Category: Literature

Still living in the old times

I have high regard to Perumbadavam Sreedharan, a writer of Malayalam literature who is now donning the role of Kerala Sahitya Academy President. His celebrated novel, Oru Sankeerthanam Pole, is one of my all time favorites in Malayalam literature and I have read it many times. And that is why I was so saddened to see him acting like an old royal court member trying to appease the king for a reward.

“Even though there is no royal ruling now, I am still a praja of the royal family”, the man declared his loyalty to the royalty while publishing a book written by Marthanda Varma of Travancore royal family. He added that he takes pride in saying that he is a praja of Travancore royalty. Mr. Sreedharan seems to have forgotten that he is living in the modern era where the dynasty ruling is a thing of past. His post as the president of academy was not a royal gift to him either. So when he declares that he is a praja of the dynasty, while living in and enjoying the fruits of democracy, he should at least stick to his word and step down from his position in the academy which is a cultural institution in this democratic country. But not a single word against him from the whole literary community! Not one, even from the so called Leftist writers.

So that leave me wondering, reading along the debates surfaced about the Padmanabha Swamy temple wealth, are we, by any chance, living in under the Trvancore dynasty rule?

(photo courtesy: Mathrubhumi online)

The Soul That Knew How To Sing

kamala_dasThe famous Indian writer Kamala Suraiyya (formerly known as Kamala Das), who is also known as Madhavikutty in the Malayalam literature, has passed away in Pune at the age of 75. Her body will be brought to Kerala tomorrow. Kamala Suraiyya wrote poems in English and is famous for her stories in Malayalam with the pen name Madhavikutty. She was nominated for the Nobel prize for literature in 1984.

For most of the Malayalees, Madhavikutty was a porn writer. Ask the common public, who couldn’t see the truly original soul that she was, about Madhavikutty and they would say, “I know, I know… she is the one who wrote “Ente Katha” (My Story – her autobiography), right?”. Ente Katha must be the most widely read autobiography in Kerala for it’s references to the experience of love and lust. Madhavikutty was true to herself in writing that book. Unlike most of the so-called social/cultural/literary icons, she did not try to glorify herself in her autobiography. She was honest and wrote what she experienced and felt. Madhavikutty was not a writer who wrote something pretentious in her works and lived off a personal life completely different. She did not hide her weaknesses along with her strengths in her book. With Ente Katha and by showing herself open through her writings, she poked at the Malayali community (or for that matter, the conservative Indian society) and laughed at their pseudo-morality. And her writings about love and lust brought her so much criticism from the people.

Madhavikutty made news when she changed her faith to Islam. There were people who opposed and supported her on this decision. I also felt bad. Since every religion has the presence of God, what is the need of changing religion, I thought. Along with the other people, I also thought that it was a publicity stunt. But on another thought, I felt that I was wrong. If I had truly believed that every religion has the presence of God, why should I have any problem with changing the religion? There I concluded that I haven’t yet understood the concept of universal love that Madhavikutty had believed and practiced in her life.

But later on she said that her conversion to Islam was because of a Muslim man who promised to marry her but decieved her later. This man was said to be a young and famous Islamic scholar from Kerala. People had their eye-brows raised. Both Hindu and Muslim extremists were enraged. “The old woman still has not lost her desire for lust“, many people said, as if they were living a perfectly divine life, lust-free. Madhavikutty was a person who had so much of love in her that she spread around. And when she spoke of love, it was not just the sexual union that she referred to. She was known for her referrence to Krishna in her pre-Muslim writings and this has given her kind of a Meera figure. Look at the old poems she wrote:

Krishna, I am melting,
Melting, melting
Nothing remains
But you

or

“If love is a flower, lust is its fragrance. Without love, where is lust and without lust, can life be created?” Kamala Suraiyya quotes Jayadeva’s Gita Govindam. “I think of Radha and Krishna when I think of love. Life is all about various dimensions of love.” [via]

But the pseudo-moralistic Malayali society could not accept Madhavikutty for what she was. When she was awarded the Ezhuthachan Award by Kerala government, recognizing her outstanding contributions to the language and the literary world, the fundamentalists threatened to hijack the award ceremony. Their argument was that “she who writes on love and lust” does not deserve such prestigious recognition! The most interesting part of Madhavikutty as a writer is that she was never a part of the “Feminist writers” or did not prefer to call herself as a Feminist. She did not need the label of Feminism in her writings. However, she spoke about the crimes against women, child prostitution etc.

When I heard the news of her departure today in the morning, I felt sad because she wouldn’t be there anymore to speak of love – that four letter word that people hold on to dearly but fears to admit publicly. May her soul rest in peace…

(Photo courtesy: IndianExpress.com)