MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY DECEMBER 2013 KERALA SAHITYA AKADEMI Thrissur 680 020, Kerala Malayalam Literary Survey A Quarterly Publication of Kerala Sahitya Akademi, Thrissur Vol. 33 No. 3 - 4. 2013 July - Decmber Single Issue : Rs. 25/- This Issue - Rs. 50/- Annual Subscription : Rs. 100/- Editorial Board Perumbadavam Sreedharan - 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 Santhi Bhavan, Kannamkulangara, Thrissur for 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 [email protected] 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 he word 'translation' comes, etymologically, from the “TLatin for 'bearing across'. Having been b o r n e across the world, we are translated men. It is normally supposed that something always gets lost in translation; I cling, obstinately to the notion that something can also be gained.” (Salman Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands) In a country like India with great language variance, translation is the only way of inter-language communication.Translation promotes the growth of indigenous literature in the global context. In the present-day world, translation is surely the only means of reaching out to a world audience. Gone are the days when only the language and literature of the colonizing masters were brought to light and placed on a high pedestal. Now the whole world is becoming more and more a global village and translation has become a vehicle for culture-transference as well.And the translator, now, is a bilingual mediating agent . Malayalam literature has the tradition of accepting classical works in translation and celebrating them-- Vyasa Mahabharatha, Les Misérables ,War and Peace, Jhutha Sach etc, to mention a few. Let us proudly remember that the Kerala Sahitya Akademi has recently brought out the Malayalam translation of Ulysses, the magnum opus of James Joyce. Translation of Malayalam works into other languages is equally important, as that is the only way to familiarize non- Malayali readers with the great works in Malayalam. Fully aware of the dual advantages of adan-pradan in translation, Kerala Sahitya Akademi seeks to promote Malayalam Literature and culture in other languages. In the New year of 2014, let us join hands to give and receive. R. Gopalakrishnan Secretary & Editor Contents Speaking of poetry - 07 Micheal O hAodha in Conversation with K. Sachidanandan Eco-critical readings of Vishakanyaka - 14 Dr. Vyrassery Vamanan Nampoothiri Arabian Nights - 18 Kureepuzha Sreekumar My dear Ayyappaji - 20 Rosscot Krishnapillai Whither is Fled, the Visionary Gleam? - 26 V.G. Thampy A Tiger and Some Stories - 31 Karunakaran Return of the Non-Resident Indian - 38 A C Sreehari As You Bathe Your Mother - 43 Savithri Rajeevan Ricardo, Janaki and a Female Body - 45 K V Mohankumar Nature and Myth as a Feminine Language - 50 Praseetha K. When the First Person Tells a Story - 55 Manoj Kuroor Literary Ornithology - 57 Sreekanth Willing to End - 61 Nirmala Inkayi - 66 Sreelatha The White Dog - 73 Kuzhoor Wilson 6 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY Speaking of Poetry Micheal O hAodha in Conversation with K.Satchidanandan (This interview was done at the end of 2011 for my Irish anthology, Rogha Danta. (Selected Poems. ) translated by the eminent Irish poet, Gabriel Rosenstock. It was published in Irish as appendix to the book that came out in 2012, but has not yet appeared in English. It may be of special interest to the readers as the poet is responding to questions from a foreign critic who does not know much about Malayalam- or for that matter Indian - literature ) Can you tell us a little bit about your background? What drew you to literature initially? had no writers before me in the family though my elder I brother used to write verses during his school and college days. Whenever I try to think about what really led me to poetry I hear the diverse strains of the incessant rains of my village in Kerala in South India. I recall too the luminous lines of the Malayalam epic, Adhyatma Ramayana that I had read as a school boy where the poet invokes the Goddess of the Word, Saraswati, the Indian Muse, to keep bringing the apt words to his mind without a pause like the endless waves of the sea. My mother taught me to talk to crows and trees; from my pious father I learnt to communicate with gods and spirits. My insane grandmother taught me to create a parallel world to escape the vile ordinariness of the tiresomely humdrum everyday world; the dead taught me to be one with the soil; the wind taught me to move and shake without ever being Whenever I try to think about what really led me to poetry I hear the diverse strains of the incessant rains of my village in Kerala in South India. MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 7 seen and the rain trained my voice in a Were you aware of a rich tradition in thousand modulations. My beautiful village terms of poetry in the Malayalam with its poor people too must have turned language when you first began writing? me into poetry. With such rare teachers When I began writing I was in school. I must perhaps it was impossible for me not to be a have been 12 when my first poem was poet, of sorts. published in a small village magazine. I had What are your interests outside of only a vague idea of our tradition. Indeed I literature? had read some of the classical authors, but My second love is art. Art galleries are the the general understanding of tradition was first places I go to during my travels. There is not very strong. But gradually, as I began to hardly any important art gallery in Europe or take poetry seriously, I began to read our the US I have not visited. I have also written poets slowly and consciously and later on contemporary art. Then there is cinema. I started writing about their works. I have my own canon and have written poems about attend film festivals or watch DVDs and try to my predecessors- Ezhuthachchan, Kumaran see what is happening there. The visual Asan, Vailoppilly, P.Kunjiraman Nair, element that is strong in my poetry Edassery Govindan Nair, Ayyappa Paniker according to critics as also the narrative whom I consider most significant in terms of element and its use of a kind of montage poetic experience or/ and form. But I keep may have something to do with this reading even the youngest of poets and fascination for films. I am also interested in never cease to learn from others’ practice philosophy and history. I listen to music of even while remaining myself. all kinds too. The fresh discoveries about the human body, especially the brain as also the Do people in the West get a “false” possibilities of life outside the earth and the impression of India from some of the solar system excite me a lot. literature that purports to be “Indian” – i.e. Indian “diaspora writing” written by What style or genres of literature do writers who may have grown up you enjoy as a reader? outside of India and whose links with Avantgarde writing of all kinds interest me their “homeland” are tenuous at best? particularly. Besides world poetry, I read a lot Even among the Indian authors writing in of fiction from all around. You can imagine English there are two categories: those who the kind of writing I like if I name some of live in India and write about Indian life and my favourites: Dostoevsky, Kafka, society and those who live abroad and keep Kazantsakis, Italo Calvino, James Joyce, visiting India looking for “themes”. Then Samuel Beckett, Jorge Luis Borges, Milan there are those who have decided to write in Kundera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, J. M. the Indian languages, twenty-two of which Coetzee, Maria Vergas Llosa, Jose have been recognised by the Constitution Saramago, Salman Rushdie : there are many (there are several more awaiting recognition). more, but I have read almost everything Those who write in these languages are these writers have written available in closest to our reality as it is almost English. I do read plays and enjoy good impossible to capture its nuances and critical/theoretical writing, say Roland complexities in English language that is still Barthes, Maurice Blanchot , Michel Foucault, the language of the elite in India. Of those Jacques Derrida, Umberto Eco, Giorgio who write in English for various reasons – for Agamben and Jacques Ranciere, to name a some that is the only language they know few. My formal research was in post- well as they have been brought up and Structuralism. educated outside their regions; for some it is 8 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY To me poetry is complete expression. It also gives me opportunities to play with language even while expressing my human concerns. I enjoy the act of writing itself more than anything that follows it - publication, recognition and earthly rewards. a choice as it suddenly makes them pan- politics of translation and partly with the sad Indian and even ‘international’- those who fact that there are very few in India or abroad live abroad create a very unreal India. For who can translate directly from an Indian most of them India is an ethnological language into a foreign language.