MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY MARCH 2017 KERALA SAHITYA AKADEMI Thrissur 680 020, Kerala 1 January - March 2017 Malayalam Literary Survey A Quarterly Publication of Kerala Sahitya Akademi, Thrissur Vol. 37 No. 1. January - March 2017 Single Issue : Rs. 40/- Annual Subscription : Rs. 150/- Editorial Board Vaisakhan - President Dr. K.P. Mohanan - Secretary & Editor Dr.V. Sukumaran - Convenor Prabha Varma E.P. Rajagopalan Mangad Balachandran T. P. Venugopal V.N. Asokan - Sub editor Cover Design : Vinaylal Type setting : Macworld, Thrissur Printed and Published by Dr. K.P. Mohanan on behalf of Kerala Sahitya Akademi, Thrissur 680 020 and Printed at Carmel Printers, Thrissur Published at Thrissur, Thrissur Dist., Kerala State. Editor : Dr. K.P. Mohanan 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 2 be held responsible for the views expressed by the writers January - March 2017 Editor’s note This issue of Malayalam Literary Survey is dedicated to the deathless memory of N.V.Krishnawarrior to mark the celebration of his centenary. The reader might have already noticed how the word usually spelt as ‘varier’ is written as ‘warrior’ in the cover. This is not a spelling error. That is how N.V. used to write his surname with a specific intention to show that he is a warrior in the real sense of the word. N.V. was a multifaceted personality. He was a poet, a profound scholar, a sure-footed cultural and literary critic, an amazing polyglot fluent in about fifteen languages, a peerless editor and a sensitive translator. As the founder-Director of the State Institute of Languages, N.V blazed a trail as a highly innovative administrator. An ardent lover of verdant nature and green environment, he was in the fore-front of the spirited campaign to save the flora and fauna of the Silent Valley, the last home of the lion-tailed monkey. N.V. was all along a crusader, an untiring advocate of human rights. Here in this issue eminent writers like Dr.M.R.Raghava Varier, Dr.V.Sukumaran, Prof.K.V.Ramakrishnan and Dr.A.C.Sreehari dwell on the various vignettes of his personality N.V. as the editor of the famous Malayalam periodicals “Mathrubhumi” weekly and “Yugaprabhath” (in Hindi) promoted translations from Malayalam to other Indian languages and from other Indian languages to Malayalam. That exactly is the objective of Malayalam Literary Survey as well. MLS is thankful to these distinguished contributors. The text by M.R.Manohara Varma on Thullal, the legendary stage performance popularised by Kunjan Nambiar is very much significant because it treats the theme in a logical and scientific manner. The poems of Prabha Varma, who wrote of the famous work “Shyama Madhavam” and Sebastian translated by Ajirkutti and Keralavarma show the healthy and bright face of the Malayalam Poetry. The MLS comes out in a new format to you. Happy reading! Dr. K.P. Mohanan Secretary & Editor 3 January - March 2017 4 January - March 2017 Contents N.V. Krishna Warrior: A Note on His Contributions to Non-literary Issues M. R. Raghava Varier ............................................................ 7 NV Krishna Warrior- An Editor with a Vision and a Mission. K. V Ramakrishnan ............................................................. 13 A Poet who dared to be different V Sukumaran ...................................................................... 26 Translation as Transference: A Case Study of N.V. Krishna Warrior’s A.C. Sreehari ...................................................................... 33 ‘THULLAL’- As an Art Form and Literary Form M.R. Manoharavarma ......................................................... 39 A Lesson in Detachment Prabha Varma..................................................................... 51 Real Estate Sebastian ........................................................................... 53 Stories Taken from Everyday Life Dr. T. Jamal Mohammed .................................................... 54 5 January - March 2017 6 January - March 2017 N.V. Krishna Warrior: A Note on His Contributions to Non-literary Issues M. R. Raghava Varier Looking from a cultural perspective, twentieth century was a golden age of art and culture in general and literary arena in particular in Kerala. New genres like the Novel and the Short Story came up as popular items and they opened up new vistas of life in Kerala. The old type of musical plays influenced out and out by the Tamil theatre gave way to a theatre of social drama which was instrumental in bringing in tremendous changes in society, polity and culture of Kerala. In Malayalam poetry, following the Celebrated Trio Asan,Vallathol and Ulloor, there appeared a group of six or seven great poets who brought in a new era of rich and splendid poetry and N. V. Krishna Warrior was a prominent member of that group. Generally acclaimed as a poet, N. V. Krishna Warrior, was a great scholar in several subjects like Language and Literature, Grammar 7 and Poetics, Ayurveda and an effective writer with a pleasantly January - March 2017 sharp style of writing in addition to a genius in literary journalism. As a Sanskritist, in the early days of his carrier he conducted vakyarthasadas, at the famous Sanskrit College, Thrippunithura which was in those days a great centre of Traditional scholar- ship. vakyarthasadas was an intellectual exercise showing one’s multifarious knowledge in Grammar and Poetics. Krishna Warrior was a multi-linguist with a working knowledge in English, German and Hindi. He started his carrier as a teacher and taught at High school and College levels and then turned to other fields like political activism, journalism etc. Participating in the Indian National Movement he went underground and edited and circulated the Swathanthrabharatham journal. It was a period of awakening in all social and cultural areas in Kerala. Later, as the editor of the Mathrubhumi weekly, ‘NV’ brought in a shift of paradigm in the thinking and writing in Malayalam language and literature. As the founder Director of the Kerala Language Institute he prepared ground for the further growth of Malayalam Language by making arrangements for publishing classics in Sanskrit language. All said, N.V. Krishna Warrior, no doubt, will be remembered as a poet who brought in a transformation in Malayalam poetry from the over-sentimental and hollow verses to a sharp and vital poetry, throbbing with problems of reality of life. His Kochuthomman is rightly described as the Trojan horse in this subverting shift. His fame as a poet has however, overshadowed his other contributions in the field of other intellectual activities including his writings on the economic, social, political and cultural problems of his age. Some of the poems of NV are, based on non-literary themes. For example, his Nannangaatikal is about the megalithic monuments widely scattered in South India in general and in Kerala and Tamilnadu in particular. The poet develops the subject with rare insights and information from the disciplines like History and Anthropology. Similarly, his ‘Missionary’ develops on the problem of the colonial strategies in constructing intellectual bondage of the colonial subject as part of the total subjugation of colonies by the western authorities in the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. It has to be noted that the intellectual apparatus in this poetic experiments was a thorough under-standing of Modernity and its multifarious programmes. Here NV is particular in observing and establishing the fact that Ancient Indian thought and wisdom are superior to the western scientific knowledge and wisdom designed mainly for the endless exploitation of the nature and its limited resources. This need not necessarily mean that he 8 was not aware of new developments in the field of Knowledge. His writings bare testimony to the fact that he was always diligent January - March 2017 in acquiring new knowledge and spreading it using all available means of communication. A casual look at the areas of interest and occupation of N.V. Krishna Warrier is really amazing. He was equally competent and sharp in writing on the topics like the necessity of a perspective in literary writing on one side and the need for archaeological explorations in Malabar on the other. He writes with equal zeal, knowledge and expertise about subjects like Thiruvathira, a regional popular festivity in Kerala, the Indian Advaita philosophy, the ideas and ideals of education contained in the thoughts of Swami Vivekananda, and a comparison of Communism and Christianity. While writing on the philosophical aspects of Sree Narayana Guru, N. V. Krishna Warrior observed that the great leader of Kerala renaissance propagated the ideal of sanyasa with a stress on social activism. Further, he goes on observing that the systems of Indian caste and the Western Class are equally illegitimate and dismissible in the system of Democracy. Coming to this point NV observes that the ideal of ‘one caste’ propagated by Guru was the only acceptable principle in a system of democratic set- up. Writing about the importance of mother tongue in education and culture of a people NV speaks with wonderful mastery over the history and culture of the ‘Mohawks’ of the United States of America with a rich fund of details about their language and its peculiarities when compared to the American English. Development was the key concept put forward and propagated by Modern Science. Industrial growth was the only way in order to reach this covetable point. Development at the national level all over the world paid little or no attention to the danger of uncontrolled exploitation of natural resources. It was against this detrimental desire that cultural organizations in the countries like India raised the slogan of ‘Sustainable Development’ in the sixties of the last century. N.V. Krishna warrior’s serious concern over this issue was the result of the inspiration he received from the awareness in the conceptual apparatus of the above said ‘Sustainable Development’.