategy of Ayyankali.He achieved freedom of movement through civil disobedience. He replaced feudal caste based jurisprudence with popular liberal justice through violent and entrenched onslaughts. The revolutionary spirit of Ayyankali movement makes it unique in history. The political application of Ayyankali movement was the aggressive and defensive struggle for the liberation of the oppressed classes. The social existence and political right of a nation contain the vision of liberation and development of nations. The timeless historic and revolutionary pertinence of Ayankali movement is that it applied the solidarity of oppressed nation in the vision of development and liberation . In the contemporary history this political application does not socially develop. In the class war it exists as the politics of oppressed class unity and the contradictions of social divisions exist in mutual tension. it resists social change and objective of socaial revolution is to alter this condition. The forward march of the oppressed classes was based on the values raised by Ayyankali movement in the process of resisting the fedual system. The oppressed society was elevated to an exalted cultural straturm which denied and resisted the excesses of the ruling class. The blitzkrieg upon the powers that be and also upon history is the application of people’s history and proletarian dictatorship . This social application that shattered the status quo contains the culture and politics of the value of liberation. it is the expression of people’s will and the negation of the authoritarian system. the jurisprudential values that the popular nationalist movements triggered in Kerala by the oppressed classes produced the lessons of the great beginning of a national movement. The caste based feudal system used the caste structure on reactionary plain to protect itself. The internal contradictions of the caste structure and the frictions thereof perpetuated by the caste-based representatives in the legislative assembly shattered the unity of the oppressed classes. This happened during Ayyankali’s lifetime but he could do nothing about it. it is the culture and strategy of the people at the helm to protect caste based social structure through caste-based contradictions. Here religions becomes a handy weapon. Ayyankali movement failed to spearhead the popular political struggles that cropped up in Kerala. His movement fell apart in the caste, religious and sub- caste frictions. But the socio-political enlightenment that his movement gave rise to surged ahead as the guiding force and people’s might in the later day revolutionary advances (of the working class-peasantry movements) Thunder of spring in Malayalam literature People create history. Literature incorporates an ideological dimension to the value based culture of history. It underscores the lessons of history by means of an ideology. The main stream writers and historians failed to feed on the liberation- aesthetics potentials of Ayyankali movement. Ayyankali literature is meager and light. It had to fight and defend itself ifn the upper class dominated printing publishing marketing realms to find a slot to find expression. Ayyankali literature appreared on Malayalam literary as a style of literary expression of popular resistance. 'Ayyankali the first spark flashed against feudalism' and 'Ayyankali in Kerala History ' are the two write-ups that made an attempt to analyze Ayyankali politically. No other political analyses based on Marxist philosophy have hitherto appeared. N.K. jose and Chentharassery have come out with the biography of Ayyankali. They however stick to the ethnicity in dalith literature while projecting Ayyankali in a romantic vein. Yet they stand apart for having introduced Ayyankali in Malayalam literature. They managed to penetrate the literature clitism. Ayyankali became a reading material in Malayalam. Mr. Abhimanue and Mr. Rajagopal Vakathanam also have made their contribution in introducing Ayyankali to Malayalam literature. 'Ayyankali' by Kallada Sasi and my Trumpet of The Soil have perpetuated Ayyankali in Malayalam poetry. Kallada Sasi’s poem which envisages Ayyankali as pancahjanya refuse to assimilate Ayyankali in the political or historical perspective. Ideologically it symbolizes him in gaudy romantic imagination.Thus the poem fetters the essencce of anti-feudal movement in feudal culture, making it a reactionary product. I penned this poetic work in 1967 when I was a pre-degree student at NSS College, Changanassery. It appeared in print for the first time in 1975 when SEEDIAN weekly was launched from Kottayam. A second edition became possible only in 2003. Ayyankali headed the women’s liberation movement by promoting stone jewellery boycott. It was the first one of its kind against the dehumanizing process after the Channar rebellion, which demanded the right to cover a woman’s mammary glands .This poetic work, an epic in Malayalam seeks M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y 15 So predicted the mind of the poet in 1967 and today it is historic truth. educational institutions he set an example for social reconstruction. The conducting force of social development.Such examples are most appropriate over a great beginning. Ayyankali movement teaches us that beauty becomes the power of liberation and liberation becomes the cessation of obsolete production hierarchy. it is to be borne in mind that when Ayyankali is read and brave new ideas are sparked out Ayyankali literature becomes the politics of application and the vision of liberation. The works that analyze and present Ayyankali give rise to a lesson that reminds us of ideological and cultural values. The jurisprudence introduced and applied by Ayyankali runs parallel to the judicial system. It is the political application and cultural premise of self-determination and sociocultural autonomy.Through the opening of Cultural development signifies the presentation of new values and the negation of old values. Malayalam literature has to develop as the creative ideological interpretation of the same. Ayyankali literature is the developmental flux of the national culture. Also it is the valuable power of egalitarianism. poetic expression to the history of man’s advancement. This aesthetic expression of liberation does not follow the stereotyped styles but spurs modern thought. Read out culture from history.The stone that the builders left has become the head of the corner. 'Earth ! you are the red lethal combination Your day will dawn. You will be the beacon’ 16 M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y Conventional life in Modernism Viju Nayarangadi The inner conflicts within an idividual, his war with the society and the urban-rural intrigues were raised to a particular status, placed on a platform and given different interpretations. F or Kakanadan among the moderns, writing was a dilemma. It was time when the malaylee tried to find an answer to the question, ‘Where lies chaos in writing? Modernism is not a personal trait or a dogma that works on a personal ideology or enthusiasm about the west. In Malayalam, modernism was like an illumination rising above the assumed sophistication that was the aftermath of colonization. By the end of the 50s we had started straying away from Gandhian thoughts. All natural resources, earth, water, sky were remoulded according to human need. Life became mechanical. Everything was valued according to its utility and made use of to the maximum possible stage. It modified the philosophy that if you cut a tree, you have to plant one. The inner conflicts within an idividual, his war with the society and the urban-rural intrigues were raised to a particular status, placed on a platform and given different interpretations. This is what Indian writers called modernism. Even when modernsim in writing became the business of Indian modernity, it was in Malayalam, more than in any other Indian language, that modernim retained its artistic sanctity. M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y 17 In North India, villages in no time became cities. Life in these cities too took different versions and it was experienced mostly by the slum dwellers in Delhi and UP, who migrated to these cities in the 60s and also by those from Kerala who went in search of a living in these cities. They read Camus’ Outsider and campared their dull, life to the yellow pages of these paper back editions. Mukundan, Sethu, Kakanadan, O.V. Vijayan, VKN, and Narayana Pilla were signposts of modernism for the Malayalee readers. Modernism has persuaded us to view the real and the unreal as inter related. These writers represented modernism in malayalam. The mechanical world which turned man into a machine was strange to the malayalee who had till then made coir with his hands. It was a world alien to them. He was not familiar with the enstrangement and insecure feeling that was portrayed in the modern writings. The writers had recognized the meaninglessness of life in the cities, and hence they created characters to place them in similar situations, to explain modernism to the readers of Malayalam literature. They were imposing an urban hyper text on the consciousness of these readers, pushing aside the world of Idassery and Vailopilli from their minds. of course when we read these moderns today, we recognize their labour in creating such a world.Hence I go back to the declarartion I made that Kakanadan was in a dilemna. 'Why only a writer? ' I dont think anyone would have asked Kakanadan this question. But unlike any other writer, he first created a resonating world in him before he put it down on paper. He kept his characters alive in him. Now we know that no modern writer is away from his characters. But 18 M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y Kakkanadan kept a distance from his character and his stories kept a distance from each other. Modernism has persuaded us to view the real and the unreal as inter related. This can be called the main aspect of modernism. When these two worlds merge a collage is born. When words with different meanings, to be read in different planes. with their intonations and embellishments in a realm of thought converge and merge into a single point, there lies the success of the book. In this way Kakanadan went beyond the limitations of language. All his long and short stories are examples. In 'Kachavadam' (Business) every word from the beginning till the end are realistic.But from the final word begins an unreal world. Moving along this path of complex words, standing amidst the complexity of the city, he succeds in creating a complex world. His story 'Abhayarthikal' (Refugees) begins like this: ‘Fear in man doesn’t vary with age, Sex or shape. The feeling is in the same. The same emotion, fear, pain, depression’. These words don’t mean to explain all his stories. When characters choose different paths to travel, when they do and do not get addicted to alchohol and drugs, become prisoners and jailers, teacher and student, scholar and the dunce, as said before, they move about in different emotional realms. Kakanadan's heart is made up of characters who are the products of lust, hatred, depression and loneliness in them. Their journery towards a hopless town, created a long story like ' Aarudeyo Nagaram' (Somebody’s city) A disorderly life is what modernism put forward as its touchtone. But Kakanadan placed an orderly life above this disorder.A malayalaee believes that by changing his conventional attire, the Mandir and the sandal wood paste on his farehead, he can create disorder. But Kakanadan's characters do not follow this idea. Keeping away the apparent disorder, he creates characters who are imprisoned within. Thus in 'Somebody’s city' We see a world that maintains a disorderly persistence. There, food, dress, livelihood, sex, love etc are far away; from the conventional disorderly path. But the protagonist, the painter, holds an order above all the chaotic lives revolving around him. He is accused. He loses his life. Such stories raise their voice against the popular belief that modernism imported drugs and sex in Kerala. His story ‘Sreechakram’ too should be read in a similar way. The words, their complexities, the planes they create are viewed very carefully and presented ‘Penance was peace; its pain, coldness. solitude in peace.The untolerance of penance- is peace’. Words taken to such tantric subconsciousness and given a glow is the art seen in shreechakram. The painters and the models real life journey of into the mystic life of the goddess with the celestial weapon, shreechakram, crossing the thresholds of enlightenment to the enchanting world of orders and prophecies and death less life, make the story unique. These stories stress the fact that conventional order is life. When trying to recreate the model sitting in front of him on paper, the disgusting mannerisms of the model blocks his creativity and free flow of mind. He struggles to create, all the while maintaining an order in his life. His mind moves on depending on this order.When he reaches his destination, immortality, he has to discard all the warnings of real life. Tantric science says that the one who invokes the celestial shreechakram should be able to comprehend in his insight the 14 worlds and the 3 kalams.This state of mind is obvious from the very first in the story. A man who follows tantric ideas in called Magician by the ordinary folk. But such a man whose mind revolves around the universe, its sanctity, its ecstasy cannot be explained.The experience cannot be described. At one glimpse we see the orphaned, unconventional satirical characters and their lives. But beyond that is the deepest caverns of purity in their minds the so called orderly life. Modernism has told us stories of the orderly life that man leads. Translated by GITANJALY M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y 19 Short Story Satan Brush Thomas Joseph H e left for the sky-city as he happened to hear that Satan was looking for a man to brush his teeth. He was frantically looking for a job for years. Though he had approached even barbershops, star hotels, mines and brothels he couldn’t find a position. “Give me a job”, he appealed to the men, birds and animals he met on his way. Hearing that, the sun and the moon - God’s secretaries. One day, as he was wandering over strange alleys the cyclone of hunger pushed him off. He became unconcious. When he opened his eyes, he found himself lying in a hotel, in an unknown land. While sipping the tea offered by someone, he heard that Satan was badly in need of a man. He was shivering in sorrow and shame. All on sudden, he woke up from fatigue, and rushed to Satan’s residence. Satan with his hairy body and long nails, was drawing the picture of eternity, sitting under a tree in front of his home. He raised his face as he heard the approaching foot steps, and welcomed the man with happiness and astonishment. Trembling with fear, the man prostrated before Satan, and begged that he may kindly be appointed in the vacancy. A chukling Satan raised him in his hands as a baby and consoled him by wiping his tears. Satan appointed him on the spot, and asked him to start the work immediately. The man, dreaming happily of becoming rich, began to brush Satan’s teeth. In fact, Satan was shameful to seek the help of somebody as the foul smell had already spread to the entire earth. Any way, he remained submissive to his employee all the while. When the brusing was completed, Satan took a mirror and 20 M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y looked at his teeth. He saw an array of silver fish smiling at him, and felt jubilant. He opened the fridge and took out wine and glass. Satan filled a glass and offered it to his employee. Reluctant, but greedy, he accepted it. Satan emptied the remaining portion in the bottle directly to his thorat. Then he took a brush and reddened the lips of the angel, who was flying in the eternity he was drawing. The angel was flying with white wings in the sky. And there was a golden sword in its hand. One night, while the pillow was getting downed in tears, the angel stepped in and sat beside him. The man was damn happy. The angel pluked a golden sword from its feather and presented it to him and demanded that he should give the angel the head of the Satan. The man shivered like a corpse. But he was convinced that he cannot have an existence without pleasing the angel. He sat drowned in silence without giving the angel a favourable reply. At that moment, the angel left him with rage. Caught in the grip of separation, he laid himself embracing the golden sword, and longed for sleep. The song of the angel echoed from some distant land occasionally he slipped to a trance. Satan appeared in dream and raised him to this sky. He touched the clouds. When he turned back, Satan was missing. Instead the angel was standing there fanning its wings. He tried to disrobe the angel. But failed. There was no end to its dress. Every morning he went to Satan and brushed his teeth. Satan, mean while continued his arguments with god on good and evil. The angel, on the other hand pestered him with its request for Satan’s head. He cried in his heart that he can never kill the Satan. Hearing that, the angel extended its hands to him with the smile of temptations. The man found himself flying in the pathways of the sky leaning on the bosom of the angel. He was restless in his bed, longing for the angel. Hearing his wails one night, Satan approached him and consoled him by presenting a ring studded with stars as stones. The very moment he looked towards the picture of the Satan pictured on the stones, he forgot the angel. He indulged in playas of spraying the blood of sunset, with Satan. One day while they were indulged in playing, somehow, the ring got lost. Then he plunged into a heavy longing for the angel. One morning, hiding the golden sword under his shirt, he approached Satan, as usual chuckled and got ready for getting his teeth brushed. The man all on a sudden passed the sword between his teeth and crashed his head. With blood stains on his body, he rushed to the other side of the sky. Suddenly the angel appeared with the police, opening the cloud door. As he was trying to get back the angel kicked him on his head with its leg. His head became a bloody ball. Despite hearing the background music of his laments, the angel went to a far away festival venue, with the police. Then, one day a tired bird was seen on a branch of the flowered tree. Soon came a team of police with the rifle of evil words when the team passed the invisble tree, that small bird sang a song of repentance and sorrow. That bird was the angel. The flowered tree moved quite happily. The man took wings and raised himself to the branch of the tree. The brush of Satan slept in the vast deepness, the brush of Satan slept without finding out its owner. Translated by : V.K. Sharafudheen M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y 21 The Ernakulam Years of Vaikom Muhammed Basheer N. A. Karim T he early formative years of his literary career Vaikom Muhammed Bashir spent in Ernakulam. Though the capital of the erstwhile princely state of Cochin, Ernakulam was a very small town. The main shopping centre then was the Broadway and the pride of the town was the newly laid Shanmukham Road along the backwaters. Middle class people of the town and students like me used to come here and sit on the parapet of this comparatively wide stretch of asphalted road and enjoyed the refreshing breeze in the evenings. It was to this town that I came for my college education in the only government college of the State, Maharajas, in the only forties of the last century from a primitive village . In Ernakulam I was put up in a hostel called Muslim Hostel partially aided by the government. Then the hostels were denominational based on castes and religion. We had Thiyya hostel, of course, one Cosmopolitan hostel also mainly meant for upper caste rich students where board and lodging cost more. When I joined the Muslim hostel Bashir was there in one room as a resident, on what right, I did not know. As he was a very likeable serious person with of course his characteristic idiosyncrasies and a reputation as a vaguely revolutionary writer we all looked upon him with awe and respect. But at that time he had not published even his first major work Balyakalasakhi that catapulted him to wide attention of Malayalam readers and critics.The introduction prof. M.P. Paul 22 M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y wrote with his deep critical insight and acumen was mainly responsible for the wide public attention the work instantaneously received.A few critical observation of Prof. Paul have since become memorable ones. But before the publication of Balyakalasakhi I had read one small book of Bashir. The Daughter of Policeman (Policekarante Makal ) a long simple short story of love between a young political worker and the daughter of a police constable. As Bashir was a subject of the neighboring state of Travancore which was then under the repressive rule of an autocratic, powerful Dewan, Sir C.P. Ramaswamy Iyer, Bashir was on the watch list for his political leanings and writing oriented to his opposition to the feudal rule in his state. That was why he stayed in Ernakulam to avoid possible arrest, torture and imprisonment. Occasionally he used to disappear from the hostel for a couple of days stealthily going to his village, Thalayolaparambu, near the town Vaikom to see his mother to whom he was deeply attached.This we did not know in those days. And he never said anything about his personal life to any inmate of the hostel. His return was also at midnight or very early hours of the mornings.The mystery about his private life only added to our respect and created a vague sympathy for him. It was for him then a kind of underground life. Evidently he was penniless in those days and how he managed to live without any income was another mystery for us. But he was always neat and tidy in appearance with well laundered and starched and pressed khadi jubba and dhoti equally white and well - washed. And never did he bother the student inmates of the hostel for any his personal needs. Occasionally Vakkom Abdul Quadir,the writer son of the great renaissance leader and reformer Vakkom Maulavi used to come there and stay with him spending most of the time sitting on a folding steel chair reading mostly English books with deep absorption.The relationship When I joined the Muslim hostel Bashir was there in one room as a resident, on what right, I did not know. As he was a very likeable serious person with of course his characteristic idiosyncrasies and a reputation as a vaguely revolutionary writer we all looked upon him with awe and respect. between the two was a little strange as temperamentally both were quite incompatible. Bashir was always generous even to those whom he apparently disliked and made fun of in his characteristic innocent way. Later Bashir started his Circle Book House on the broad veranda of the spacious waiting hall of Ernakulam Boat jetty with an easily foldable big shelf that displayed books and the few periodicals of those days. Cheap paperback editions of world classics were the main attraction for young students like me. I still remember that it was Bashir who recommended Emile Zola’s Nana to me, a copy of which I bought for one and a half rupees.Bashir was not a mere bookseller but also a good guide to young readers who discerningly introduced to us many European writers and their works. Later Bashir sold his Boat Jetty book stall to P.K. Balakrishnan and started a bigger one with larger stock of discerningly selected books near Broadway and a room upstairs became his place of residence. As this place was quiet and more comfortable his friends and admirers used to come here also in larger numbers among who were young student political leaders like T.V. Thomas, renowned writers like Thakazhi, student M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y 23 leaders and intellectuals. Bashir had friends and admirers among lower strata of society with whom he was equally chummy and quite at home. Listening to his humorous conversation was as enjoyable as reading his books. He used to make constant fun of them and gave new names according to their nature which stuck and easily became popular. A few of them became life models of characters of his later stories. One day Thakazhi was in his book stall. T.V. Thomas who came with the young Vayalar Rama Varma took nearly forty rupees forcibly from Thakazhi’s pocket and sent for liquor which they consumed in Bashir’s room upstair. Thakazhi also joined them heartily. T. V. and Vayalar soon left the place and Thakazhi stayed behind. But he refused to go unless Bashir gave the money taken from his pocket saying that it was not his money but of Katha, his wife. Thakazhi was so insistentent that Bashir at last had to give the money. T.V. took the money and spent it on drinks which of course they all shared. It was almost at this time that Prakkulam Bhasi started his Sea View Hotel on Shankukham Road. By the then Ernakulam standard it was a posh one, and Sea View became Bashir’s haunt. With Bashir’s presence others of his circle also used to come there. Bashir had his usual free lunch there. When one evening Bashir and I were sitting there and drinking tea together Bashir had hung his umbrella on a wooden screen a little away. A person who was in the room, on his way out after tea quietly took Bashir’s umbrella . I didn’t notice it but Bashir did. He quietly and unhurriedly went after him and gently touched his shoulder and asked, 'Are you the famous Malayalam writer Vaikom Muhammed Bashir?' He nervously said 'no, no' ! ‘That umbrella belongs to him and I am he’. He, a genetleman thief, or perhaps, a kleptomaniac handed over the umbrella to him. I enjoyed the discomfiture of that gentleman filcher. That was Bashir. The Ernakulam life of Bashir with a wide 24 M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y circle of congenial loving friends of all kinds and categories provided him with the inspiration for his creative energies that is expressed in his later books. He was also relieved in these later years of his financial difficulties. A great lover of music of Saighal, and others he had a collection of disc records of choice singers which he enjoyed along with increasing quantity of alcoholic drinks to which he later became excessively addicted. The nervous breakdown ultimately made him an inmate of the Ayurvedic clinic of Vallapuzha near Trichur. His later shift to Calicut and stay there was also a productive period. Cheruvannoor Abdurrahiman who was later stabbled to death at Calicut Wheat House was Bashir’s main patron there. Bashir again became the centre of attraction of a wide circle of writers, academics, artists, actors and of course football fans of Malabar area. Bashir’s happy marriage to Fabi and the rest of his peaceful but productive life at Beypore is another long chapter of his fairly long life full of honours including a doctorate (honoris causa) of the University of Calicut. He became an icon with his self styled pompous title Sultan of Beypore. It was in Ernakulam that Bashir wrote his one Act play Kathabeejam which was successfully staged in the Main Hall of Maharajas College. His rhetorically powerful Sandhya Pranamam was effecitvely presented as solo by P.K. Balakrishnan on the stage of the very same hall to a packed audience. One evening while Bashir was sitting on the parapet of Shanmugham Road P.K. Sivadas a gifted singer and stage actor and a member of Bashir’s Inner circle came and asked whether he had seen C.J.Thomas.Bashir’s cool reply was that CJ went along that way just a little while ago carrying his Cross, that is, his wife Rosy. Bashir knew intimately all the members Prof. M.P. Paul family, and Rosy was fondly remembered as a naughty young girl. Short Story A Doll As Big As Freddy George Joseph K. L issamma’s mother prayed before Virgin Mary with fearful eyes. “How many times had I came to your abode in Velankanni, and returned empty-handed! Why do you turn a deaf ear to my cries? Why can’t you return my daughter?” Freddy too stood before the Holy Mother. His face was devoid of its usual glitter, and the pang of separation was evident on his serene and solemn countenace. “Tell me. Where is my Lissamma?” Freddy asked the Lady Immaculate silently.” How many years have I been coming to your holy courtyard with this appeal?” Lissamma’s father Antony Chettan also never failed to present his prayers before the guardian Mother every year, though sick. Seeking his daughter. And what about the Holy Mother? Dumb as usual. She has to attend to so many devotces. Their appeals, prayers, complaints--busy schedule. Then is it possible to give special attention to Lissamma file, and dispose of it immediately? After all, she has been installed as mediator. Atleast she has to mind the devotees for god’s sake! The mother stood amid the madding crowd. Prayers winged with wail, flowed around. The mother could very well understand the agony of Freddy. Her mind became a ship bereft of mast whenever she happened to see him, and she felt his sobs twirting around as mad wind. Lissamma was the weakness of Antony Chettan. He will never leave her even for a second. And that darling slipped from his finger! How can he believe it? That too during the church festival here, in Velankanni. Thereafter Antony Chettan M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y 25 and his wife made it a point to attend the annual ritual in Velankanni, in order to search their missing child. “Give her back to us,” they will pray, cry and beg. But the mother did nothing. She would keep her stony silence. Lissamma’s parents will return empty handed as usual. Freddy also spent his days and nights in the cathedral and its surroundings, in search of his sweet heart. Had he been with her on that fateful moment she would not have disappeared, he is sure. For the three of them, the girl remained a pain, a sorrow and a mystery. On the shores of their mind, she still roams around, a cute merry girl, enviably energetic. Though in early twenties, Lissamma never contained herself in the framework instituted by society and home front. Her mischiefs found no limit. She took life as it came. Lissamma wandered even with boys much younger to her. Only in her menstruating days did she confine herself to home, cursing the whole world. Still in her skirt, Lissamma threw off or discarded the saree bought for her. A chatterbox and pet of her dear and near ones, Lissamma liked outings in the company of friends. But Maryamma, her mother will never let her daughter spend the night outside the home. Attending novena really thrilled her. She would promptly and piously join churches on Tuesdays. Tuesdays and saturdays for the Novenas of Saint Antony, virgin Mary and Judas Thadevus respectively. Despite her unruly nature and aversion to study, Lissamma came out with good marks in the S.S.L.C. Examination, much to the surprise of her family. She was happier than anybody for, she thought this was the end of the dull academic life. But parents insisted on her joining the college. Lissamma depended on the saints of her Novena Series, and kept on praying that she may be salvaged from the crucixion of higher studies. But father and mother had 26 M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y advanced much in their attempt to secure a seat in college. Then Lissamma resorted to a new tactic--fast unto death! This trump card, along with her ardent prayers were enough to redeem her. Atlast her family surrendered. A kind of total submission. What to do! It’s her fate. Her own making! After all she is not a fool or retard. On the other hand, very clever and smart. The other day, Lissamma climed on to the lap of her mother, lifted her chatta-the blouse- and sucked her breast! All she wanted was breast milk. Marayamma brushed her aside. But her daugher went off laughing. It was amidst these mischiefs that Lissamma fell in love. The beginning was typical, like any love story. Highly romantic, and with flowers--that too Jasmine! Freddy a college student, came with a handful of Jasmine. He was waiting for her under a vaaka tree. She was on her way to Novena. The vaaka was full of red and shining flowers. “This is for you,” he said. “Why? why for me, Freddy?” She asked in bewilderment. A full spring blossmed on his face. But he concealed it in silence, and smiled softly., “Why laugh? Tell me frankly,” Lissamma insisted. Actually he was in darkness. He doesnt know why he extended the flowers to her. An unknown emotion engulged him. He was in search of words. Luckily she offered help. “Is this to love me?” He nodded in agreement. A sweet love song from a film he saw began to beat on his lips She too joined. A melodious duet. She took his hands and ran over the flower singing the love song. The first day. They reached the chruch where Novena was in progress. “Will you - Freddy, ever cheat me?” “Never. I swear in the name of Saint. Antony.” “What should I do then convince you?” “Dont worry, darling. I’ll bring it in the evening. But of what denonination?” She smiled and winked her eyes at him. “Of Rs 5/-. No, make it Rs 10/-” Lissamma was not completely satisfied “Ok. do onething. Pluck your heart and show me.” She said with a smile. “Any way let’s move now. See you tomorrow. Here, under this vaaka.” Freddy cried. How can he pluck out his heart? Even if he did, she will laugh it off as hibiscus. He was afraid his first love would be drowned in this stormy waves engulfing him. Dejected, he went to college, as if the whole world was lost. Lissamma knelt before Saint Antony. She disclosed the secret to the Saint. Saint Antony, with a happy Infant Jesus on his chest, listened keenly. Then he placed the Infant on the floor and whispered something in her ears. She was pleased, and invited Infant Jesus to her house. “Come we have fish fry and rice. Lemon pickle too.” “No thanks,” said Infant Jesus. He jumped to the arms of Saint Antony. Lissamma deposited the amount she had kept to buy five star in the oblation chest. She dipped her finger in the lamp lit in front of the deity, and placed on her hair. As soon as she reached home, Lissamma checked in whether Stephen her brother had gone to the court, where he was working. No he was there dressing. Lissamma gave him the shirt and pants ironed, and looked for his powder and comb. Then his shoes. “Why this courtesy today?” Stephen enquired. “I need a stamp paper. Please bring it when you return.” “Why do you need a stamp paper? he was surprised. She did’nt like the enquiry. Displeasure appeared on her face. She turned to leave the room. Stephen caught hold of his younger sister’s hand. She was happy again. They sat together for breakfast. That day she did not venture out, not even to her friend Elizabeth Antony’s house. There the iddly prepared for Lissamma remained untouched. Linda the girl gave the boiled banana piece to the parrot as Lissamma failed to turn up. The parrot murmured. “Lissamma didn’t come...... Lissamma didn’t come.” Stephan brought a stamp paper with Rs. 10/. Lissamma, sitting in her closed room, late at night, prepared an agrement that she won’t marry anyone other than Freddy in her whole life. Witnesses: 1. Saint Antony 2. Saint Virgin Mary and 3. Saint Judas Tadevus. Put cross symbol and signed. She added that the agreement was applicable to Freddy also. If one party violates any clause the other has the right to pray for his/her death by shattering of the head. She will keep the original deed, and a photocopy will be served to him. This was what Saint Antony whispered in her ears the other day. Next day, when she approached the tree, Freddy was waiting as usual, with a handful of jasmine. She produced the document and made him sign in her presence, along with his thumb impression lest he may forge the signature. Love under the vaaka became the talk of the town. As both of them were hailing from decent familes, they didn’t face any impediment from the part of parents. The river of love flowed smoothly. It was then that Antony Cehttan and Maryamma thought of a pilgrimage to Velankanni, as a thanks giving trip to the Mother for her benevolence. Moreover the prayer right in front of the Mother would indeed fetch fortune and blessing to the betrothed. After all Lissamma is Lissamma. She too wanted to go. Antony Chettan and M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y 27 Marayamma refused to take her. Lissamma resorted to all kinds of strategies. She cried, went on a fast, quarrelled and what not! Adamant, She was never willing to retreat even a step from her goal. At last the old parents yielded to her demand. “Nothing to worry my dear,” virgin Mary encouraged her to accept the Infant. “Just stand in my place for a few minutes, till I return with the doll for your Freddy. you will be in my garb, in my disguise. You may leave as soon as I come in.” Freddy saw her waiting under the vakka. “I am going to Velankanni, with father and mother.” Anyway, the Mother is going out specially for me, thought Lissamma. To meet my request. She agreed. She transformed into the Virgin Mary with Infant Jesus, the very moment. At the same time the Mother underwent a seachange and became an ordinary woman! She went straight into the area where dolls were being sold out. “When will you return?” “It’s upto the Holy Mother.” Freddy felt sad. “What should I bring for you?” She asked as if to console him. “A doll as big as myself.” She laughed. Red flowers were showering on the lovers. She returned home happily. Lissamma and her parents reached Velankanni by train and bus. Marayamma didn’t let her daughter move alone. She always took hold of Lissamma’s hand. But the daughter, naughty as ever managed to tread her own way occassionally. She was looking for the doll she promised to Freddy. Dolls were there. Many. But not a single one as big as Freddy. She didn’t give up hope. Pilgrims were thronging inside the church to pray before mother Mary. Some were praying. Some were expressing their gratitude for favours granted. Lissamma waited, for she wanted to be alone. The mother adorned with the golden crown, and holding the Infant Jesus in hand, murmured: “Yes what do you want my dear?” “I want a doll....as big as Freddy “Who is Freddy?” Blushing, Lissamma smiled with no guts to face the Mother. She drew pictures on the floor with feet. Mother got the clue. She smiled. “Don’t worry. I will fetch one. Just hold the baby for a while,” Mother stepped forward to hand over the Baby. My Jesus! Me! Holding the Lord!”, she was quite surprised. 28 M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y Atfirst it was incredible. People of all sorts came and asked for everything under the sun. Gradually Lissamma, the Mother Mary, enjoyed the role thrust upon her though she is merely a duplicate of the presiding deity. However, she blessed them, showered it abundantly. Still the devotees asked for more. Really greedy and like beggars, she thought. Outside, the Mother was searching every nook and coner for the doll. Suddenly she saw the vast sea shore and sea. No fetters, she was happy. No more a prisoner. She took to her heels. How beautiful! Far from the grievances and complaints of human beings. All want material comforts not spiritual bliss. As a liberated prisoner, the Mother enjoyed the outing to the maximum. She did not remember the promise or the purpose of the trip. Befriending the sea, she narrated mundane concern of humanbeings to it. How many years had I been standing in the church holding the baby! The navigator who founded the shrine years back put me in that cell. As years went by I was fed up and exhausted totally. Then, on a very fine inorning, the girl came seeking a doll. Anyway lucky I am! she said, and ran towards the waves. Lissamma was eagerly waiting for the return of the Mother, but in vain. It was sunset. Then came the night. The first rays of sun appeared. Days passed by. The mother did not appear. Where is She? Lissamma could see her mother and father frantically running from pillar to post in search of her, and praying to her without knowing that thy were in front of their own daughter! “I am here, just in front of you,”, she wanted to shout. Actually she did. But they did not hear. They were crying, calling her by name. At last they returned home. Hope still persisted in their hearts, and they reached the shrine every season. They will closely look into the face of every girl they came across with. So did Freddy. “Is this my Lissamma?” he wandered looking for his beloved, who had gone to gift him the doll. Life became a tragedy for the three. But Lissamma has not given up hope. The Mother will definitely come with the doll as big as Freddy, she is sure, though the waiting of late, has become monotonous. Translated from Malayalam by V. K. Sharafudheen M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y 29 The Ones with Cloud Forms Muse Mary A t the end of cloud journeys This is winter. Look at the sky. Fragments of blue cloud torn into shreds and thrown off by the plight which preceeds parting that has given up parting and sweat and whimper. While getting out of bed the garment that has slipped off crawls beneath the feet. Tied hair gets untied while untying. Curls of hair get knotted and twined clusters of charcoal cloud sit and gaze at the sky. The ones with cloud forms observing the love-period that falls between a kiss and the lip. Proximity is one measure distance is twice a measure we cloud forms are organs melted in embrace by the sky. You have no strength to follow me under a curtain. Breaking the magic wand I split the cloud. Forgetfulness is the cover. Translated from Malayalam by INDU RAJASEKHARAN 30 M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y The Saga of Survival Kalamol T. K. P astoral, placid and meek like the sheep, shepherdry in literature is more of religious and spiritual in nature. Idealised and romanticised, it is almost always a life of music and love. The very term carries us on a flight of fancy to the serene solitary pastures where the lovers meet and exchange the sweetest moments and where a lone rustic lover sings (in a flute, of course.) his soul out in love and separation. Krishna, the universal lover in Hindu mythology, was seen as a humble shepherd all through his amorous revelries. The Biblical story of the soulful search for the lost lame lamb by Jesus the Good Shepherd, also reinforces the image of the docile herdsman. The inconsolable tragic hero of Changambuzha, who shed the moonlight of poetry in to the souls of Malayalee readers, was again a shepherd; a pastoral lover in every sense of the term, full of love, pain and sorrow, who will succumb to the burden of lost love. All the romanticised peasant imageries of shepherd life will have to be set aside; for we are now reading Aadujeevitham, by Benyamin. There is no respite from the ferocious sun of the ominous summer in the steaming wild desert. At every step, the fiery Pushing the reader on to the brink of the cape of distress and pain, the novelist flashes the blades of classic humour, deepening the tragedy of the situation and sending lethal waves of pain in to the heart. M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y 31 sand pulls you deep down in to the cauldron of the treacherous wilderness. The novel leaves the blisters of the sun’s rays far inside your soul; the sharp spiny rays go deeper and burn the marrow. There’s no escape from the heat, there’s no way out. No respite. There is no room either, for the worn out nostalgia of the Malayalee migrants. But their fight for survival remains. The narrative unfolds, again as a grim reminder to the fact that everything other, all the life other than ours, appear to be a figment of imagination for us. The sea of sand is a perplexing mystery. The riddle of the mirage is well explained by physics. But, still the Oases in the far off sands keep the wanderer going; the eternal lure of a green turf in the vast expanse of wasteland. The deserts of the Persian Gulf region had always been a treasure trove for the Malayalee. Leaving the comforts of the tropical paradise, they ventured in to the pathless jungles of sand dunes in search for daily bread. More ambitious ones also tread the same route, in an effort to further their fortunes. And the nostalgic memoirs of pain, sorrow, longing and separation by these desert migrants did bring refreshing showers to Malayalam literature. The novel stands witness to the shuddering reality as to how filthy and forlorn, how odorous and desolate life can become. as any other common migrant. It was a journey of angst and uncertainty than of joy. When the airbus touched the tarmac of the Riadh airport, Najeeb thought, “I’m here, oh! my city of dreams!” The eternal irony of this thought would haunt us forever, as we witness their horrid struggles to survive and escape the fiery planes of the migrant life. Free of affectations, the language of the novel is simple, clear and straight to the heart, ensuring a refreshingly joyous reading experience. The transparency of the language intensifies the narrative, deceptively pulling down the reader in to a whirlwind of the experiences of the protagonists and to empathise with them. Pushing the reader on to the brink of the cape of distress and pain, the novelist flashes the blades of classic humour, deepening the tragedy of the situation and sending lethal waves of pain in to the heart. The novel leaves a shocking shudder through the spine, as the hapless human, doomed to lead the life of a goat, struggle hard to regain his lost self. And one wonders at the magic of craft with which the narrative is transformed in to a highly sensitive and readable piece of work. The first edition of the novel came out in August, 2008 was quickly followed by a second edition in February 2009, not a common trait for a literary endeavour in this part of the world. The dualism of man and sheep and the strains therein constitute the strong under current of the whole narrative. Doomed to the ‘life’ of a shepherd in the arid dessert, under the ruthless supervision of Arbaab, Najeeb becomes just another goat of the herd, having lost the minimum legitimate claim of human dignity. The novel stands witness to the shuddering reality as to how filthy and forlorn, how odorous and desolate life can become. Structured as a first person narrative, the novel has two youngsters, Najeeb and Hakkim, who opt to try their luck in the Persian deserts. Selling off the very last bit of their belongings back home, they manage to pay for the expenses for the migration, just The sheep, here, is not the lovable little creature that would slip free from the lady of love or the ubiquitous domestic beast that would graze the backyard and step inside at times. The sheep in a desert is a different experience altogether. The countless herds 32 M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y would graze in an endless search for any remaining little blade of grass on the great expanse of the dessert. Years on the dessert without water, the sheep would emanate a perpetual stink, an odour that would lurk in the pen forever. A rainstorm, months after Najeeb reached ‘Masara’, washed down all the mud and dust from his body, and he was surprised to see streaks of dirt going down his body. No one to talk to, and almost loosing his own language in the eerie loneliness, Mujeeb starts talking to his sheep. He began naming them. And one newborn lamb was named ‘Nabeel.’ It was the name he treasured for his baby boy back home. He had no one else but the sheep, to share his lonely misery and his grief-stricken dreams, and once he even shared his body too with the sheep! However mean and horrid the life in the pen may be, Mujeeb holds on, with out opting to end all his suffering in one go. At every bout of self consuming depression, in the depths of despair, he manages to keep afloat, leaving everything to Allah. Until and at last, the mercy of the almighty reaches him in the form of his friend Ibrahim Khadiri. The escape from the solitary confinement in the dessert was not without its share of tragedy. The cruel dessert haunts them with a pack of lethal snakes and in the form of strong sandstorms. Unable to stand up to the cruelties of the dessert, Hakim, his friend, succumbs. Mujeeb survives, to tell the story. Finally, he meets the pious and caring Kunjikka, who will help him out. The shock wave the novel sends out will keep resounding within, at every rereading. A captive of the dessert, with only the sheep to talk to for months, and denied the minimal pleasure of keeping in touch with his beloveds’. Mujeeb finds himself in the fateful tunnel of life that keeps meandering deeper in to darkness, with out even hinting a glimmer of light at the end. But the intense and primal yearning for living keeps him sane. The strong belief in good faith and hope, even in the abyss of helplessness, permeates a sublime light of optimism. A staunch faith in human survival, against all odds, as in the “Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor” (Gabriel Garcia Marquez), keeps the mast of human will up in the skies. The very same instinct is what makes ‘Aadujeevitham,’ a saga of human survival. The novel believes in the trickles that lost their way in the dessert, it believes in Oases, in mirage. Translated by RANJITH M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y 33 Portrait of a Wounded Poet in Ayyappan’s Poetry Vineetha George A . Ayyappan is a poet who has proved the theory “Art is life” through his poems. In the introduction of the collection “Murivetta Sheershakangal” (Wounded Titles) he openly states “If you place all my poems together you can read my autobiography (Page 5). Here is an attempt to study some of his poems from this perspective. In “Shirolikithathinte carbon pathippukal” he says “My life is the spring season of the wounds.” All the wounds a man can ever experience in a lifetime can be seen in the poems of Ayyappan which is written in a short span of fiftyone years. His poems shows his birth as a black Dravidian which was the first wound in his life. In the poem “Swantham Muriyillatha Kavi” (A poet without a room of his own) he picturises himself as a Dravidian marginalised by the society. “I, a Dravidian, walk alone Through the corridoors of society” All the wounds a man can ever experience in a lifetime can be seen in the poems of Ayyappan which is written in a short span of fiftyone years. 34 M A L AYA L A M The poem “Chuvanna Mashi (The Red Ink) is a description of his identily card. “Didn’t mention the caste. Upper caste or Outcast What is my caste? When called a lower caste Why do I get angry?” He repeats the word ‘black’ in the poem to designate himself. He caricatures his wounded feelings in his poem. “Uncouth hair Staring eyes L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y looks like a thief.” The second wound, an orphaned feeling because of the loss of his parents is reflected in the poem “Marakkuthira” (The wooden Horse) “Loved Hitler Played cards with Mussolini Departed from God Hated marriage Lost home and stomach ...................................................... In the poem “Pesaha” (The passover) he expresses his repentance for becoming a drunkard by yielding to the persuasion of his friends. When the fire ashes from Father’s funeral pyre..... tasted my mother too I felt death.” “The resurrection of the red on the calendar Around the table his friends God, will my life end By today’s supper” His description of his mother’s death in the introduction reveals the depth of his wound. He met the ambulance carrying the dead body of his mother while he was celebrating his victory in the school elections by orgainsing a rally with his class mates. Poverty narrated in his poems serves as a medium to express the wounds that inflicted pain in his life. The poem “Athazham (The supper) talks about a five rupee note which he got from the pocket of a person who died in an accident hence to thus the source for supper of a poor family. “Before becoming a toddler my mother’s potu was taken away Failure is love during childhood in also shown in his poems as a wound that made him what he is. The poems “Aalila & Sumangali” also reveal the essence of the pain inflicted on him. In the poem “Chuvanna Mashi” (Read Ink) he narrtaes. “He loved the one whom I loved more than I He tied the tali to my sweet heart” Another poem “Churathile Chuvadukal” (The foot on the ghat) depicts his longing to substitute poetry in the place of the broken relationship with his sweet heart. Give me a gold bangle of poetry Which is not broken By the broken bangle piece” Similarly another poem “Kazhchayaude Idavela” (The interval of sight) speaks of the breaking of the black bangle. His teenage company which led him to a wayward life, indulging in exessive drinking is highlighted in poem “Chaya Nrutham” (Shadow Dance) In the poem Jathakakatha (The Horoscope story) he laughs at the sad plight inspite of a glorious destiny promised by the horoscope. “I have two scribbles on my pates Either I will rule the world Or I have to beg for food In my horoscope I am to rule In my life I am to beg.” All these wounded experiences have made him a poet full of sorrows. He views life with indifference. “Asurageetham” (The song of the devil) he says, “Life moves from sunlight to five Human life is a burning icon” This study concludes with the realisation that Ayyappan’s poems are the expression of his wounded heart as he writes in the poem “Sanyasiyumothuoru Theevandi yathra” (A train journey with the monk) “I’m a spring of wounds My life has received wounds only My poetry is the reflection of my life.” M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y 35 Ideology as Articulating Identity: The Politics of Resistance in Mother Forest Dr. N. Prasantha Kumar T he narrative, Mother Forest 1, is the translation of the transliteration of an oral text. It was orally narrated by C.K. Janu to Bhaskaran who transcribed and edited the text. Ravi Shankar translated this text into English. Thus, Janu’s narrative underwent two kinds of mediation in the course of its evolution to the English text: it survives editing and overcomes untranslatability Mother Forest is a specimen of native writing. It is, therefore, a native text which resists both external colonization and internal colonization. It resists both intercultural and intracultural invasion. As a resistance text, it eludes academic theories. It always survives the onslaught of academic interpretation and attempts at showcasing the text as a specimen of tribal writing. The most remarkable feature of the text is the explicitly first person plural narrative voice: the autobiographical “we.” This makes the text a self-referential narrative. It reflects the assertion of an articulating tribal identity. Janu is at the vanguard of the Kerala tribals’ struggle to retrieve their lost land. In this context, the text is an assertion of identity which is an inevitable consequence of struggle. This articulating identity is a paradigm of their ideological struggle which is part of their racial unconscious. But this plural narrative voice erases the margins between the public/private domains of action and articulation. The narrative merges the domains 36 M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y The most remarkable feature of the text is the explicitly first person plural narrative voice: the autobiographical “we.” This makes the text a self-referential narrative. It reflects the assertion of an articulating tribal identity. into a single space of resistance. It is, therefore, difficult to differentiate between the narrator’s personal identity and the collective identity of the community. As a representative of the tribal community, the narrator belongs to a subculture. She turns out to be a primitive rebel, as Stuart Hall observes, to deconstruct the popular through the articulation of their cultural identity2. This cultural identity, which withstands the onslaught of political nationality, is symbolic of their cultural distinctiveness. But, this cultural identity creates a kind of embryonic nationalism in the community. Their identity evoloves out of the cultural difference not only from the mainstream society but also from analogous tribes. One of the themes of the text is the distinctiveness of the Adiyar tribe to which Janu belongs and their lives. The articulation of the identity is essential for the survival of the community of narrator(s). Articulation is, therefore, an art of necessity. Literary articulation consequently creates a literary text. In the case of subalterns, especially female subalterns, the constructed literary text is always loaded with protest and resentment towards perpetual state of oppression. This kind of literature that reflects their predicament of subordination and struggle is the literature of necessity, as J. Saunders Redding phrases about Black literature3. It is an imaginative realm of freedom and dignity. Though the first person plural narrative voice is ambiguous of gender, it is obvious from the text that the narrators belong to a community of tribal women. In this context, the text is a communally articulated cultural construct. The community of narrators, as a collectivity of tribal women, is the object of multiple oppressions of race, gender and class. In this regard, the tribal female identity is analogous to the Black female identity, which is constructed from an interlocking system of triple marginalization. Race, gender and class are, in fact, cultural constructs appropriated by the political power structures to deny equity and justice to certain groups of people classified differently as, for instance, tribals, women and workers. The first two themes of the text are Adiyars’ strong link to land and Adiyar women’s dependence on land for survival. Land is emblematic of their culture; it is the visual symbol of their culture, history and identity. As the male folk of their community are evasive, exploitative and oppressive, the females depend on land for the survival of their community as well as themselves. In this context, the collective cultural identity of tribal women is a site of struggle and survival. Their identity is articulated as a selfreferencing landscape. For the tribals, land is not merely a metaphor of survival; it is the symbol of their culture well-engraved in their racial unconscious. So the loss of the land, mainly forest land, is a symbolic loss of their culture: its retrieval is the retrieval of the lost culture. The tribals’ struggle for lost land has a cultural significance which is incomprehensible to politicians. From the perspective of the tribals, the land is a structural paradigm of culture. The quest for the lost land is a quest for a culture invaded and vandalized; it is a quest to retrieve the cultural identity. This quest finds a manifest form in the landscaping of resistance the narrative voice attempts. Ideology, according to Louis Althusser, is a set of ideas in the unconscious that makes M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y 37 As the male folk of their community are evasive, exploitative and oppressive, the females depend on land for the survival of their community as well as themselves. In this context, the collective cultural identity of tribal women is a site of struggle and survival. one represent a reality in a particular way4. Ideology is assimilated unconsciously by the society. But Michel Foucault thinks that ideology is reflected in the ways in which the society is organized and is evident in the power relations of that organization5. It is related to a set of values and the strategies involved in strengthening them. In Mother Forest, the identity of the narrative voice is an amalgam of racial, gendered and cultural identity. The ideology of the narrative voice is unambiguously expressed in the explicit statement of the dominant themes of the text. The narrative voice makes an attempt to articulate the identity which is in polysemic phase with the ideology. Ideological construction of gendered subjectivity, as Gayatri Chakravorthy Spivak observes, leads to male dominance and consequently fortifies patriarchy6. Colonial representation of women is an aesthetic problematic. As racism or sexism is an internal form of colonization, the gendered subjectivity is often represented through absence and silence: woman, as a susbaltern, is represented in terms of paradigmatic elements and associative relationships. Subalterns have no history or language of their own; female subaltern or gendered subaltern, as Spivak remarks, is just a shadow. Caught between the power structures of patriarchy and imperialism, the third world subaltern woman confronts a 38 M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y violent exit.7 The voice of the tribal woman, though borrowed from patriarchal and colonialist powers, is stifled by the dominant power structures of race, gender and class. So the text is full of voids and silences: what is left unspoken is more significant than what is spoken. The meditations which Mother Forest undergoes as a text are fatal to the identity of the narrative voice: a community of tribal women. The oral narrative of Janu is a phonocentric text. Bhaskaran has graphocentricized the oral narrative of Janu. A female-constructed oral narrative is thus transformed into a male-constructed written narrative. The symbolic order of the malecentred language, according to Jaques Lacan, is represented by the presence of phallus. So Bhaskaran has also phallocentricized the written text.8 Thus, Janu’s oral text is at once graphocentricized and phallocentricized by Bhaskaran while he rendered the oral narrative into the written form. The graphocentric text brings in the complexities of semiotics. It problematizes the process of signification. Linguistic problems like ambiguity and polysemy exist only in graphocentric text. Semantic problems like ambivalence can be detected in graphocentric text. As phonocentric text has no visual structure, the oral narrative evades deconstruction. It is in this context that Derrida comments that speech is logocentric and hence orality of text is also logocentric in nature.9 For, orality is logocentricity and orality is authenticity. What Bhaskaran has done is to provide a graphic mould to a phonic text. It is a process of providing a new set of linguistic signs to the unconscious of the readers. This is an attempt to devoice or negate the articulating identity of the text. Thus, the first mediation counters the resistance to the literary text in the form of active articulation. So the first mediation is an attempt to distort the identity of the narrative voice. The English rendering, Mother Forest, is a bad or mediocre translation. It is true that the linguistic obstacle of cultural untranslatability is negotiated and reconciled. But translation is a homogenization of medium and unification of content. Translation is, as Stephen Duncombe observes, a form of “politics that does not look like politics.”10 Any attempt at homogenization or unification is an attempt to depoliticize the ideological content of the text. so the translation of the written text into English is an attempt to depoliticize and overlook the political issues articulated in the text. It is an attempt to neutralize the ideology of the text and consequently to distort the identity of the narrative voice. As language is the medium of representation and as the target audience of each language varies, the selection of language is a political choice. Mother Forest as a representation of ethnic and racial culture betrays an obsession with the native. It is an instance of the native on the shelf which signifies the process of comprehending the native. As a colonialist discourse English has an inherent quality to fortify imperialism or cononialism vicariously through distorted imagery of the colonized and similar politics extended by other means. As consciousness is mediated through language, the choice of language forced on the articulating voice can impede the spontaneous representation of the unconscious. A translated text becomes a marketable commodity, as market is a space to appropriate any subordinate culture by the dominant culture. Contemporary native writing is a construct of oppression. In this sense any narrative in native/tribal language is a specimen of polemic literature. The conflict between the native and non-native languages offers a kind of resistance to the natives/tribals to preserve their culture and identity through the medium of the text. no language or historical space. Rendering the articulated narrative voice into English not only depoliticizes the ideological content but also distorts the identity which is a cultural construct. Englishing the native woman is fatal to the emancipating strategy of the community of women. Thus, the articulation of the native woman is an art; it is an art expressed in a borrowed language. At its best, it must be an unedited audiovisual text which can be transmitted orally from generation to generaiton, as was followed in the case of folk ballads. An unedited audio-visual text can resist subversive forces like mainstream media and social hierarchies. Thus, logocentrism can offer a linguistic guard to native female articulation. REFERENCES 1. Bhaskaran. Mother Forest. Tr. N. Ravi Shanker. New Delhi: Kali for Women, 2004. 2. Stuart Hall. “Notes on Deconstructing the Popular.” Cultural Resistance Reader. Ed. Stephen Duncombe, London: Verso, 2002: 185-92. 3. J. Saunders Redding. To make a Poet Black. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1939: 3. 4. Louis Althusser. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.” Literary Theory : An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. London: Blackwell, 1998: 297. 5. Michael Foucault. The Archaeology of Knowledge. Tr. A.M. Sheridan Smith. New York: Pantheon Books, 1971: 18. 6. Gayatri Chakravarty Spivak. “Can the Subattern Speak?” Postcolonialism. 4 Vols. Ed. Diana Brydon. Vol. 4. London and New York: Routledge, 2000: 1444. 7. Spivak: 1468. 8. Jaques Lacan. “The Symbolic Order.” Literary Theory : An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivking and Michael Ryan. London: Blackwell, 1998: 187-88. 9. Jaques Derrida. “Linguistics and Grammatology.” Deconstruction. 4 Vols. Ed. Jonanathan Culler. Vol. I. London and New York: Routledge, 2003: 85. 10. Stephen Duncombe. ed. Cultural Resistance Reader. London: Verso, 2002: 89. Being the community of tribal women, the narrative voice is the subaltern women with M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y 39 The Mist Karoor Shashi M emories of previous births blur the vision Real or illusory? How long will the futile thoughts live? The lament of the homosapiens. Where has gone the diverse forms That danced before the eyes? Everything melts in the mist. May be God gives light only for a step or two. “Lead kindly light amidst the encircling gloom... One step enough for me..” Sang an English poet.* Poems are born always on heights. The fable of Vyasa’s birth explains away The mystery of the fog, its protype. What Parashara created at will Remains Nature’s secret still. I look for what lies concealed behind the mist today. Is it the red-stained shadow of relationships broken, The intense ecstasies that made me sob? Or my deep sighs? Or the tears gifted by the selfish love? Though I don’t know anything, I am certain that Time is hiding something behind the veil of mist. May be my life behind. My feet, yearning to take more steps, tremble. Only scarce light around me. Some steps go in front; others follow from behind. Who they are, I know not. 40 M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y The mist hides the great secrets of the journey of time, Nature seems to convey. What dispassion, what tender and soft touch... My soul feels it all. Where does the mist drift? It dips in unknown ponds The human heart that transcends time and place And I bear witness to all that. As I step into this lonely lane when no one is awake, This visual wonder spread before me, Whispering softly –“You need not know me.” The white, silky, soothing touch. Let me stay on for a while. That which I want to know is not here, It’s there in the midst of the unknown. Why conceal the fulfillment of The brief human life? No answer given. *Cardinal Newman's famous poem "Lead Kindly Light" Translated by R. Rose Chandran M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y 41 The Poet Who Walked Before Time on the ‘Bridge’ of Kuttippuram Dr. Sheeja R. S. P oets are blessed with the ability to breathe life into and mould anything through their imagination. Theirs is the unique capability to see through imagination the times to come when they are not yet here and distinguish the blacks and whites of the future. Edasseri Govindan Nair was such a poet. It is evident from his works that even in the 1950s, he had realised how modernity wold move the earth beyond recognition. The changes that would be wrought by globalisation and urbanisation were prophetically realised in his poetry. His poems were aimed at the common Malayalee; they were simple purposeful illustrations of the contemporary life. “Kuttippuram Palam” (“The Bridge of Kuttippuram”), “Pengal” (“Sister”), “Nellukuthukari Paruvinte Katha” (“The Tale of Paru, the Thresher- Girl”), “Ange Veettileykku” (“To That House”), “Panimudakkam” (The Strike”) are all poems that have revolutionary instigations behind them. While standing with the Renaissance-poets of his time like Vyloppilli, G. Sankarakkuruppu, P. Kunjiraman Nair and Balamaniyamma, Edasseri still managed to internalise and recreate his own rustic life. Though in poems like “Kuttippuram Palam” he celebrated with pride taming of nature by man with the aid of technology, he also shared with his readers his anxieties as a conservationist regarding how such achievements and the process of urbanisation itself will lead to the complete loss of traditional areas of employment and inflict misfortunes on the quiet of the common man’s everyday life. We see him suspecting the far reaching consequences of man’s relationship with nature going barren. Man has achieved the ability to capture anything that he desires. The gains in the 42 M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y He stood on the threshold of imagination to look upon the progresses of times yet to come; to laugh with pride about them and to feel pain at the consequences they bring with them. material correspond directly to losses in the emotional. Along with the disappearance of verdure, we are also faced with the erosion of a sense of community. In the state of apprehension created in him by such developments, the poet tries to make his readers aware of what is to come. In his own words he was not “someone who welcomes the progress of the age of machines with undue enthusiasm”. In both “Kuttippuram Palam” and “Nellukuthukari Paruvinte Katha” he depicts the vanishing prosperity and beauty of the village along with humanity in its inhabitants and rising unemployment with the onslaught of urbanisation. These poems written sometime in the 1950s emphasise a prophetic disposition in the poet. One of the current issues of debate in the literary world is the adverse consequences of urbanisation. Ecological transformation is a part of this particular concern. In the world of Malayalam poetry, Kuttippuram Palam was one ‘Edasseri poem’ that welcomed the endless advance of the human being’s bravery, reformation and progress while expressing concerns regarding the same. The conflict of culture that he presented through his poems back then is not alien to us now. While accepting the changes brought about by progress on one side, we are also forced to suffer with pain the bitter consequences that such changes brings. The poet was able to predict the transformation that the events of his present are likely to inflict upon the future. “Ariyathor thammiladipidikal, Ariyathor thammil pidichupoottal, Ariyathor thammilayalapakkakkar, Ariyunnorellarumanyanattar” (“Strangers in fights Strangers in strife Strangers are neighbours And friends are all outlanders) It is doubtful whether the reality that we experience today could be expressed with more prophetic beauty and clarity. Edasseri established himself firmly in the time that he lived in and the purity of the rustic life that surrounded him while writing poems on events that deeply moved his mind. A wide variety of subjects are unravelled in his poetic world. Through his writtings we see evolving quite naturally contemporary social issues, images of origin and narrative moments in the puranas. He stood on the threshold of imagination to look upon the progresses of times yet to come; to laugh with pride about them and to feel pain at the consequences they bring with them. Edasseri always preferred the rustic life. Even when the poetic world was moving on with new subjects of the modernist renaissance, he surveyed the prosperity of the village to mould his poetry. Once again the chaste village, its virtues and pleasures, its planes of heartiness and the agony, anxiety, disquiet, passion, and exhortation that arise from the wounds inflicted on them are themes closest to his heart. When he depicts the deeply insightful sceneries absorbed from a full-fledged confrontation with his times and reacts with rigour against them, it is an underlining of the belief that “Janani janmabhoomischa swargadapi gareeyasi”. Edasseri thus becomes a poet who chained untameable subjects, language, and the strong-willed river to be at his beck and call so that he can breath the warmth and strength of life into them; in this way, he is a poet of ‘power’. Keralites have always accepted any kind of progress with open hands. It was as a result M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y 43 of globalisation that the urban came to the little state of Kerala. In “Kuttippuram Palam”, the poet describes with anxiety the deterioration of values, the life force of the rural and human relationships that is concurrent with the naive acceptance of such changes. The river crossing at Kuttippuram was something familiar from early childhood. Standing atop the embankment, thinking of the wonderful memories the crossing has given him, the poet feels a tinge of pride at man’s industry that has finally forced the strong-willed, untameable Perar that always overflowed both its banks to submit itself and make way for the sturdy pillars of the Kuttippuram bridge; with man’s. permissions, the river can only ease its way through the mighty pillars. At the same time, he openly expresses the nagging that he feels in simple yet harsh diction. “Kuttippuram Palam”, written in 1954, was a poem that took birth much before environmental issues started affecting the ecological equilibrium of our surroundings and concerns regarding such issues began to affect the human thought process. Edasseri describes the way in which this mechanised culture would completely alter the life in Kerala. Human beings are always eager to internalise anything new. This is an undeniable fact. In “Kuttippuram Palam” the poet describes how it was everyone’s wish that a bridge would come across the river to make transportation easy. A bridge was built spending Rs.23 lacs. The poet is proud of this fact. At the same time he recalls with nostalgia how he played “poothankolu” on the sand banks of the river, how he dunked and played in the river as a child, how the kingfisher, the sparrows and cranes all flew high over it and how the flowers of aattuvanchi swayed in its breeze. When he says “Abhimanapoorvam njan eeri nilpa/ nadiyile soshicha Perar nokki” ( I am standing atop here with pride/looking down 44 M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y We see the poet observing with apprehension the destruction of the value of the essentially Malayalee lifestyle that has been passed on from generation to generation and the dangerous growth of new lifestyles in their place: on the diminished Perar), we see the poet in agony at the loss of an era’s cultural heritage. The entry of the urban into the rural becomes a cultural invasion here. Even when he says “Unmayilpputhulokathinu theerthorummarappadiyamippalam” (“The bridge built in virtue as the threshold for a new world”) equating the bridge with the virtue of the future, he comments on how the vast green and yellow paddy fields swaying with ripe stalks, the fruit laden orchards, the hillsides blooming with many coloured flowers, the festivals of the sacred groves with the devotional lamps lighted at the Altharas built around sacred fig trees, and the folk songs of the farmers all becoming distant memories when he says “akalukayaniva mellemelle/ anayukayallo chilathuvere” (“All these, moving away slowly/ And some others approching fast”). In these “some others” we find the poet’s anxiety regarding the changes that adversely affect nature. These anxieties have now become true when the “trayar” (tyre) and the petrol race through the streets raising dust and mayhem night and day, the stone and coal and the cast of concrete all become the pride of modernity: these “some others” are now the reality of modern life. The backlash of mechanised progress on the human relationships and values that the poet prophesied in “ariyathor thammiladipidikal” is something that is commonly witnessed today. Looking upon Perar today, reduced to a mere sand bankl we see how the poet calling the river a gutter of filth was not a matter of hyperbole at all. “Madhurima thookidum gramalakshmi Akaleykakaleykakalukayam Avasana yathra parayukayam” (“The fortune-goddess of the village Is moving far, far and away Is bidding the final farewell”) The verity of this statement may have been suspect at the time of its composition. But it is all too true today when not just in cities but even in villages we hardly ever know our neighbours. The walls that come up between houses embody the selfishness of the human mind. Six decades later, the invasions that modernity has made on human beings, human life and the environment is beyond the scope of our comprehension. Forests and ponds that have disappeared over time, the polluted river, the polluting vehicles racing without rest and the atmosphere that they pollute every moment, the conflict among people that these result in directly or indirectly, are all things that we as human beings are faced with today. It is imperative that we observe the environmental disasters caused by the indiscriminate advance of modernity with our eyes and ears open. If we do not consider them with adequate seriousness, the aftermath of horror that they will leave for the future generations is not something we can speculate on. Thus the themes of “Kuttippuram Palam” remind us that poets are in fact prophets and only they can travel beyond time to expose the follies of the present. We see the poet observing with apprehension the destruction of the value of the essentially Malayalee lifestyle that has been passed on from generation to generation and the dangerous growth of new lifestyles in their place: “Kaliyum chiriyum karachilumay Kazhiyum naranoru yanthroamayal Amba perare, nee marippomo Aakulayamorazhukkuchalay?” (“When man who lived in his joys and tears Becomes a thing of mindless machine, Will you, Mother Perar, transform into A gutter of garbage, plying sorrow?”) When Edasseri finishes the poem with this question, “Kuttippuram Palam”, the product of the labours of a poet who thought beyond time, becomes a work of art that itself transcends time. Works Cited Aadhunika Sahithyacharithram Prasthanangalilude. C. Benjamin (Ed.). Edasseriyude Kavithakal. Nair, Edasseri Govindan. Edasseri Publications. 1988. Edasseriyude Kavyalokam. K.P. Sarathchandran. Vima Publication. Kottayam, 1993. Itha Oru Kavi. Edasseri Smaraka Samithi. Edasseri Publication. 1977. Harithaniroopanam Malayalathil. G. Madhusoodanan (Ed.). D.C. Books. Kottayam. M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y 45 N.S. Madhavan’s Vanmarangal Veezhumbol and Nilavili : a Study in Political Milieu Dr. J. Anjana P olitics remains a topic of eternal interest for writers down ages. The line of demarcation between art and politics has become unusually thin in the twentieth century. Contemporary writers evince a sustained enthusiasm in expression their political imagination by portraying various dimensions of the impact of power and politics on the hopes, fears and angst of modern man. Politics in such stories integrates with the patterns of lives of the characters and functions as the germinal nucleus that ferments the human story. The exploration of the convergence of politics and human experiences furnishes a paradigmatic representation of the existing socio-political milieu. Irving Howe in Politics and the Novel (1957) classifies political fiction as one in which “political ideas play a dominant role or in which the political milieu is the dominant setting” (17). It gives lyrical expression to the way in which politics affects human behaviour and feeling. The personal fates of the characters in such works are inextricably linked with the social and political incidents. This intermingling of the political and personal provokes the readers into an involved thinking of the issues the writer wanted to highlight. Robert Alter in his brilliant study, The American Political Novel (1984) considers characters as a medium that leads one to reflect on the ultimate purpose and meaning of individual life. He attempts 46 M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y Sister Agatha who had been listening to both, television as well as the commentary, felt the whole thing really nauseating. She says, “It is for the first time in my life that history has affected me physically” to give a comprehensive definition to the term political fiction when he states, “The novel’s great strength as a mode of apprehension is in its grasp of character, and the political novel at its best can show concretely and subtly what politics does to character, what character makes of politics” (42). N.S. Madhavan is a versatile writer who has ingeniously carved a niche for himself in Malayalam literary scenario by presenting illuminating portrayals of individuals caught in the whirlpool of power game. Vanmarangal Veezhumbol (When Big Trees Fall) is a celebrated short story written against the back drop of the assassination of Mrs. Indira Gandhi and the subsequent carnage against the Sikhs. He unravels the impact of such an unfortunate and politically significant incident on the quiet and placid lives of inmates of a convent old age home in Meerut without resorting to any hyperbolic expressions. Though there is no active confrontation of political indicents, contemporary political events affect the course of action of the story in an indirect way. The story is presented in first person narration by sister Agatha, the incharge of the home. The temporal and spatial configuration of the story is fixed through her narration. The narrative conveys subtle sketches of the uneventful and droning life of inmates who had spent their entire life in the service of humanity. They had come there from different parts of India to spend their last days peacefully. Each inmate remained a captive of her own lonely self. The wide world outside the convent had absolutely no influence on the confiined space. On the cold October 31st of 1984, the news which rocked the entire nation, the assassination of Mrs. Indira Gandhi, reached this quaint home as reported by Father Thomas to Sister Agatha over telephone. Initially this incident of enormous gravity had a very passive impact over the members of the convent. Each inmate in the convent responded differently to the tragic news. Sister Angelica reminisced Mrs. Gandhi’s visit to Orissa while Sister Martha poignantly recollected Mrs. Gandhi’s visit to Indore where she had worked as a teacher. She recalled how Adivasi children wrestled with each other to capture the flowers thrown by Mrs. Gandhi from her garland. Though the daily routine of the convent was not hampered by this terrible event, it did provoke a sense of curiosity among the members. News of the spurt of violence in the city too reached the convent through a phone call by Father Thomas the next day. They could hear distant gunshots and could see rising smokes in the city; still they were secure and unaffected in the guarded convent home. They watched the funeral ceremony of Mrs. Gandhi on television and Sister Sicily gave a running commentary of the whole procession with minute details to those sisters who were visually impaired. Sister Agatha who had been listening to both, television as well as the commentary, felt the whole thing really nauseating. She says, “It is for the first time in my life that history has affected me physically” (21). Till the night of November 4th this calm and serene convent did not have a direct impact of the turbulence outside. As the night approached, a mortally frightened Sikh lady along with her child took refuge in the convent. She narrated the gruesome murder of her husband and her elder son by the rioters and how she had managed to escape from their clutches to reach there. She says, M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y 47 ‘My name is Amaljeet. They killed many people in our colony. This year our colony did not celebrate Diwali as a protest against the army operation in Harmindaer Sahib. That is why they were angry with us” (22). Besides, her husband’s business rivals wanted to finish them off in the camouflage of communal riots. The writer projects a typical example of how culprits take advantage of turbulent and highly volatile political situations to wreak their personal vengeance. The presence of a little child with his innocence and enthusiasm had a tremendous influence on the otherwise monotonous life of the inmates. It rejuvenated the dreary environment of the convent and sisters vied each other in pampering the child, Juggy. His presence temporarily obliterated their deteriorating physical condition and his charisma instilled a new hope and inspiration to the inmates. Sister Agatha recalls: “That day Sister Margaretta demanded medicine. Sister Katrina on her wheel chair moved in and around Amalijeet and Juggy. Sister Karuna was busy making cake for Juggy” (24). Mother and son were bound to Delhi and when curfew got relaxed the next day, they decided to proceed to the railway station along with Sister Sisily. On their way they were again chased by the rioters and were brought back to the convent. Sister Agatha ingeniously devised a plan to take them to the railway station. She suggests: Amalijeet will disjuise as a nun. Juggy shall lie inside a coffin in an ambulance. Some of us should be inside there and praying. The ambulance shall enter the cemetery through the east gate and could be driven out through its west gate without any one’s notice and from there to the church near the Railways station. It will be very easy to go to the station from there (26). 48 M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y The plan was executed successfully though they had to encounter the rioters on the way. After the departure of the mother and son everything went back to normal at least in that convent home. It resumed its usual tedious swing of life with the inmates returning to their cocooned existence. The writer winds up the story leaving the readers with a heavy heart: The narrator says: Sister Mary did not get up from her bed. Sister Katrina rolled her wheel chair to far distance. Sister Margaraetta hesitated to take medicines. Sister Angelica tried to dwell on her past. Sister Davis was in her murmuring self. Sister Karuna sat in front of the piano without playing it. Sister Martha prayed the whole day. Sister Wilfred returned to her bed in the hospital room (28). The usual tedium of existence returned with renewed vigour in the convent. The direct victims of the political events, mother and son are presented as a microcosm of multitudes of innocent victims in the country. The simmering heat of politics goes in a long way affecting hapless persons and turning their life into veritable hell. Nilavili, written in 2002, is a fictionalized encapsulation of a real life incident in Ahmadabad. It was translated into English as The Cry by Catherine Thankamma. (All quotes are taken from its electronic versions). The story portrays how politics penetrates into the lives of ordinary individuals and make them innocent victims thereby breaking their life into smithereens. Godhra incident of 2002 which triggered a spate of violence, killing thousands of innocent people, both Hindu and Muslim forms the backdrop of the story. The protagonist, Qutubuddin Ansari is a real life character, a tailor from Ahmadabad who later became the face of Godhra tragedy. The story reads as an autobiographical sketch of the protagonist, “I.... Qutubuddin Ansari, 29, tailor. I live with my mother, wife and daughter in Ahmedabad’s Bapu Nagar colony”. He narrates his unassuming and unpretentious yet happy and satiated life with his family. The story transcends the fictional terrain and reaches almost a real plane when the protagonist recollects the din and bustle of Ahmadabad city with minute details. He even makes fun of his mother and wife for being hard core fans of the much hyped television serial Kyonki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. He actively participated in the kite running competition in his locality and even tried some hideous means to defeat his contenders. His circle of friends included people from almost all communities. Religious sensibilities never barred their relationships. He is a true representative of an ordinary, hard working, contented Indian citizen. Soon everything changed and changed forever. He says: But nt so long ago I, Qutubuddin Ansari, was transformed into a symbol. Delhi has India Gate; Jaipur, Hawa Mahal; Calcutta, Howrah Bridge; and Bombay, the Gateway of India. But Ahmadabad had no such instantly recognizable symbol. A city without a symbol is faceless; it lacks identity.... Ahmadabad never had a symbol unique to itself - until I filled the gap. Hassan Sheikh, his neighbour, has alerted him of an impending danger, a premonition that something hideous is going to happen: As early as February, the pigeons alerted us to the unknown menace that lurked somewhere in the days to come. Hassan Sheikh said: “The birds just won’t fly up. Something bad is going to happen.” That very day I went to the market and stocked up the house with atta, dal, potatoes and besan. Gas cylinders had already become scarce, so I couldn’t get one. Political imagination of a writer is a reflection of his interest for the society, its problems and a deeply felt concern for the entire humanity. Mother exclaimed, irritated: “What’s got into you? I know the times are not good, but why these crazy preparations? Amdavadis and Gujaratis are kind people, vegetarians, Bapu’s people, Jains who walk with bowed heads; they wouldn’t hurt an ant. One February night the entire world of Qutubuddin Ansari turned topsy turvy, everything that has been on the right track just seconds ago were rendered into rubbles. His friend, Bhai Chand reported to him the news that a compartment of a train carrying pilgrim’s from Ayodhya was torched at Godhra station and in retaliation Muslims were being targeted by the Hindus. For the first time in their life in that city Ansari family could not sleep out of fear. On the very next day their worst fears came true. His house got besieged by a mob of rioters. He recollects, “Then they came for us. They poured kerosene all around the house and set fire to it. The gas cylinders that had disappeared from the market now made their appearance”. He was cornered by people whom he knew for years, people who wore dresses stitched by him, people who had discussed television serials with his mother and wife. He pleaded for his life and this pathetic moment of helplessness was photographed by Reuter’s photographer: The next day’s newspapers carried that picture of mine taken by the Reuters photographer - the green of my unfocused eyes heightened, the brimming tears and cry stifled and M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y 49 sealed off forever in the cold pages of the newspaper; my joined palms begging to be rescued gave you a glimpse of imminent death. I became Ahmedabad’s symbol. Fictional aspect of the story coalesced with the factual one at this point since all the news papers projected the picture of Ansari who became an emblem of Gujarat violence. This fusion of fact and fiction renders it an incredible realistic touch. Ansari was sent to the relief camp along with his family where he tried to pick up the shreds of his shattered life. He says: I had not seen my face for quite a few days. My reflection now showed that a beard had sprouted and darkened the lower half of my face. Fear still lurked in the eyes. I decided to try something I had not done for many days, something I had almost forgotten - to smile. In both the stories, there is no direct encounter with the harrowing political incidents but the personal fates of the characters are intrinsically linked with the flux of contemporary politics. there is a harmonious amalgamation of the political and the personal in these stories. N.S. Madhavan himself has once clarified that 50 M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y more than imagination, sometimes pollen flying about from contemporary events fertilizes minds. Political imagination of a writer is a reflection of his interest for the society, its problems and a deeply felt concern for the entire humanity. The brooding presence of politics and the extra ordinary interplay of fact and fiction enthrall the political sensibility of the readers. The politically agile mind of Madhavan could not but respond to the violence and atrocities in the contemporary world. The simple and lucid narrative style could find a direct route into the reader’s sensibility. The writer does not take any political stance in his work neither does he criticize or justify the perpetrators. He is only concerned with the devastated life of ordinary citizens who never had any kind of political affiliations. Works Cited Alter, Robert. (Ed.) The American Political Novel: Motives for Fiction. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1984. 38-45. Howe, Irving. Politics and the Novel. 1957. New York: Columbia UP, 1992. Madhavan, N.S. Higvitta, Vanmarangal Veezhumbol. Kottayam: DC Books, 16-28. 1993. (Quotes are translated into English by the author of the article) ..... Nilavili. Kottayam: D.C books, 2007. http://www/littlemag.com/bloosport/nsmadhavanhtml (All quotes are taken from the English translation as The Cry by Catherine Thankamma.) The Elephant Logic in Vyloppilli Dr. Harippad Vamanan Nampoothiri Some considerable part of that time had been taken up with Solomon’s long bathing sessions in the river Tagus, which alternated with voluptuous wallowing in the mud, which, in turn, according to elephant logic, called for further prolonged baths. Jose Saramago The Elephant’s Journey [2008) From worker of holy miracles to umbrella stand, the unassuming elephant suffers the many attempts of humans to impose meaning on what they don’t understand. [From the Blurb] V yloppillil Sreedhara Menon [1911-1985] became wellknown with the publication of “Maambazham” [Ripe Mango] in 1936, which was even before the publication of his first collection of poems Kannikkouthu [maiden harvest, 1947]. From thence he has been recognized as a major Kerala poet. Traditional criticism describes him as the last among Malayalam romantic poets. In fact, the Kerala poet and critic Satchidanandan in his elegy on Vyloppillil Sreedhara Menon Ecocriticism is unique amongst contemporary literary and cultural theories because of its close relationship with the science of ecology. M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y 51 “Ivanekkoody Sweekarikkuka” [earth, receive this honoured guest too] writes “Dear uncle, forgive us, ‘the epoch of sweet mango fruits is over!”]. Since the Silent Valley Movement [1978-1983] in Kerala and the advent and advance of environmental awareness all over the globe following the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring [1964], major writers and writings have been interpreted ecologically. How and how far any literary or cultural text contains or communicates environmental values and visions are the premier concerns of ecocriticism. Ecocriticism or green studies investigate and evaluate to what extent a particular work or envoronmental movement contribute into the representation of Nature, and how far humanity is seen as a strand in the wide web of biosphere, accommodate values and visions of biocentrism and ecological equilibrium. Richard Kerridge’s Definition [1998] states that the ecocritic wants to track environmental ideas and representations wherever they appear, to see more clearly a debate which seems to be taking place, often part concealed, in a great many cultural spaces. Most of all, ecocriticism seeks to evaluate texts and ideas in terms of their coherence and usefulness as responses to environmental crisis. Ecocriticism is unique amongst contemporary literary and cultural theories because of its close relationship with the science of ecology. Ecocritics may not be qualified to contribute to debates about problems in ecology, but they nevertheless transgress disciplinary boundaries and develop their own ‘ecological literacy’ as far as possible [5]. Ecocritics extend the applicability of a range of ecocentric concepts, using them for things other than the natural world-concepts such as growth and energy, balance and imbalance, symbiosis and mutuality, sustainable or unsustainable uses of energy and resources (Peter Barry, Beginning Theory: 264). Ecocritics also desilence non-human strands 52 M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y that constitute biosphere or biotic environment. If there is only one speaking subject in a text and if that is humankind, that text is anthropocentric. If a text accommodates multiple points of view, the views of non-human beings also, it is biocentric. It is dia-logical presenting, more than one kind of logic. The Malayalam poet Vyloppillil Sreedhara Menon in his “Sahyante Makan” [Sahya’s Offspring, 1944] foregrounds a biocentric view or elephant logic. Superficially, the poem narrates the story of an elephant that turns mad during a temple festival in Kerala and in fury it attacks everything on its running path, including temple towers, decorations and participants. The police come and kill the tusker. A typical Kerala temple festival and the tusker, which mounts the idol of deity and accessories, suffering long and tiresome sessions of standing and idol-bearing, are described. The very sight of long oil lamps and their spread of scorching heat are unbearable to the huge dark animal, which is ethologically designed to thrive or walk through miles and miles of rainy, tropical evergreen thick forests. The tusker, in the poem, under hallucination takes the pillars and palm and other kinds of festooning to be his biopartner and bowers for courting. No one among the humens ‘environing’ or encircling the tusker seems to have felt/expressed sympathy to the son of Mother Nature, Sahyadri [Mount Sahya]. Kuttikrishna Marar in his introduction to Kannikkoythu indicates that the poet has attempted and succeeded in redirecting readers’ sympathy at least partially towards the tragic tusker. When the tusker falls down trembling, god in the golden sanctorum may be enjoying a nap, unmindful of the elephant’s heart-rending cry. Readers are unlikely to appreciate such a god. On the contrary, readers empathize with the Mother Sahya, who weeps over the tragic demise of her son, and also to the father, if it has that. And thus the poet attempts and succeeds in redirecting at least a part of the readers’ sympathy to the sufferer-elephant, who generally are anxious only about the human in and around the animal. Even at the time, when environmentalism and biocentric dialogic were unheard of, the insightful and farsighted critic Kuttikrishna Marar has pointed out this ingrafted ecological text. In the concluding four lines the poet expresses his doubt whether the god in man’s temple has listened to the elephant’s last cry. The poet is sure that the cry might have shaken him had god the virtue of compassion in him. Anyway, it echoes in its Mother Sahya’s heart. Reference Vyloppillil Sreedhara Menon. Kannikkoythu [maiden harvest, 1947]. Thrissur: Current Books, 1991. Quotes from Kuttikrishna Marar are also taken from this. Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Critical Theory. Second edition. Manchester: Manchester U P, 2002. Garrard, Greg. Ecocriticism. London: Routledge, 2007: Richard Kerridge’s definition is from page 4. M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y 53 Book culture in the Present Scenario Dr. Shornur Karthikeyan K erala, known as God’s own country has a strain of worshipfulness in its culture. There are temples for god everywhere. The places of learning are called Saraswathy kshethras - temples of Saraswathy the goddess of learning. A special week, the Navarathry week is kept apart for the worship of books. You can see children with bundles of books going to the temples where they are worshipped along with the deity for three days. On Vijayadasami Day the books are brought back after the pooja. The Malayalam version of Ramayana written by Thunjath Ezhuthachan is read with great respect on this day. All the letters of the alphabetstarting with ‘Hari sree’ must be written on sand by every member of the family. Ramayana is opened at random and read from the seventh line onwards. According to an ancient belief, the future of the person who opens Ramayana this will be revealed by mood of the lines Even in this 21st century, this belief in books and book culture continues. The non resident Malayalee from New York or Dubai will bring his children all the way to Mangalooru to initate them into learning before the goddess Mookambika. If you happen to step on a book accidentally, immediately you take it up and press it on your heart in prayer, seeking forgiveness Books always have a place of honour in every house. The book culture of Kerala dates back to ancient times. Every village had its own Gurukula where all children were taught by the Guru. The students stayed with the Guru, often helping him in the household duties. Like Sandeepani, the Guru showered love on them and received respect in turn. Every temple had Vidyapeedhas. The teachers were known as 54 M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y Bhattas and the students were known as Chattas. All the temples kept away a sizable sum for the welfare of teachers and students. The students were graduated and honoured every year before the king. This ceremony was known as the Revathi Pattathanam. Ancient books were prepared in palm leaves with great care. The leaves were carefully selected and soaked in water to soften them. Then they were dried under the sun and cut and shaped into equal size. The pen, made of iron with a sharp edge was known as naraya. Our ancestors were experts in writing on palm leaves. The written leaves were secured between two pieces of wood and tied with a string. These ancient granthas had a place of honour in every house and temple in Kerala. Now they have been collected in museums and Universities and preserved with care. All the ancient knowledge of Kerala like Ayurveda, Jyothisha, Vasthu, Manthravada and literary texts are stored in these palm leaves of ancident times. A mixture of Charcole and Thulasi juice is used to read the letters in them. The book culture had a rejuvenation under Thunchath Ezhuthachan at the onset of the 16th century. Adhyathma Ramayana gained popularity among the literate and illiterate all over Kerala. Every home yearned to have a copy of Ramayana to be read with respect in the evenings. The musical nature of the text encouraged reading and singing in unison. Under the leadership of the eldest literate person, the members of the family and even the neighbours would join in repeating the lines of Ramayana. This practice is now followed in the temples. Karkidakam, the last month of malayalee year dedicated to the reading of Ramayana, is known as Ramayana Maasam. We owe the spreading of book culture to the missionaries also who came from far away lands to spread Christianity. The Basal Mission published the first book from The purpose of literature is to sublimate the human mind and it is for this purpose that the ancients considered book as Goddess Saraswathy. Thalasseri in 1851. Dr. Gundert published his book on Malayalam grammar in 1851. In 1867 the Government of Travancore appointed a Text Book Committee to publish standard text books for the students. The first newspaper in Malayalam dates back to 1847. ‘Gynana Nikshepam’ and ‘Rajyasamacharam’ were published under the leadership of Dr. Gundert from Thalasseri. The first book on medicinal plants, ‘Hortus-Malabaricus’ was published in 1678 under the leadership of the dutch Governor Van-Reed. A special printing unit located in Rome published a book on Christianity called ‘Samksepa Vedartham’. Later a printing unit was established in Bombay where the whole of Bible was printed in Malayalam. Another name to remember is that of Benjamin Bailey who took the initative to create a printing unit for the publication of new books in Malayalam. The ‘Grantha Sala Prasthanam’ has spread book culture in every nook and corner of Kerala. The Government issues grant and support to urban and rural libraries. Every year new books are added to the stocks. Every school is expected to have a library and books are issued to the students. The colleges and Universities have exclusive library facilities. There are awards for the best reader and for the best library. New publishing houses are coming up along with the old ones. Book publishing has become a booming business. Several prepublication benefits, prizes and rebates are offered to the buyers. The literate of Kerala always boast of their home library filled with M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y 55 books both in English and Malayalam. When Book fares are conducted you can see enthusiastic buyers in every stall. There are young people eager to collect rare books. The second hand book shops are also doing good business. In Kerala book-worms are not regarded as ‘Worms’ any more. With computer literacy came the e-book culture. Computer skills are taught in schools from first standard onwards. Besides there are internet cafes and hubs in every nook and corner. Most of the libraries are computerized. The availability of Malayalam books is limited on the net but the new books in English are available and downloaded. Appreciations and criticisms of books always appear on the blogs. This type of advertisement encourages the sale of books. Kerala has always opened its windows to receive the air of new trends everywhere. New books on technology, health care, education and arts are always popular with the Keralites. The future of books culture lies with the younger generation. The high cost of new books has presented a problem before them. They have turned to the internet and the libraries to quench their thirst for knowledge. In the rural library, you can see the future citizen immersed in reading the newest book available. A wonderland of ideas and images is opening up before him. Through him a promise is given to us. The book culture will survive the challenges of the day and flourish in future. Kerala is perhaps unique in is co-operative culture. The Indian Coffee House started at 56 M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y the initiative of A.K. Gopalan (AKG) is owned and run by the employees themselves. Similarly there is a publication house in Kerala owned and run by the writers. Its name is SPCS or Sahithya Pravarthaka Sahakarana Sangham at Kottayam started by the famous short story writer Karur Nilakanta Pillai. Million of books have been published by this institution that pays ‘handsome’ royalties to the writters. The Grantasala Movement initiated by P.N. Panikker has also flourished in Kerala. Now there are more than five thousand libraries in Kerala covering almost all the villages of Kerala. The leftist movement in Kerala has also encouraged the habit of reading under the influence of E.M.S. Nambudiripad and V.T. Bhattathiripad. Kerala, the most literate state in India can be proud that every home has a library along with a pooja room. The reading habit is wide spread there. I shall close the article with reference to the chinese practice of sending poisoned pornographic books to the enemy king to kill him. The poison was supposed to act through the fingers of the king who turned the pages by wetting it on the tongue. the story, I hope, is a false story but at present the reality is that the poison in many works is acting through the mind because the contents of the pages are the worst poison. The purpose of literature is to sublimate the human mind and it is for this purpose that the ancients considered book as Goddess Saraswathy. The Representation of an Ecotone in “When the Lost Soil Beckoned: Life Sketch Narrated by C.K.Janu” RAJ SREE M. S. P lacing the narrative of C. K. Janu in the larger frame work of the literature of the natives all over the world, this paper discerns the ecological issues dealt by her from the perspective of ecocriticism. An ecotone is a biological term used to describe the area between adjoining ecosystems, which often creates an ‘edge effect’, that is, the actual boundary between different habitats. The word ecotone is derived from the Greek from the word tonos meaning tension. So literally an ecotone is a place where ecologies are in tension. In “When the Lost Soil Beckoned: Life Sketch Narrated by C.K.Janu” we find a fine example of ecotone in the forest where the tribal people live. They are torn from their habitat and are left landless in a system whose culture and tradition are alien to them. She describes the ecotone in which she and her community lived. Chekot Karian Janu came to limelight when she stood for forest preservation which meant preservation of life itself for her and her community. She narrated her life story to artist Bhaskaran who wrote it down and it was published in Bhashaposhini Vol. 25, No. 7, December 2001, later translated M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y 57 from Malayalam to English by Usha Menon. The rambling narrative unravels the thoughts of Janu as well as her people. She talks for the whole community who are deprived of the forest, their homeland. There is much theorizing about the displaced and the dislocated Indians who are happily or willingly settled in foreign land. But what about the natives of this land who are forcefully uprooted from their natural habitat? The glamour coated neo diaspora who crossed borders for better pastures occupies the critical arena. Even the discourses on victim diaspora marginalize the plight of the tribal people. Doubly marginalized, their voice is stifled by the dominant ideology which supports the institutionalization of exploitation of these people. C. K. Janu, however, gives voice to the many who are unable to speak for themselves. It is more than a life sketch of Janu, but that of an entire community which suffers as a result of human encroachment to their habitat. She starts her narrative by referring to their farming and about the low wages they got for their hard work. She describes her childhood days spend in communion with nature. We used to eat wild berries from the forest. Searched for honeycomb in the big trees. Gathered twigs. Amidst bamboo groves we tried to see if we could make out the elephant’s footsteps. Sat idly by the waterfall. Digging under rocks we searched to see if there was water underneath… Once in the forest, we don’t feel hunger. We pull out tubers and eat them. (Janu 128) No one knows the forest like our people. The forest is like a mother to us 58 M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y She gives a brief account of how government officials tried to teach them for the sake of money. She then continues to narrate how they lost their land and eco friendly lifestyle. She ends her narrative with an account of her relation to party and how she and her people felt betrayed. Ecological perspective played an important role in carving the worldview of natives. It is evident in their routine of worshipping the nature, trees and stones. European conventions read nature as a God given space which is separate from man. Man perceived land or nature as an object to impose his will upon it and man is divinely sanctioned as evident in Genesis 1: 28: Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, fill the Earth and subdue it: have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the Earth”. On the contrary the life and lifestyle of the tribal people is a critique of Anthropocentrism which places humanity at the centre of everything and other forms of life as resources to be consumed by human beings. Their existence is ecocentric to the core. “When the Lost Soil Beckoned: Life Sketch Narrated by C.K.Janu” very well testify their being an ecocentric community. Though simple and lucid in content and style, her life sketch is a living testimony of an ecotone on the verge of destruction. “When the Lost Soil Beckoned: Life Sketch Narrated by C.K.Janu” foregrounds the ramifications of human intervention towards nature, especially the forest which is primary to the existence of the tribal people in Kerala. The powerful identification of the aboriginals in Australia, First Nations in Canada, Red Indians in America, the tribals in India, etc with the native land is a predominant element in their writing and world view. To these natives across the globe, land is a political and a survival issue. This is very much evident in the sketch. An ecocritical perspective on “When the Lost Soil Beckoned: Life Sketch Narrated by C.K.Janu” reveals the biocentic nature of the natives as ecocriticism is “not just a means of analyzing nature in literature; it implies a move toward a more biocentric world view, an extension of ethics, a broadening of human conception of global community to include nonhuman life forms and the physical environment” (Branch). The plea which runs throughout “When the Lost Soil Beckoned: Life Sketch Narrated by C.K.Janu” echoes the concept of ‘deep ecology’ as a solution for protecting nature from destruction. Advocating a biocentric view, deep ecologists reject technological and managerial solutions which constitute human dominance. Similarly, she exhorts us to recognize the non human world as having value irrespective of its usefulness to mankind who has no right to destroy it except to meet vital needs. She points out this fact as the reason for the plea for land. Only in relation to land, they have existence. In our area the maine sand stones are kept for worship…In remembrance of our grandparents and great grand parents a few stones have been placed there. Once a year we worship them. Then according to tradition certain rituals are performed. (Janu 133) To the tribals or the adhivasis, land is their godmother, companion and guide. ‘Nature was there wide open before us for children to observe and learn’. From the forest they draw strength and courage for the present and promise and hope for the future. “No one knows the forest like our people. The forest is like a mother to us. Because the forest does not go anywhere; it is more than a mother to us” (Janu 129). When they are cut off from their roots- forest, they are left adrift and rudderless. They feel C. K. Janu proposes a going back to the old traditions which involves a spiritual and moral awakening in relation with forest and a complete transformation regarding the habits of consumption. exiled and their land defiled. To quote Said “exile is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home” (439) and this turns out to be traumatic. They are not just deprived of the forest but of their tradition and the vital flow of life. “The lifestyle of our people, rituals and existence itself are closely connected to the land. If that is severed, they have a lot of problems” (Janu 139).Even their tradition and customs could not thrive in the new environment. All this came from our land, forest and nature and our relationship to them. It can only exist in that environment…Our songs and rituals originated and can be preserved only in our life pattern. In other lifestyles our traditions cannot survive. It is all connected to our farming, to nature, to the earth. (Janu 139) She justifies her plea in ecological terms. “All this was not merely to encroach on land. It was an encroachment of life itself — to live and to die on the land where one was born and bred” (Janu 142). To keep hunger away they need land. It is in such circumstances that the cry for landarises. Moreover, it became an issue of survival. Cut off from the forest, they had to find new means of living which were alien to them. Hunger necessitated new lifestyles. “That is how we started to eat what we got from the shops. Had to go to the ration shops, had to own a ration card. Even ginger and chilly M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y 59 had to be bought. Cash was very much needed” (Janu 135). Earlier forest catered to all their needs but now it is not possible. “Deep ecology proposes drastic changes in our habits of consumption, not only to avert catastrophe but as spiritual and moral awakening” (Kerridge 536). C. K. Janu proposes a going back to the old traditions which involves a spiritual and moral awakening in relation with forest and a complete transformation regarding the habits of consumption. Thus not only forest is preserved but also their life is protected from impending calamities. “When the Lost Soil Beckoned: Life Sketch Narrated by C.K.Janu” conveys the message of inter dependence and inter relatedness of human being and forest. 60 M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y Works Cited Branch, Michael P., Scott Slovic, and Daniel Patterson. Ed. Reading the Earth: New Directions in the Study of Literature and Environment. 1998. Kerridge, Richard. “Environmentalism and Ecocriticism”. Literary Theory and Criticism. Ed. Patricia Waugh. Oxford, OUP, 2006. 530-43. Menon, Usha. Trans. “When the Lost Soil Beckoned: Life Sketch Narrated by C.K.Janu”. Samyukta: A Journal of Women’s Studies. Vol. 2, No 2, July2002. 127-143 Said, Edward W. “The Mind of Winter”. The PostColonial Studies Reader. Ed. Bill Ashcroft et al. London: Routledge, 1995. 439-42. Book Review Bharathiya Kala Charitram (History of Indian Art) by Vijayakumar Menon A Monumental Study on Indian Art Aswathy Rajan I don’t know what art is, but I know what it isn’t. Brian Sewell T he word art comes from the Latin ‘ars’, meaning skill. This word, later, has acquired a wider significance. In the broadest sense, the term art embraces all the creative subjects such as drama, literature, poetry, music, dance and the visual art. However, today, the most commonly used meaning is visual arts. The visual art is put into three main categories: painting, sculpture and architecture. The basic elements of visual arts are form, line, space, colour, light and shade. Some of these elements are more prominent than others in each art form. For instance, space is a more essential concern of the architect than of the painter. History is hind story. Wordmaster Learner’s Dictionary of Modern English defines history like this: the record of past events which have had an important effect on a society or country, the study of such events. It is the past experience of mankind - the memory of that past experience, as it has been preserved, largely in written records. In the poem Little Gidding (1942), T.S Elliot says: “A people without history are not redeemed from time/for history is a pattern of timeless moments”. The study of history has been regarded as a branch of humanities. The practice of writing of history involves intellectual skills. The writer of history should have a thorough knowledge to assess the historical facts in the source materials and also to interpret these materials in a meaningful narrative. The writer himself should posses a mind of a scientist and an artist at his heart. As a scientist he/she should have a critical frame of mind. He/she should be M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y 61 familiar with the location and use of sources. As an artist he/she should have literary talents and the ability to perceive broad and complex relationships. The subject of historical research, whether it is an event, personality or institution, must have some relevance to the life of society as a whole. Art history is a changing and contested discipline, subject to longstanding debates over arguments and methods, values and basic principles for many decades now. These debates inform all of the components of the contemporary language of art history. Beyond that situation internal to the discipline, however, a new, related field of inquiry visual culture has developed over the past decade or two. “Art for art’s sake is an empty phrase. Art for the sake of truth, Art for the sake of the good and the beautiful that is the faith, I am searching for”, thus spoke George Sand (1804-76) in his letter to Alaxandre Saint Jean. Vijayakumar Menon, the author of this book, seems to support him. It is Samuel Butler who opined that; ‘history of art is the history of revivals’. Vijayakumar Menon in his History of art tries to analyze that history and thereby to revitalize the discipline of art and culture. Of course, recording the history of art, sculpture and architecture is a big challenge that evolves a severe task. For that one has to keenly observe and study the deviation in style, the encounters with regard the ideals and consensus in view happened through centuries. Only those who know the aesthetic laws or aestheticism and those who have authentic knowledge and wisdom with regard the facts can only realize this endeavour. This book is the realization of such a great effort. Such a full document of the history of Indian art, from the primitive age to the contemporary period, is first of its kind in Malayalam. No other Indian languages possess such a typical study. Indian art is a big canvas that demands a lot 62 M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y of time to look at. Growth, stunting, sprouting, blossoming etc. all had happened here also. Palaces and wanderer’s camp had equally become the cradle of art. Changes occurred due to foreign influence. Along with the great artists, the unknown persons or the anonyms also happened to be the source of immortal creations. In the course of time the cultural signs gained deviation in meaning. The traditional Indian art could be drawn like a very big tree with branches spreading on all sides of the society. Awakening of patriotism, impulsive perplexity, new tendency of technology etc. are the various stages of the evolution of our traditional art. In this book where the evolution, relevance, vision and the change of aesthetics of each novel movement are historically analyzed. The revival of rural arts, regional construction of identity, bewildering possibilities of the global age etc. are critically evaluated. The study mainly depends on principles of art criticism and is exhaustive, concise and abbreviated, without omitting the details. In the history of regional languages in India, it is the first time in Malayalam that a history of Indian art is getting published. This of course increases the degree of fineness of the learned knowledge society of Kerala. This also affirms that the position of Kerala in such matters is a bit forward in comparison to the other states in India. As the author admits, this is not an independent work. The content of this work is prepared after studying a number of authentic works. Now a days, a lot of researches go on in many unknown areas of Indian art. There is indeed in our language, lack of studies using stylistics on an important subject like this. This is a fact that deserves serious attention of the society. The stress given in this work is to the nature of time or foregone years and not for the personal contribution of the artists or not even for their name. The book is divided into two sections - a section that includes cave age and sculpture/architecture and another section which handles the tradition of the art of painting. According to the stylistics of the study of visual arts, pictures of each and every reference should be presented along with the argument the author has tried his best to insert all the available pictures in this book. Casually he also goes through literature, philosophy etc. Here art history associated with subjects like aestheticism, culture, politics, economics, history etc becomes a human subject. The evolution or change of style becoming history of art is a part of human culture. Altogether there are twenty five chapters. Under the section vasthu/ roopa silpa paramparyam (Tradition of architecture and sculpture), there are nine chapters, that deal with themes such as the Art beyond history, the Sindhu art, Buddha art, Sculpture and Architecture, tradition of south Deccan, Sculptural and Architectural tradition of south India, Background of central and western India., Creations of ancient India and Spreading of Buddha art. Through these chapters the author closely examines the innumerable ways in which art has evolved over the centuries in different cultural contexts and historical conditions. He tries to trace various ways in which different art forms had engaged with ideas of the spiritual as well as the mundane over a large period of art history. In the second part of the book, there are sixteen chapters- Ajanta and other places, Tradition of mural painting, Manuscript pictures, Mughal art, Miniature painting tradition of Rajasthan, Pahari pictures, Colonial atmosphere, Ravi Varma, Indian thought and feeling of nativity, Outlook of revival, Modernity and Evolution of sculptural art, Art and Progressive thought, Madras school, The spread of modernity, Tradition of folk art and Modernism/Post-Modernism in India. Author analyzes the history of Indian art tradition, which starts from the primitive period and extends to the Post-Modern period of the 21st century, of course a very lengthy and broad canvas. He has tried to study the tradition of painting, sculpture and architecture of India along with its diversity with regard region, period and style. For this he has included a methodology that incorporates history, culture, literature, music, anthropology, geography, environment, philosophy etc. He is very much particular that the topic of historical study must have a relevance to the life of the society as a whole. In the first chapter. ’The art beyond history’, he begins with the primitive man, the cave man and studies the stone age, rock caves, cave arts, rock arts etc. in India and Kerala. He examines deeply the stages of evolution of the human race and identifies the periods of Neanderthal man, Cro-magnon and Home-sapiens etc. He goes through the methodology developed by Prof. H.D San Kalia for the study of rock/ cave arts of ancient period. The methodology used here is; 1) Analysis of the specimen of class of styles. 2) The study of the periodical changes in colours on the surface of the painting. 3) Super-imposition- The tendency to draw a picture on another picture. 4) Comparative study of the style seen in cave/rock arts with the style seen in the vessels made during the same period. He keenly examines the history of primitive art in Kerala in the same period. Among the rock arts, Edakkal cave of Wayanad, Marayur of Idukki etc. have much importance. Edakkal cave is the only place where petro glyphs are seen. Collins Mackenzie is the first person who visited the place - in 1890. With the publication of the ‘Indian Antiquity’ by Fawcett, in 1901, Edakkal caves gained the attention of researchers and historians. Some signs of M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y 63 Sindhu art also have been seen in the pictures discovered from there recently. In the studies by F. Fawcett on Edakkal cave, he has attempted to compare the dance figures seen there with that of the ritual arts of North Malabar. In the chapter’ Colonial atmosphere’, the author thoroughly examines the change that occurred in Indian art. The functions of the theosophical society, Brahma Samajam, Arya Samajam etc., together with the ideas and writings of Balagangadhara Thilak, Lala Lajpath Roy, Annie Besant, Ma Blavatsky, Swami Vivekanandan, Sr. Nivedita, Arabindo, Ananda Coomaraswamy, R.G Bhandarkar, Gokhale, Karve etc. had greatly influenced the Indian art and culture. The art of India has no existence without a mention of Raja Ravi Varma. He is the person who created and spread a modern art culture in India. In the chapter written on him, the author examines the strength and weakness of that veteran artist. Phalke had admitted that for the creation of the film Satya Harischandra, he had studied the paintings of Ravi Varma. The author points out that Romanticism, expression, emotions, gestures and such things seen in Ravi Varma’s paintings have remained for a long time like a formula in the later films. Those who have abused him conferring on him the labels of feudalist, bourgeois etc. on the basis of his paintings on epics and mythology have not gone through his famous paintings like the Vegetable Selling Woman, Rural Liquor Shop, Gypsies, Harvest reaper etc.- accuses the author. In chapters like Indian thought and feeling of nativity, the author properly records the controversies and disputes centered on Bengal and their importance in the history of Indian art. Vijayakumar Menon objectively records the history of Indian art taking progressive sides during freedom struggle and highlights the progressive ideas of Rabindranath Tagore and B.K Sirkar, who opposed the reveling attempts of decay. In the chapter Art and progressive thought, it is 64 M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y notable that the author does not attempt to examine singly, the changes occurred in the field of art. He could bring together the world of thought and functions of Calcutta group of Bengal, Progressive artist’s group of Bombay, IPTA, the association of drama and artists. He could also effectively use the factors of universality visible even in film songs. The splendor of the ethnic, tribal, folk art forms of each and every region and country display mutuality with the tradition of Music, Dance, Painting, Sculpture etc. of that particular region and country. Folk arts are those that express myths, traditional practices, beliefs, identical signs etc. Today the thought that this discipline of art is essentially part of Indian culture has received much relevance. The author discusses about that relevance in detail in the chapter, ‘The tradition of folk art’. Realizing the role of academic studies in promoting the field of art towards modernity, the M.S University, Baroda has been established in 1950. This university brought a new chapter in the field of Indian art. The author discusses modernism and its extensions and post modernism that originated in India as a result of the functioning of M.S University. He discusses separately the Indian modernity and post modernity. To analyze such a serious subject like art, the author has used a simple language. The transparency of the idea presented in each and every chapter demands special attention. To make the communication easier, he has given the English version for each and every technical term in Malayalam. This book is designed specifically for the use of students and scholars of art history and visual culture. It is intended source of reference for those involved in teaching and learning and as an aid for those carrying out research activities. It is no mean task to unearth facts about art and art history. This well-argued, methodically organized and eminently readable book is a pioneering work in the field of Indian art in Malayalam and it fulfills a long felt need. Moderately priced and sleekly produced, the book has hardly any printing errors. It strongly recommends itself to every student of Indian art. Indeed this is a monumental task. References; 1) Word Master, Orient Black Swan, 2012. 2) Cuddon, J.A, Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, Penguin books, 1999. 3) Ratchiffe, Susan, Oxford Quotations and Proverbs, Oxford University Press, 2008. M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y 65 Book Review O.V. Vijayan: Daiva Sandramaya Kattu by K.P.Ramesh Reclaiming A Prophetic Path Sasikumar Manissery A great writer can mark the era in which he is living by his creative genius and originality. O.V.Vijayan was such a writer in Malayalam. His greatness lies in the fact that he ventured to solve the unanswered questions about the human existence in the quintessence of Indian philosophical thoughts and assimilated varied stands of literary movements of modernism with innovative narrative techniques. It was a path in Indian literature which was not explored by many writers of his time. O.V. Vijayan : Daiva Sandramaya Kattu, which is a part of the biographical series about master writers of Malayalam, published by Kerala Sahitya Academy has 15 chapters and an introduction by Asokan Cheruvil. The book deviates from the familiar methodologies of biographical narratives and enters to the realms of a spiritual biography. This short biography follows phenomenological mode for recreating the life of the genius through his works and it can also be seen as a metaphorical travel through his life and times. K.P. Ramesh thinks that the writer in O.V. Vijayan was the product of his childhood experiences. The topography and the culture of his native village had made deep imprint in his mind. The palmyra tree, the ethnosymbol of Palakkad, is a recurrent motif in his works. The local dialect of Malayalam with a tinge of Tamil, multi-religious and multi-caste village system, religious tolerance of simple rustic folks became the background of many of his works. The Khasakinte Ithihasam, which is considered as his master piece by many of his ardent readers, is unique for its use of the local dialect and its linguistic versatility to a fictional world which is not much different from that of his native place. The stories of O.V. Vijayan always present a replica of his native locality or its 66 M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y cultural ambience. The author has also revealed many of his peculiar personal traits which he had acquired in his childhood and influenced his writings. He was an introvert by nature.He was very much afraid of spiders which he used as a symbol of unreasonable fear always lurking around the man. O.V. Vijayan believed in roots. His novels and stories are search for the roots which were entangled in the chronicles of many generations. A person who valued familial relationships could not escape from their memories. His grandfather appears as Chamiyarappan and his parents as Velappan and Pankajakshy in the Thalamurakl. His grandmother is depicted in the Ithihasathinte Ithihasam. K.P.Ramesh points out that many of the protagonists like Narayanan in the Pravachakante vazhi, Ravi in the Khasakinte Ithihasam, Chandran in the Thalamurakal, and Kunjunni in the the Gurusagaram shares his convictions and personal expriences. K.P. Ramesh expounds O.V. Vijayan’s philosophy that man is not a solitary being in a lonely island, but he is a part of whole in the universe. His stand was fully against the western existentialist philosophical narratives which ruled the Malayalam literary scene, for; he believed that there was not much to learn from the west. O.V. Vijayan did not see any difference between animate and inanimate worlds. The burden of knowledge and innocence of the idiot are two frequent motifs in his works which mirrors his belief in bygone golden age of cultural primitivism. In the later period of his literary career, he turned to the concept of Guru, to whom he dedicated Gurusagaram. The author admits that even though it is too difficult to find out whether he was a materialist or spiritualist, it is certain that Vijayan sought a middle path in his fictional world and in his life. The inability of a section of critics to understand it made him a victim of unfair criticisms than that of any other writer in Malayalam. The historical sense that O.V. Vijayan introduced was unfamiliar to Malayalam literature till then. He brings back great historical personalities for intellectual and farcical discussions in his works.He reinvented historical characters to use as allegorical symbols. The Dharmapuranam, one such novel, created a great uproar in the literary and political circles as it clearly depicted the darkest period of Indian history.It was a scathing attack against dictatorships and power hungry authorities, which has universal relevance especially in third world countries. The novel not only attacked the morality of reading, but also gave a rude shock to the Malayalam literary sensibilities. Religions have greater role in the world of O.V. Vijayan who did not have any type of animosity towards any religion and tried only to inculcate the truths of all manifestations of the theistic world.But many of his critics attempted to crucify him labelling him as a Hindu fundamentalist without understanding his philosophy of life. It may be due to their inability to comprehend the truth behind his greater narratives. The author doubts whether the lack of support for his positivist and secular thoughts from the writers fraternity had led him to the pitfall to a certain extent at the fag end of his life. The family background of O.V. Vijayan was a synthesis of Indian pluralistic ethos which he followed in his life also. Many fingers have been pointed at him ignoring the trials and tribulations he went through in his life on account of the alleged benefactors. The author reminds us that during the period of their rule, he had to move out of Delhi as he raised his voice against Hindu right wing through his media, while the Babri Masjid issue was burning in Indian body politic. K.P. Ramesh thinks that the origin of ecospirituality in Malayalam literature can be traced to the works of O.V. Vijayan. The oneness of human, plant and animal life, the need of co-existence of all elements of M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y 67 animate and inanimate worlds, and communication of the material and spiritual planes are some of the major themes in his works. Water has given a prominent role in his works as an elemental force behind the creation and destruction.In short, O.V.Vijayan’s spirituality was embedded to his vision of co-existence of man and nature. O.V. Vijayan was versatile creative genius.His creative talents were not confined to the field of fiction. He was a cartoonist and a journalist par excellence. He contributed regularly to The Hindustan Time, The Hindu, The Asia Week, and The Far Eastern Economic Review.His ideological and philosophical doctrines were beyond national boundaries. His cartoons taught new lessons for the people who thought that the aim of cartoons was only to present a comical caricature of the reality. K.P. Ramesh thinks that the majority of O.V. Vijayan’s readers in Kerala are not much familiar with his world of cartoons and journalism, which were his profession for major part of his life.His cartoons were of a class by themselves in arousing intellectual laughter with its refined sarcasm and black humour.The fearless social critic and political analyzer in him were revealed through his non-fction works. O.V. Vijayan has been criticised for the role of women characters in his novels and short stories. The main vilification was that he did not give noteworthy roles to women in his works.K.P. Ramesh admits in the earlier phase or writings it was true to a certain 68 M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y extent, but the fact remains unnoticed by such critics is that the change that his women characters underwent in the later phase of his career in tandem with his changed concept of woman. The readings of the women characters of the Khasakinte Ithihasam by some critics and members of religious orthodoxy have also led to much unwarranted criticism against O.V.Vijayan.They have failed to discern the fact that in his fictional world, the difference between the sexes is of trivial in value, and he presents the characters and situations in their totality of complex and enigmatic human relationships.Many critics fell to the trap of fallacy of quotations by being selective in reading and criticism. The last chapter presents a bird’s eye view of O.V. Vijayan’s works in varied genres. A list of translations, criticisms, documentaries and films about the author and his works are also given which will be useful for serious readers and the students of literature. The details about criticisms in English and other languages should also have been added to get a more comprehensive view of the criticsim about his works. O.V. Vijayan: Daiva Sandramaya Kattu is, no doubt, a significant endeavour to draw a true picture of O.V. Vijayan, the man and the writer, from his writings. Even though it is a short biography, K.P.Ramesh could deal his subject with justice. It can be expected that this work may inspire to have a more detailed biography of the master story teller of all times. Book Review Feminine Spirituality by Rosy Thampy Feminine Spirituality: Essays on Soliloquies of the Feminine Soul Alwin Alexander T his book constitutes the personal ruminations of a fearless crusader for the feminist cause. It remaps the feminist thought, often limited to general ideological criticism, to analyze the feminine spaces of spirituality across different roles and classes. Though the book is an eclectic collection of essays, published on various occasions, they are bound together by their thematic unity. The work offers often refreshing and useful analyses of not only Biblical texts but also a wider set of texts that reflect and construct the ancient discourse of gender and gender space in spirituality. The essay ‘Feminine Spirituality’ is seminal in that, the whole argument of the book rests on the cornerstone of conjectures raised here. Rosy Thampy straightforwardly presents the reader with her thesis that in a woman there is no distinction between her body and herself and that it is only through her body that she knows her inner being, which is the spirit. Feminine spirituality repudiates the prevailing attitudes to spirituality, such as male domination, parochialism and any kind of aggressive mentality. The author maintains that as the feminine body is a strong energy-flow of reproduction, protection and sexuality, it is difficult to set the body aside in woman’s spirituality. The strength of her spirituality consists in her recognizing her body and spirit with true understanding. She seeks her spirituality in a way that is quite different from that of man. Her meditation does not lie in observing silence but in conversations. The essay ‘Feminine Spirituality and Sexuality’ contextualizes the study within discussions of several issues: the body spirit dichotomy, the problem of celibacy and sexuality, the relation between love and sacrifice and the duality of man and woman. A clarion call for a M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y 69 spirituality that takes cognizance of woman, body and sexuality is made here. The next few essays chart gleanings from very intimate experiences of the author as a woman and a mother. Pregnancy becomes an epiphanic experience for her as it takes her higher and beyond herself. Christmas, for her, becomes a mother’s festival, soaked in mother’s milk! The essay ‘Jesus and Women’ overviews Jesus’ approach towards women by elucidating three instances of his typical interaction with women. He comes face to face with three sinful women: the woman caught in the act of adultery, the woman at Jacob’s well and the sinful woman who washed his feet. On all of these occasions he is very compassionate and considerate towards the women. The author considers this as a vindication of her call for a greater role for and representation of women in the matters of the Catholic Church. She sees a hidden conspiracy among the men to propagate male domination in the church. The next essay considers the diametrically opposite and hierarchically ordered aspects of duality in man’s discourse (Man/Woman, Active/ Passive, Culture/Nature, Intellect/Heart, Firmness/Vacillation). It also makes a passionate appeal for the correction of the ‘historical mistake’ of keeping the women out of ordained ministry in the Catholic Church. The essay ‘Woman, Nature and Spirituality’ diligently inspects the facets like feminism, eco-feminism and eco-theology in the context of feminine spirituality. Allusions to 70 M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y the books of the Bible (Deuteronomy, Amos, Isaiah etc) are copious in this sections. The final essay of the book traces the presence of women with Jesus in his final journey to the cross and later at the site of his resurrection. Rosy Thampy sets a template for a feminist reading of thescriptures here with a feminist interpretation of the relevant passages. That there is no difference between man and woman in the presence of the Divine cannot be contested. And Rosy Thampy’s basic thesis is sound, that women must discover their rightful place in spirituality, in spite of the inhibitions placed by patriarchal authorities of organized religion. There are some conceptual difficulties in her proposition that spirituality and sexuality are mutually inclusive. Yet, her desire to have a space for women in spirituality cannot be refuted. The work could prove to be foundational for a renewed engagement with religious texts and gender discourse. The book, of course, will have to be susbjected to further scrutiny for some of the ‘controversial’ issues of feminine spirituality that it deals with. However, it must be added that, the book is proof enough for the fact that novel and divergent perspectives are alive and thriving in the feminist discourses of the academic and theological communities. Rosy Thampy’s book provides impulses for further discussions and portends a fertile future for feminist studies, specifically the task of altering biased social structures. Translated by Sebastian Thottipat Our Contributors Alwin Alexander Dept. of English, U.C. College, Aluva. Dr. J. Anjana Asst. Professor, Dept. of English, N.S.S. College, Pandalam. Aswathy Rajan Research Scholar, Dept. of Dance, Sarojini Naidu School of Performing Arts & Communication, Hyderabad Central Unvty., Hyderabad - 500 046 K.K.S. Das ‘Samskara’, Chathanthara P.O., Kottayam - 686 510. Geethanjali Dept. of English, St. Alosious College, Elthuruth, Thrissur George Joseph K. Kollamparambil House, Kaloor P.O., Kathrukadavu, Councillor Road, Kochi - 682 017. Indu Rajasekharan Dept of English, St. Xavier’s College, Aluva. Dr. Kalamol T.K. Dept. of Malayalam, Sreekrishna College, Guruvayoor, Thrissur. N.A. Karim Former Pro Vice Chancellor, University of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram Dr. Shornur Karthikeyan ‘Sruthi’, Ayyanthole, Tcr - 3. Dr. Muse Mary George Dept. of Malayalam, U.C. College, Aluva. M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y 71 Dr. N. Prasanthkumar Dept. of English, Sree Sankaracharya Unvty. of Sanskrit, Kalady, Ernakulam. Raj Sree M.S. Dept. of English, All Saints College Thiruvananthapuram R. Rose Chandran ‘Karthika’, P.O. Koithoorkonam, Pothencode (Via), Thiruvananthapuram. Karoor Sasi ‘Thinkal’, Sindhooram Apts, East Fort, Tcr - 680 005. V.K. Sharafudheen Padoor, Thrissur Dr. Sheeja R.S. Asst. Professor, Dept. of Malayalam, S.S.U.S. Regional Centre, Thiruvananthapuram. Dr. A.M. Sreedharan Head of the Department, Department of Malayalam, Kannur University, Dr. P.K. Rajan Memorial Campus, Neeleswaram. Thomas Joseph Smart Family Magazine, Perumanoor, Thevara, Kochi - 15. Dr. Harippad Vamanan Namboothiri Nalanda, Vyrasseri Mana, Vettuveni, Harippad - 690 514. Viju Nayarangadi Dept. of Malayalam, Thunjan Memorial Govt. Arts & Science College, Tirur, Malappuram. Sr. Vineetha George Dept. of Malayalam, Little Flower College, Guruvayoor, Thrissur. 72 M A L AYA L A M L I T E R A R Y S U R V E Y