Kerala Sahitya Akademi Kerala Sahitya Akademi 2013 June 2013 June

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. 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 [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

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 7 Dr. A.M. Sreedharan

Ayyankali Literature in Malayalam 11 K.K.S. Das

Conventional Life in Modernism 17 Viju Nayarangadi

Satan Brush (Story) 20 Thomas Joseph

The Ernakulam Years of Vaikom Muhammed Basheer 22 N.A. Karim

A Doll As Big As Freddy (Story 25 George Joseph K.

The Ones With Cloud Forms. (Poem) 30 Muse Mary

The Saga of Survival 31 Kalamol T K

Portrait of a Wounded Poet in Ayyappan’s Poetry 34 Vineetha George

Ideology as Articulating Identity: The Politics of Resistance in Mother Forest 36 Dr. N. Prasantha Kumar

The Mist (Poem) 40 Karoor Shashi The Poet Who Walked Before Time on the ‘Bridge’ of Kuttippuram 42 Dr. Sheeja R.S

N.S. Madhavan’s Vanmarangal Veezhumbol and Nilavili: A Study in Political Milieu 46 Dr. J. Anjana

The “Elephant Logic” in Vyloppilli 51 Dr. Harippad Vamanan Nampoothiri

Book Culture in the Present Scenario 54 Dr. Shornur Karthikeyan

The Representation of an Ecotone in “When the Lost Soil Beckoned: Life Sketch Narrated by C.K.Janu” 57 Raj Sree M. S.

REVIEWS

A Monumental Study on Indian Art. 61 Aswathy Rajan

Reclaiming A Prophetic Path 66 Sasikumar Manissery

Feminine Spirituality 69 Alwin Alaxander

6 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY The Politics of The Word Dr. A. M. Sreedharan

he word is without bounds. This ability of the word to T 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

MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 7 maintained that it is the poet’s romantic relevance of such a view which is limited only faculty that characterizes the first and his to sound and sense has already been imaginative faculty that marks the second. discussed.3 At its most basic level, the word Both are founded on the structural does not create any disturbance in the reader compactness and discrete selection of – to him, it is just a quirk of creation. The words.2 Further enquiries into the socio aesthete, who dwells in a world of personal historical aspect of words attain greater experiences and taste, does not attempt to relevance and prominence, especially in the make value-judgments at all. This movement context of the outcry of the death of of words, which is devoid of partnership or humanism. partiality, is theoretically opposed to the concept of universalization. Literature constitutes the wakeful, equipped working arena of the word. The writer is The word is a construct : obliged to defend words through the work of It is when words are considered the bedrock art, especially when life- situations become of the past, present or future, that they impotent and ineffective due to over- become constructs. The reader here rejects all exposure, while in fact, they should ideally lexical criteria and ‘builds up’ the word with become self-critical and discourse-centric. utmost precision. Language becomes better Interpretation loses its mobility when a equipped to resist all forms of distancing and particular spatio temporal situation dehumanization. Words become capable of constructs a particular category to signify the transforming themselves into abodes of those knowledge-generating methods of a basic concepts which can analyze, with logic particular society and also when other and discretion, the racial and cultural meanings are imposed on it. Signifiers and attitudes that dominate colonial activities. The signifieds become institutionalized when secondary life of the word becomes creative conventional norms assert themselves on the and fruitful only in the entirety of its aesthetic intertextuality of words. They can be liberated consciousness. It is when the mind of the from this condition only when they are aesthete becomes capable of absorbing reinstated from the level of discourse. The semantic subtexts and the resultant state of enquiry into the subjective, social, universal universalization that the word, as a construct, and pragmatic levels of words becomes becomes self dependent. more relevant in such a context. The word is an expression of anxietiesanxieties: The word is reality : The word becomes socially relevant when it Like many other objects in the universe, the shares the anxieties of justice. Justice is word too is a reality at the fundamental level. shaped and adjudicated by life-situations that Just like the human being, it is not a are unique to social life. The antinomies of dependent entity at this basic level— rather, it right/ wrong, high/ low are characterized by the only has the inherent role of communication criteria of justice. It is this sense of justice that and meaning-generation. Although the is denoted by culture. The subject of literature different activities of the word help in is marked by a culture that transcends and generating subtextual meanings, scientific consolidates the spatio-temporal, and is features like dhvani, vakrokti and saili (style) volatile and wholesome. It is when the word do not become relevant at this level. Despite reveals the individual who is a part of culture its external beauty, the figurative/ metaphorical and vice versa, as well as of culture which is logic arising from such an appearance closely related to man and the environment, cannot be accepted. Even if they are, they do that it becomes capable of interacting with not affect the existence of words. The literature – ie, its emotional, intellectual and

8 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY former serves to strengthen the aspect of self- The language of the media in image and the latter, of self-confidence. They fact becomes a proclamation of also indicate the subjective, as well as social the crisis of present day roles that are part of the inherent process of existence where one has to self-development. Such words should be make a pact with corporate determined / characterized at the levels of enquiry and representation. For this very forces and the various regional reason, the study of literature— which is in power structures. 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 aesthetic values are best revealed. It is in emotions, also become relevant at this point.6 literature that those values, hitherto regarded The various The various thoughts, crises and as subjective, become instrumental in denials of the self and other issues related to facilitating a holistic world view. It is for this human existence, the signifiers that appear in reason that words – and literature which is its the context of their representation, the offshoot – become signs of the different relationship between the signifiers and their regional, communal and religious differences. signified, are all capable of revealing the new Both language and literature become dimensions that characterize the close manifestations of the collective knowledge/ relationship between semiotics and other aesthetic beliefs/ world views which are all sign-based studies. This is relevant to products of dual authorship. stylistics and psychological studies as well. The word is rhythm-based: The consumerist nature of the word: The word comprises two types of rhythm— Any discussion on words should also be internal and external. The first is constituted related to their tendency to focus on by our inner senses and the second, by our consumerist tendencies that are totally outer senses. Rhythm constitutes the most opposed to the intellectual. It is the media fundamental aspect of a person’s which helps highlight the development that 4 individuality. Since rhythm is based on takes place from the disparities in human sequential patterns it marks the movement of actions. This is done with the help of words the word from activity to construction. It is and signs. Our everyday life which comes the yardstick of time that is used for an under the purview of culture studies, the 5 activity to be performed. For this very segregation and dissociation of power, the reason, it denotes the pulse of everyday life new models of colonialism are all projected which is characterized by duality of action. by the media with a kind of violent Any literary discussion that eschews the unit excitement. The language of the media in of the word—which is the most integral fact becomes a proclamation of the crisis of feature of language—therefore becomes present day existence where one has to irrelevant. This is the same logic that lies make a pact with corporate forces and the behind any thought or discussion on prose various regional power structures. or poetry. The individual, society, as well as The language of the media leads us to a the thoughts associated with them, should conflict with the cultural mind which yearns be taken into account in such a context. for liberation and the social mind which pulls Identity has two sides to it: 1) that which is us back into a state of bondage. Such a encountered by the individual and 2) that distorted form of language, which is used at a which is encountered by the society. The time when all forms of cultural investments

MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 9 become a part of the ever-dominant culture greatness or all-pervasive glory is one which and entertainment industries, is definitely only a saint would aspire for. It is therefore more dangerous than most forms of meaningless to label a poet as ‘great’ by terrorism. This will only help to create a narrow measuring the extent of his creative works – minded society which can never converge at a rather, it should come from the belief that ‘the point or produce any practical result. greatest poet is a saint (naanrshi kavi), a Although words have a way of changing dictum which the writer firmly believes in. His over from one semantic context to the other, greatness can be accepted on the basis of a the language of the media is destined to die, close reading and analysis of four lines of like a meteor, a sudden death and lose out poetry, as well as of four lakh lines. The poet on a meaningful life. Words here lose their just needs to have a quarter measure of ability to transform and paraphrase the poesy in him—for the rest of the three quarter, different conditions of life. Caught in the web he should become a sign of the eminence of 7 of a consumerist world, they are forced to humanity. It is only when he cuts across the live in a stunted, transient world, and finally boundaries of dry theoretical norms and give up their life as a consequence. transmits the inherent emotion to the reader that this can be achieved. The life of the word is creative and also a realizationrealization: The word as liberation: All actions encounter a state of realization The social role of the word is based on its while conditions base themselves on actions. capacity to liberate. Words acquire a social The word, by conforming to a state of dimension only when they encourage creation, being and destruction, becomes thoughts that are integral to society. Although action-centric when it is placed in a specific their content and interpretive modes will context and also when it achieves a state of remain the same, their meanings change realization/ signification. Anubhavas according to the contexts. The liberative role is (consequents) that are co- existent with fulfilled by those words which absorb, in language – which is the outward verbal sign certain contexts, the ideas of humanism and system that gives expression to thought – liberation. It is the cultural mind of such words should also be taken into consideration. The that enables the reader to attack the diverse importance of denotation in forms of establishment. This has always been ‘chaturvidhabhinaya’ (the four stages of the role of words, and of language, which histrionic representation) is undeniable. It is comprises words. This is also what a writer denotation which helps the correlatives/ like K. P. Appan means when he says that it is determinants (vibhavas) and the transient the writer’s anxiety of liberation that constitute 8 emotions (vyabhicaribhavas) – that have the subject of literature. The politics/desires/ different roles and are interdependent – to interests of a unique society are the reason for reveal themselves in language. The such anxieties. Writing, therefore, has very imagination of the aesthete becomes more clear implications. The politics of the word lies alert when new concepts and thoughts are in its practice of liberation. repeated through words. Such an experience Notes: emanates from the written mode of language 1. E.P.Rajagopal, Lokathinte Vaakku, Page 06 which constitutes its executional aspect. It is 2. P.Sankaran Nambiar, Sahityaprabhavam, Page 110 3. Kuttikrishna Marar, Sahitya Sallapam, Page 90 this cultural level that Marar described as the 4. K.V. Ramakrishnan, Kavithayum Thalavum, Page 14 level of catharsis. Viewed from a prime critical 5. Nambisan, A.S.N, Thalangal Thalavadyangal, Page 24 position, we would be forced to agree that the 6. M.R.Raghava Warrier, Vayanayude Vazhikal, Page 62 greatness of a poet is measured not 7. Kuttikrishna Marar, Sahitya Sallapam, Page 90-91 qualitatively but quantitatively. Such a state of 8. K.P.Appan,Thiraskaram, Page 23

10 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY Ayyankali literature in Malayalam K. K. S. Das

Aesthetics of humanity he battle of injustice waged upon the endemic cultures T 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.

MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 11 the "main stream literature''-the struggle of into foce. Today the question of nations to find their essence. The ideological development of language and nations is a war that leads the nation and the language national question, also it is a question of to power and rightful legacy by proper democracy. It has an ideological dimension political enlightenment. When Ayyankali of national emancipation and aesthetics. joined forces with the truth of liberation he The invading religions, ethnic, racial and became an ideology in the national caste systems acquired supremacy over ideological streams. It is the mission and Kerala’s demography.The dehumanization duty of history to read deep into the whole brought about by the invading cultural sweep of cultural essence of popular revolt. supremacy degenerated the nation of Kerala Language Literature Nationhood-a into abject slavery. The history of the caste different perspective on values and racial struggle of this horrendous period in the dark ages of history is yet to be Language is the cultural currency and the explored. Certainly history has never been medium encompassing the nation the stationary. The confrontations of individual and the totality of the spatial contradictions will have its reper cussions in temporal and environmental platforms. It is the socio-economic realms. Pulapedi, being instrumental in bringing about the mannapedi and the tensions in the caste union of nations and the consolidation of based social pyramid contain the protracted nationhood. Language develops with the history of struggles even beyond the society and turns out to be the cultural force historical folklore. if a caste woman of social development . Malayalam transgresses the geographical region of its belonging to the ruling elite becomes a origin and spreads across the globe. social outcaste to be given away to the Literature transcending the divisions of slave community when touched upon with a regional communal and religious identities twig or stone is not a legend the political leads nation to its essential values. significance involved therein is to be dug deep into. Literature is ideological expression Language, the medium of popular as well as analytical research. Ayyankali expression and the tool of intra national and movement is the history of a slave nation international communication, is the stout becoming aggressive and violently making link in international relations. Malayalam is great progress in 20th century over caste the resultant cultural expression of Kerala based fedual supremacy, at a time when the nationhood. Kerala nationhood is the slaves and the oxen had the same yoke general culture of Kerala evolved through and social stauts. It changed the course of the course confrontation and reconciliation history and re structured the society. with different nations with different ethnic values in the specific indian geographical The natural culmination of class war is the theatre. In the formation of Kerala confrontation of the serfs and peasantry nationhood specific regional nations and against the ruling class in a caste based pan Indian nations have confronted and feudal social structure. The conflict reconciled from time to time. The pan Indian between feudal forces and the serfdom, dalit nationhood is the popular force of the between the kulaks and the throne, between original nations language in Kerala history. the land owners and their tenants, between The quintessence of nation’s originality the planters and the working class was a consolidated itself into dalit nationality continuous force in the evolution of Kerala’s before the aggressive cultural invasion of polity. The heroes of fabled devotional Hindu-Christian and Islamic ideologies and movement from Ezhuthacchan to even before the communal segreation came poonthanam could not bring about a

12 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY qualitiative shift in the social structure. Still literary magnates viciously demoted the worse they contributed to the Hinduisation of same as Pulaya mutiny. Yet, transcending Kerala culture cowing down in the racial regional and caste boundaries, and supremacy of the imperious invaders. It integrating the oppressed nations on a resulted in the Slavery of the ethnic society national level he spearheaded a social and the glorification of Hindu Aryan movement in the Kingdom of Cohin, forged invaders. The poetic expression of the out a united front with the fishermen of Aryanization ws the Sanskritisation of Kerala and nurtured the movement into a language in the name of modernization. At general strike in the region. Ayyankali struck the time of Kunchen Nambiar Otten, at the root of feudal economy making his Seethankan (Pulayan) and Parayan movement the freedom struggle of a nation ritualistic dances were incarcerated within and also the class war of a marginalized the confines of Hindu legends. Aggressive peasantry. It was the theory and practice of a Hindu literature appropriated temple arts people’s war. It was also the theory of and folk songs - arts of the grass root practice. sections of the society. The sacred groves of Ayyankali shattered the boundaries of caste the theatre arts and the ethnic folk music system. Still it did not concentrate on were abducted by the master race. The absolute anti-caste platform. The alienated original nations were manacled to philosophical content that was essentially manual labor. socio revolutionary made Ayyankali The women’s liberation sturggle moved movement a timeless pan Indian ahead in 1829 in Bengal to end the the revolutionary progression . The drawback of practice of Sati under the leadership of the movement’s philosophical evolution was Bengali renaissance. The fedual the economic, class and social refrains administration of Travancore suppressed imposed by the stigma of serfdom in the Channar rebellion, the struggle for the basic fedual production system. human right to cover the bosom of women, Caste and class- the problems of a with brute terror of ethnic cleansing. In 1859 pluralistic content Channar women were given the right to cover their breast under the influence of British Caste system is the negation of equality. it is colonial administration Dehumanization was maintained in the Indian social fabric as an for all practical purposes the ulterior motive institution compartmentalizing its people. In of the caste based production distribution the feudal class structure the struggle and power equations of Kerala. Ayyankali against caste based feudal supremacy is a movement represented the rebellious interest class war in the general class structure in the feudal autocratic socio-economic context. The specific essence of Indian class structure. This is the socio-revolutionary structure is caste system. The struggle content of national renaissance. against the feudal system became a struggle against caste system and vice The struggle to move freely, to cover breast, versa. As caste system is the specific to own land, to get decent education, to attribute of feudal structure against caste have labour rights-the struggle of the system does not graduate into a universal oppressed nations snow balled into a war against feudalism. The struggle against concerted landmark struggle within the caste system gives a standing blow to the philosophical premises of liberation and production equation evolved through development. Kerala was rocked by feudalism. Only when production equations insurgency. Ayyankali was its political transformed, production forces are politically capital. Official historians and mainstream enlightened, the supremacy of private

MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 13 ownership is shattered, the working class becomes a potent war head, equality 'Earth ! you are the red lethal becomes a physical truth and the beauty of Indian society, and the vernal bloom of combination Indian demography becomes a standing Your day will dawn. You will reality the curse of caste system will be be the beacon’ 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 poor appendage of feudal cultural the lower classes a potent weapon to defend reformation. We have to recognize and the qualitative revolutionary evolution of acknowledge the historical lesson that Ayyankali movement. Ayyankali is the social revolutionary of Well before the Russian revolution of 1917 mainstream Kerala renaissance. the oppressed classes in the feudal Violent aggression against dehumanization- Structure of Kerala - the serfs of Kerala that -it was the working strategy of Ayyankali.He had been denied the most seminal human achieved freedom of movement through civil rights- under its own leadership struggled disobedience. He replaced feudal caste against the powers that be resorting to the based jurisprudence with popular liberal weapon of social disobedience and placed justice through violent and entrenched its representative in the legislative assembly. onslaughts. The revolutionary spirit of This opened a new chapter in world history. Ayyankali movement makes it unique in For the nation it was a lesson in history and history. The political application of Ayyankali practical political lesson also. movement was the aggressive and It was impossible for Ayyankali to amplify defensive struggle for the liberation of the the movement into a political revolution oppressed classes. The social existence and capable of transforming the fedual political right of a nation contain the vision of production chain. The limitations of liberation and development of nations. The Ayyankali movement were the class-based timeless historic and revolutionary weaknesses, political immaturity and the low pertinence of Ayankali movement is that it quality of the production forces . Yet there is applied the solidarity of oppressed nation in no parallel political movement in the world the vision of development and liberation . In comparable to Ayyankali movement the contemporary history this political Struggles created a qualitative political value application does not socially develop. In the and imparted a defensive blow upon the class war it exists as the politics of production hierarchy. Ayyankali movement oppressed class unity and the contradictions brought forth the politics of social revolution of social divisions exist in mutual tension. it in Kerala. Still, unable to discern the resists social change and objective of significance and pertinence of this singular socaial revolution is to alter this condition. political event, Keala’s casteist and religious The forward march of the oppressed classes cultural mainstream could place Ayyankali was based on the values raised by Ayyankali on the pedestal of Gurudev (great master) movement in the process of resisting the and slight him into one of the many heroes fedual system. The oppressed society was of renaissance. But absolute renaissance elevated to an exalted cultural straturm which as such being indifferent to social denied and resisted the excesses of the reformation impulses, yields to decadent ruling class. The blitzkrieg upon the powers feudal production hierarchy and becomes a that be and also upon history is the

14 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY application of people’s history and expression. Ayyankali literature appreared proletarian dictatorship . This social on Malayalam literary as a style of literary application that shattered the status quo expression of popular resistance. 'Ayyankali contains the culture and politics of the the first spark flashed against feudalism' and value of liberation. it is the expression of 'Ayyankali in Kerala History ' are the two people’s will and the negation of the write-ups that made an attempt to analyze authoritarian system. the jurisprudential Ayyankali politically. No other political values that the popular nationalist analyses based on Marxist philosophy have movements triggered in Kerala by the hitherto appeared. oppressed classes produced the lessons of N.K. jose and Chentharassery have come the great beginning of a national movement. out with the biography of Ayyankali. They The caste based feudal system used the however stick to the ethnicity in dalith caste structure on reactionary plain to literature while projecting Ayyankali in a protect itself. The internal contradictions of romantic vein. Yet they stand apart for the caste structure and the frictions thereof having introduced Ayyankali in Malayalam perpetuated by the caste-based literature. They managed to penetrate the representatives in the legislative assembly literature clitism. Ayyankali became a shattered the unity of the oppressed classes. reading material in Malayalam. Mr. This happened during Ayyankali’s lifetime Abhimanue and Mr. Rajagopal Vakathanam but he could do nothing about it. it is the also have made their contribution in culture and strategy of the people at the introducing Ayyankali to Malayalam helm to protect caste based social structure literature. through caste-based contradictions. Here 'Ayyankali' by Kallada Sasi and my Trumpet religions becomes a handy weapon. of The Soil have perpetuated Ayyankali in Ayyankali movement failed to spearhead the Malayalam poetry. Kallada Sasi’s poem popular political struggles that cropped up in which envisages Ayyankali as pancahjanya Kerala. His movement fell apart in the caste, refuse to assimilate Ayyankali in the religious and sub- caste frictions. But the political or historical perspective. socio-political enlightenment that his Ideologically it symbolizes him in gaudy movement gave rise to surged ahead as the romantic imagination.Thus the poem fetters guiding force and people’s might in the later the essencce of anti-feudal movement in day revolutionary advances (of the working feudal culture, making it a reactionary class-peasantry movements) product. Thunder of spring in Malayalam I penned this poetic work in 1967 when I was literature a pre-degree student at NSS College, People create history. Literature incorporates Changanassery. It appeared in print for the an ideological dimension to the value based first time in 1975 when SEEDIAN weekly was culture of history. It underscores the lessons launched from Kottayam. A second edition of history by means of an ideology. The became possible only in 2003. main stream writers and historians failed to Ayyankali headed the women’s liberation feed on the liberation- aesthetics potentials movement by promoting stone jewellery of Ayyankali movement. boycott. It was the first one of its kind Ayyankali literature is meager and light. It against the dehumanizing process after the had to fight and defend itself ifn the upper Channar rebellion, which demanded the right class dominated printing publishing to cover a woman’s mammary glands .This marketing realms to find a slot to find poetic work, an epic in Malayalam seeks

MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 15 poetic expression to the history of man’s educational institutions he set an example advancement. This aesthetic expression of for social reconstruction. The conducting liberation does not follow the stereotyped force of social development.Such examples styles but spurs modern thought. Read out are most appropriate over a great beginning. culture from history.The stone that the Ayyankali movement teaches us that beauty builders left has become the head of the becomes the power of liberation and corner. liberation becomes the cessation of 'Earth ! you are the red lethal combination obsolete production hierarchy. it is to be Your day will dawn. You will be the beacon’ borne in mind that when Ayyankali is read and brave new ideas are sparked out So predicted the mind of the poet in 1967 Ayyankali literature becomes the politics of and today it is historic truth. application and the vision of liberation. The works that analyze and present Cultural development signifies the Ayyankali give rise to a lesson that reminds presentation of new values and the negation us of ideological and cultural values. The of old values. Malayalam literature has to jurisprudence introduced and applied by develop as the creative ideological Ayyankali runs parallel to the judicial system. interpretation of the same. Ayyankali It is the political application and cultural literature is the developmental flux of the premise of self-determination and socio- national culture. Also it is the valuable power cultural autonomy.Through the opening of of egalitarianism.

16 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 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.

or Kakanadan among the moderns, writing was a F 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.

MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 17 In North India, villages in no time became Kakkanadan kept a distance from his cities. Life in these cities too took different character and his stories kept a distance versions and it was experienced mostly by from each other. Modernism has persuaded the slum dwellers in Delhi and UP, who us to view the real and the unreal as inter migrated to these cities in the 60s and also related. This can be called the main aspect by those from Kerala who went in search of of modernism. When these two worlds merge a living in these cities. They read Camus’ a collage is born. When words with different Outsider and campared their dull, life to the meanings, to be read in different planes. with yellow pages of these paper back editions. their intonations and embellishments in a Mukundan, Sethu, Kakanadan, O.V. Vijayan, realm of thought converge and merge into a VKN, and Narayana Pilla were signposts of single point, there lies the success of the modernism for the Malayalee readers. book. In this way Kakanadan went beyond the limitations of language. All his long and short stories are examples. In 'Kachavadam' Modernism has persuaded us (Business) every word from the beginning till to view the real and the unreal the end are realistic.But from the final word as inter related. begins an unreal world. Moving along this path of complex words, standing amidst the complexity of the city, he succeds in creating These writers represented modernism in a complex world. His story 'Abhayarthikal' malayalam. The mechanical world which (Refugees) begins like this: ‘Fear in man turned man into a machine was strange to doesn’t vary with age, Sex or shape. The the malayalee who had till then made coir feeling is in the same. The same emotion, with his hands. It was a world alien to them. fear, pain, depression’. These words don’t He was not familiar with the enstrangement mean to explain all his stories. When and insecure feeling that was portrayed in characters choose different paths to travel, the modern writings. The writers had when they do and do not get addicted to recognized the meaninglessness of life in the alchohol and drugs, become prisoners and cities, and hence they created characters to jailers, teacher and student, scholar and the place them in similar situations, to explain dunce, as said before, they move about in modernism to the readers of Malayalam different emotional realms. Kakanadan's literature. heart is made up of characters who are the products of lust, hatred, depression and They were imposing an urban hyper text on loneliness in them. Their journery towards a the consciousness of these readers, pushing hopless town, created a long story like ' aside the world of Idassery and Vailopilli Aarudeyo Nagaram' (Somebody’s city) from their minds. of course when we read these moderns today, we recognize their A disorderly life is what modernism put labour in creating such a world.Hence I go forward as its touchtone. But Kakanadan back to the declarartion I made that placed an orderly life above this disorder.A Kakanadan was in a dilemna. malayalaee believes that by changing his conventional attire, the Mandir and the 'Why only a writer? ' I dont think anyone sandal wood paste on his farehead, he can would have asked Kakanadan this question. create disorder. But Kakanadan's characters But unlike any other writer, he first created a do not follow this idea. Keeping away the resonating world in him before he put it apparent disorder, he creates characters who down on paper. He kept his characters alive are imprisoned within. Thus in 'Somebody’s in him. Now we know that no modern writer city' We see a world that maintains a is away from his characters. But

18 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY disorderly persistence. There, food, dress, him on paper, the disgusting mannerisms of livelihood, sex, love etc are far away; from the model blocks his creativity and free flow the conventional disorderly path. But the of mind. He struggles to create, all the while protagonist, the painter, holds an order maintaining an order in his life. His mind above all the chaotic lives revolving around moves on depending on this order.When he him. He is accused. He loses his life. Such reaches his destination, immortality, he has stories raise their voice against the popular to discard all the warnings of real life. Tantric belief that modernism imported drugs and science says that the one who invokes the sex in Kerala. His story ‘Sreechakram’ too celestial shreechakram should be able to should be read in a similar way. The words, comprehend in his insight the 14 worlds and their complexities, the planes they create are the 3 kalams.This state of mind is obvious viewed very carefully and presented ‘Penance from the very first in the story. A man who was peace; its pain, coldness. solitude in follows tantric ideas in called Magician by peace.The untolerance of penance- is the ordinary folk. But such a man whose peace’. Words taken to such tantric sub- mind revolves around the universe, its consciousness and given a glow is the art sanctity, its ecstasy cannot be explained.The seen in shreechakram. The painters and the experience cannot be described. At one models real life journey of into the mystic life glimpse we see the orphaned, of the goddess with the celestial weapon, unconventional satirical characters and their shreechakram, crossing the thresholds of lives. But beyond that is the deepest caverns enlightenment to the enchanting world of of purity in their minds the so called orderly orders and prophecies and death less life, life. Modernism has told us stories of the make the story unique. These stories stress orderly life that man leads. the fact that conventional order is life. When Translated by GITANJALY trying to recreate the model sitting in front of

MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 19 Short Story Satan Brush Thomas Joseph

e left for the sky-city as he happened to hear that Satan H 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 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY looked at his teeth. He saw an array of silver Hearing that, the angel extended its hands to fish smiling at him, and felt jubilant. He him with the smile of temptations. The man opened the fridge and took out wine and found himself flying in the pathways of the glass. Satan filled a glass and offered it to sky leaning on the bosom of the angel. his employee. Reluctant, but greedy, he He was restless in his bed, longing for the accepted it. Satan emptied the remaining angel. Hearing his wails one night, Satan portion in the bottle directly to his thorat. approached him and consoled him by Then he took a brush and reddened the lips presenting a ring studded with stars as of the angel, who was flying in the eternity stones. The very moment he looked towards he was drawing. The angel was flying with the picture of the Satan pictured on the white wings in the sky. And there was a stones, he forgot the angel. He indulged in golden sword in its hand. playas of spraying the blood of sunset, with One night, while the pillow was getting Satan. One day while they were indulged in downed in tears, the angel stepped in and playing, somehow, the ring got lost. Then he sat beside him. The man was damn happy. plunged into a heavy longing for the angel. The angel pluked a golden sword from its One morning, hiding the golden sword under feather and presented it to him and his shirt, he approached Satan, as usual demanded that he should give the angel the chuckled and got ready for getting his teeth head of the Satan. The man shivered like a brushed. The man all on a sudden passed corpse. But he was convinced that he the sword between his teeth and crashed his cannot have an existence without pleasing head. With blood stains on his body, he the angel. He sat drowned in silence without rushed to the other side of the sky. Suddenly giving the angel a favourable reply. At that the angel appeared with the police, opening moment, the angel left him with rage. the cloud door. As he was trying to get back Caught in the grip of separation, he laid the angel kicked him on his head with its leg. himself embracing the golden sword, and His head became a bloody ball. Despite longed for sleep. The song of the angel hearing the background music of his echoed from some distant land occasionally laments, the angel went to a far away he slipped to a trance. Satan appeared in festival venue, with the police. dream and raised him to this sky. He Then, one day a tired bird was seen on a touched the clouds. When he turned back, branch of the flowered tree. Soon came a Satan was missing. Instead the angel was team of police with the rifle of evil words standing there fanning its wings. He tried to when the team passed the invisble tree, that disrobe the angel. But failed. There was no small bird sang a song of repentance and end to its dress. sorrow. That bird was the angel. The flowered Every morning he went to Satan and brushed tree moved quite happily. The man took his teeth. Satan, mean while continued his wings and raised himself to the branch of arguments with god on good and evil. The the tree. The brush of Satan slept in the vast angel, on the other hand pestered him with deepness, the brush of Satan slept without its request for Satan’s head. He cried in his finding out its owner. heart that he can never kill the Satan. Translated by : V.K. Sharafudheen

MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 21 The Ernakulam Years of Vaikom Muhammed Basheer N. A. Karim

he early formative years of his literary career Vaikom T 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 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY wrote with his deep critical insight and acumen was mainly responsible for the wide When I joined the Muslim public attention the work instantaneously hostel Bashir was there in one received.A few critical observation of Prof. room as a resident, on what Paul have since become memorable ones. right, I did not know. As he was But before the publication of Balyakalasakhi a very likeable serious person I had read one small book of Bashir. The Daughter of Policeman (Policekarante Makal with of course his ) a long simple short story of love between a characteristic idiosyncrasies young political worker and the daughter of a and a reputation as a vaguely police constable. As Bashir was a subject of revolutionary writer we all the neighboring state of Travancore which looked upon him with awe and was then under the repressive rule of an respect. 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 between the two was a little strange as Ernakulam to avoid possible arrest, torture temperamentally both were quite and imprisonment. Occasionally he used to incompatible. Bashir was always generous disappear from the hostel for a couple of even to those whom he apparently disliked days stealthily going to his village, and made fun of in his characteristic Thalayolaparambu, near the town Vaikom to innocent way. see his mother to whom he was deeply Later Bashir started his Circle Book House attached.This we did not know in those on the broad veranda of the spacious days. And he never said anything about his waiting hall of Ernakulam Boat jetty with an personal life to any inmate of the hostel. His easily foldable big shelf that displayed books return was also at midnight or very early and the few periodicals of those days. hours of the mornings.The mystery about his Cheap paperback editions of world classics private life only added to our respect and were the main attraction for young students created a vague sympathy for him. It was for like me. I still remember that it was Bashir him then a kind of underground life. who recommended Emile Zola’s Nana to me, Evidently he was penniless in those days a copy of which I bought for one and a half and how he managed to live without any rupees.Bashir was not a mere bookseller but income was another mystery for us. But he also a good guide to young readers who was always neat and tidy in appearance discerningly introduced to us many with well laundered and starched and European writers and their works. pressed khadi jubba and dhoti equally white Later Bashir sold his Boat Jetty book stall to and well - washed. And never did he bother P.K. Balakrishnan and started a bigger one the student inmates of the hostel for any his with larger stock of discerningly selected personal needs. Occasionally Vakkom Abdul books near Broadway and a room upstairs Quadir,the writer son of the great became his place of residence. As this place renaissance leader and reformer Vakkom was quiet and more comfortable his friends Maulavi used to come there and stay with and admirers used to come here also in him spending most of the time sitting on a larger numbers among who were young folding steel chair reading mostly English student political leaders like T.V. Thomas, books with deep absorption.The relationship renowned writers like Thakazhi, student

MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 23 leaders and intellectuals. Bashir had friends circle of congenial loving friends of all kinds and admirers among lower strata of society and categories provided him with the with whom he was equally chummy and inspiration for his creative energies that is quite at home. Listening to his humorous expressed in his later books. He was also conversation was as enjoyable as reading relieved in these later years of his financial his books. He used to make constant fun of difficulties. A great lover of music of them and gave new names according to Saighal, and others he had a collection of their nature which stuck and easily became disc records of choice singers which he popular. A few of them became life models enjoyed along with increasing quantity of of characters of his later stories. alcoholic drinks to which he later became One day Thakazhi was in his book stall. T.V. excessively addicted. The nervous Thomas who came with the young Vayalar breakdown ultimately made him an inmate Rama Varma took nearly forty rupees forcibly of the Ayurvedic clinic of Vallapuzha near from Thakazhi’s pocket and sent for liquor Trichur. which they consumed in Bashir’s room His later shift to Calicut and stay there was upstair. Thakazhi also joined them heartily. T. also a productive period. Cheruvannoor V. and Vayalar soon left the place and Abdurrahiman who was later stabbled to Thakazhi stayed behind. But he refused to death at Calicut Wheat House was Bashir’s go unless Bashir gave the money taken main patron there. Bashir again became the from his pocket saying that it was not his centre of attraction of a wide circle of writers, money but of Katha, his wife. Thakazhi was academics, artists, actors and of course so insistentent that Bashir at last had to give football fans of Malabar area. the money. T.V. took the money and spent it Bashir’s happy marriage to Fabi and the rest on drinks which of course they all shared. of his peaceful but productive life at Beypore It was almost at this time that Prakkulam is another long chapter of his fairly long life Bhasi started his Sea View Hotel on full of honours including a doctorate (honoris Shankukham Road. By the then Ernakulam causa) of the University of Calicut. He standard it was a posh one, and Sea View became an icon with his self styled became Bashir’s haunt. With Bashir’s pompous title Sultan of Beypore. It was in presence others of his circle also used to Ernakulam that Bashir wrote his one Act play come there. Bashir had his usual free lunch Kathabeejam which was successfully staged there. When one evening Bashir and I were in the Main Hall of Maharajas College. His sitting there and drinking tea together Bashir rhetorically powerful Sandhya Pranamam was had hung his umbrella on a wooden screen effecitvely presented as solo by P.K. a little away. A person who was in the room, Balakrishnan on the stage of the very same on his way out after tea quietly took Bashir’s hall to a packed audience. umbrella . I didn’t notice it but Bashir did. One evening while Bashir was sitting on the He quietly and unhurriedly went after him parapet of Shanmugham Road P.K. Sivadas and gently touched his shoulder and a gifted singer and stage actor and a asked, 'Are you the famous Malayalam writer member of Bashir’s Inner circle came and Vaikom Muhammed Bashir?' He nervously asked whether he had seen said 'no, no' ! ‘That umbrella belongs to him C.J.Thomas.Bashir’s cool reply was that CJ and I am he’. He, a genetleman thief, or went along that way just a little while ago perhaps, a kleptomaniac handed over the carrying his Cross, that is, his wife Rosy. umbrella to him. I enjoyed the discomfiture of Bashir knew intimately all the members Prof. that gentleman filcher. That was Bashir. M.P. Paul family, and Rosy was fondly The Ernakulam life of Bashir with a wide remembered as a naughty young girl.

24 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY Short Story A Doll As Big As Freddy George Joseph K.

issamma’s mother prayed before Virgin Mary with fearful L 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

MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 25 and his wife made it a point to attend the advanced much in their attempt to secure a annual ritual in Velankanni, in order to seat in college. Then Lissamma resorted to a search their missing child. “Give her back to new tactic--fast unto death! This trump card, us,” they will pray, cry and beg. But the along with her ardent prayers were enough mother did nothing. She would keep her to redeem her. Atlast her family surrendered. stony silence. Lissamma’s parents will return A kind of total submission. What to do! It’s empty handed as usual. her fate. Her own making! After all she is not a fool or retard. On the other hand, very Freddy also spent his days and nights in the clever and smart. cathedral and its surroundings, in search of his sweet heart. Had he been with her on The other day, Lissamma climed on to the that fateful moment she would not have lap of her mother, lifted her chatta-the disappeared, he is sure. blouse- and sucked her breast! All she wanted was breast milk. Marayamma For the three of them, the girl remained a brushed her aside. But her daugher went off pain, a sorrow and a mystery. On the shores laughing. It was amidst these mischiefs that of their mind, she still roams around, a cute Lissamma fell in love. The beginning was merry girl, enviably energetic. Though in early typical, like any love story. Highly romantic, twenties, Lissamma never contained herself and with flowers--that too Jasmine! Freddy a in the framework instituted by society and college student, came with a handful of home front. Her mischiefs found no limit. Jasmine. She took life as it came. Lissamma wandered even with boys much younger to He was waiting for her under a vaaka tree. her. Only in her menstruating days did she She was on her way to Novena. The vaaka confine herself to home, cursing the whole was full of red and shining flowers. “This is world. Still in her skirt, Lissamma threw off or for you,” he said. discarded the saree bought for her. A “Why? why for me, Freddy?” She asked in chatterbox and pet of her dear and near bewilderment. A full spring blossmed on his ones, Lissamma liked outings in the face. But he concealed it in silence, and company of friends. But Maryamma, her smiled softly., mother will never let her daughter spend the “Why laugh? Tell me frankly,” Lissamma night outside the home. insisted. Attending novena really thrilled her. She Actually he was in darkness. He doesnt would promptly and piously join churches on know why he extended the flowers to her. An Tuesdays. Tuesdays and saturdays for the unknown emotion engulged him. He was in Novenas of Saint Antony, virgin Mary and search of words. Luckily she offered help. Judas Thadevus respectively. “Is this to love me?” Despite her unruly nature and aversion to study, Lissamma came out with good marks He nodded in agreement. A sweet love song in the S.S.L.C. Examination, much to the from a film he saw began to beat on his lips surprise of her family. She was happier than She too joined. A melodious duet. She took anybody for, she thought this was the end of his hands and ran over the flower singing the the dull academic life. But parents insisted love song. The first day. They reached the on her joining the college. Lissamma chruch where Novena was in progress. depended on the saints of her Novena “Will you - Freddy, ever cheat me?” Series, and kept on praying that she may be “Never. I swear in the name of Saint. salvaged from the crucixion of higher Antony.” studies. But father and mother had

26 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY Lissamma was not completely satisfied “Dont worry, darling. I’ll bring it in the “What should I do then convince you?” evening. But of what denonination?” She smiled and winked her eyes at him. “Of Rs 5/-. No, make it Rs 10/-” “Ok. do onething. Pluck your heart and She was happy again. They sat together for show me.” She said with a smile. “Any way breakfast. That day she did not venture out, let’s move now. not even to her friend Elizabeth Antony’s house. There the iddly prepared for See you tomorrow. Here, under this vaaka.” Lissamma remained untouched. Linda the Freddy cried. How can he pluck out his girl gave the boiled banana piece to the heart? Even if he did, she will laugh it off as parrot as Lissamma failed to turn up. The hibiscus. He was afraid his first love would parrot murmured. “Lissamma didn’t be drowned in this stormy waves engulfing come...... Lissamma didn’t come.” him. Dejected, he went to college, as if the Stephan brought a stamp paper with Rs. 10/- whole world was lost. . Lissamma, sitting in her closed room, late Lissamma knelt before Saint Antony. She at night, prepared an agrement that she disclosed the secret to the Saint. Saint won’t marry anyone other than Freddy in her Antony, with a happy Infant Jesus on his whole life. Witnesses: 1. Saint Antony 2. chest, listened keenly. Then he placed the Saint Virgin Mary and 3. Saint Judas Infant on the floor and whispered something Tadevus. Put cross symbol and signed. She in her ears. She was pleased, and invited added that the agreement was applicable to Infant Jesus to her house. “Come we have Freddy also. If one party violates any clause fish fry and rice. Lemon pickle too.” the other has the right to pray for his/her death by shattering of the head. She will “No thanks,” said Infant Jesus. He jumped keep the original deed, and a photocopy will to the arms of Saint Antony. be served to him. This was what Saint Lissamma deposited the amount she had Antony whispered in her ears the other day. kept to buy five star in the oblation chest. Next day, when she approached the tree, She dipped her finger in the lamp lit in front Freddy was waiting as usual, with a handful of the deity, and placed on her hair. of jasmine. She produced the document and As soon as she reached home, Lissamma made him sign in her presence, along with checked in whether Stephen her brother had his thumb impression lest he may forge the gone to the court, where he was working. No signature. he was there dressing. Lissamma gave him Love under the vaaka became the talk of the the shirt and pants ironed, and looked for his town. As both of them were hailing from powder and comb. Then his shoes. decent familes, they didn’t face any “Why this courtesy today?” Stephen impediment from the part of parents. The enquired. river of love flowed smoothly. “I need a stamp paper. Please bring it when It was then that Antony Cehttan and you return.” Maryamma thought of a pilgrimage to Velankanni, as a thanks giving trip to the “Why do you need a stamp paper? he was Mother for her benevolence. Moreover the surprised. prayer right in front of the Mother would She did’nt like the enquiry. Displeasure indeed fetch fortune and blessing to the appeared on her face. She turned to leave betrothed. the room. Stephen caught hold of his After all Lissamma is Lissamma. She too younger sister’s hand. wanted to go. Antony Chettan and

MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 27 Marayamma refused to take her. Lissamma “Nothing to worry my dear,” virgin Mary resorted to all kinds of strategies. She cried, encouraged her to accept the Infant. “Just went on a fast, quarrelled and what not! stand in my place for a few minutes, till I Adamant, She was never willing to retreat return with the doll for your Freddy. you will even a step from her goal. At last the old be in my garb, in my disguise. You may parents yielded to her demand. leave as soon as I come in.” Freddy saw her waiting under the vakka. “I Anyway, the Mother is going out specially for am going to Velankanni, with father and me, thought Lissamma. To meet my request. mother.” She agreed. She transformed into the Virgin “When will you return?” Mary with Infant Jesus, the very moment. At the same time the Mother underwent a “It’s upto the Holy Mother.” seachange and became an ordinary woman! Freddy felt sad. “What should I bring for She went straight into the area where dolls you?” She asked as if to console him. were being sold out. “A doll as big as myself.” Atfirst it was incredible. People of all sorts She laughed. Red flowers were showering on came and asked for everything under the the lovers. She returned home happily. sun. Gradually Lissamma, the Mother Mary, enjoyed the role thrust upon her though she Lissamma and her parents reached is merely a duplicate of the presiding deity. Velankanni by train and bus. Marayamma However, she blessed them, showered it didn’t let her daughter move alone. She abundantly. Still the devotees asked for always took hold of Lissamma’s hand. But more. Really greedy and like beggars, she the daughter, naughty as ever managed to thought. tread her own way occassionally. She was looking for the doll she promised to Freddy. Outside, the Mother was searching every Dolls were there. Many. But not a single one nook and coner for the doll. Suddenly she as big as Freddy. She didn’t give up hope. saw the vast sea shore and sea. No fetters, she was happy. No more a prisoner. She Pilgrims were thronging inside the church to took to her heels. How beautiful! Far from pray before mother Mary. Some were the grievances and complaints of human praying. Some were expressing their beings. All want material comforts not gratitude for favours granted. Lissamma spiritual bliss. waited, for she wanted to be alone. The mother adorned with the golden crown, and As a liberated prisoner, the Mother enjoyed holding the Infant Jesus in hand, murmured: the outing to the maximum. She did not remember the promise or the purpose of the “Yes what do you want my dear?” trip. Befriending the sea, she narrated “I want a doll....as big as Freddy mundane concern of humanbeings to it. “Who is Freddy?” How many years had I been standing in the Blushing, Lissamma smiled with no guts to church holding the baby! The navigator who face the Mother. She drew pictures on the founded the shrine years back put me in that floor with feet. cell. As years went by I was fed up and exhausted totally. Then, on a very fine Mother got the clue. She smiled. “Don’t inorning, the girl came seeking a doll. worry. I will fetch one. Just hold the baby for Anyway lucky I am! she said, and ran a while,” Mother stepped forward to hand towards the waves. over the Baby. My Jesus! Me! Holding the Lord!”, she was quite surprised. Lissamma was eagerly waiting for the return

28 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY of the Mother, but in vain. It was sunset. the shrine every season. They will closely Then came the night. The first rays of sun look into the face of every girl they came appeared. Days passed by. The mother did across with. not appear. Where is She? Lissamma could So did Freddy. “Is this my Lissamma?” he see her mother and father frantically running wandered looking for his beloved, who had from pillar to post in search of her, and gone to gift him the doll. Life became a praying to her without knowing that thy were tragedy for the three. in front of their own daughter! But Lissamma has not given up hope. The “I am here, just in front of you,”, she wanted Mother will definitely come with the doll as to shout. Actually she did. But they did not big as Freddy, she is sure, though the hear. They were crying, calling her by name. waiting of late, has become monotonous. At last they returned home. Hope still Translated from Malayalam by V. K. Sharafudheen persisted in their hearts, and they reached

MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 29 The Ones with Cloud Forms Muse Mary

t the end of cloud journeys A 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 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY The Saga of Survival Kalamol T. K.

astoral, placid and meek like the sheep, shepherdry in Pliterature 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.

MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 31 sand pulls you deep down in to the cauldron of the treacherous wilderness. The novel The novel stands witness to the leaves the blisters of the sun’s rays far inside shuddering reality as to how your soul; the sharp spiny rays go deeper filthy and forlorn, how odorous and burn the marrow. There’s no escape and desolate life can become. 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 as any other common migrant. It was a unfolds, again as a grim reminder to the fact journey of angst and uncertainty than of joy. that everything other, all the life other than When the airbus touched the tarmac of the ours, appear to be a figment of imagination Riadh airport, Najeeb thought, “I’m here, oh! for us. my city of dreams!” The eternal irony of this The sea of sand is a perplexing mystery. The thought would haunt us forever, as we riddle of the mirage is well explained by witness their horrid struggles to survive and physics. But, still the Oases in the far off escape the fiery planes of the migrant life. sands keep the wanderer going; the eternal Free of affectations, the language of the lure of a green turf in the vast expanse of novel is simple, clear and straight to the wasteland. The deserts of the Persian Gulf heart, ensuring a refreshingly joyous reading region had always been a treasure trove for experience. The transparency of the the Malayalee. Leaving the comforts of the language intensifies the narrative, deceptively tropical paradise, they ventured in to the pulling down the reader in to a whirlwind of pathless jungles of sand dunes in search for the experiences of the protagonists and to daily bread. More ambitious ones also tread empathise with them. Pushing the reader on the same route, in an effort to further their to the brink of the cape of distress and pain, fortunes. And the nostalgic memoirs of pain, the novelist flashes the blades of classic sorrow, longing and separation by these humour, deepening the tragedy of the desert migrants did bring refreshing showers situation and sending lethal waves of pain in to Malayalam literature. to the heart. The novel leaves a shocking shudder The dualism of man and sheep and the through the spine, as the hapless human, strains therein constitute the strong under doomed to lead the life of a goat, struggle current of the whole narrative. Doomed to the hard to regain his lost self. And one wonders ‘life’ of a shepherd in the arid dessert, under at the magic of craft with which the narrative the ruthless supervision of Arbaab, Najeeb is transformed in to a highly sensitive and becomes just another goat of the herd, readable piece of work. The first edition of having lost the minimum legitimate claim of the novel came out in August, 2008 was human dignity. The novel stands witness to quickly followed by a second edition in the shuddering reality as to how filthy and February 2009, not a common trait for a forlorn, how odorous and desolate life can literary endeavour in this part of the world. become. Structured as a first person narrative, the The sheep, here, is not the lovable little novel has two youngsters, Najeeb and creature that would slip free from the lady of Hakkim, who opt to try their luck in the love or the ubiquitous domestic beast that Persian deserts. Selling off the very last bit of would graze the backyard and step inside at their belongings back home, they manage to times. The sheep in a desert is a different pay for the expenses for the migration, just experience altogether. The countless herds

32 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY would graze in an endless search for any lethal snakes and in the form of strong remaining little blade of grass on the great sandstorms. Unable to stand up to the expanse of the dessert. Years on the dessert cruelties of the dessert, Hakim, his friend, without water, the sheep would emanate a succumbs. Mujeeb survives, to tell the story. perpetual stink, an odour that would lurk in Finally, he meets the pious and caring the pen forever. A rainstorm, months after Kunjikka, who will help him out. Najeeb reached ‘Masara’, washed down all The shock wave the novel sends out will the mud and dust from his body, and he keep resounding within, at every rereading. A was surprised to see streaks of dirt going captive of the dessert, with only the sheep to down his body. talk to for months, and denied the minimal No one to talk to, and almost loosing his pleasure of keeping in touch with his own language in the eerie loneliness, Mujeeb beloveds’. Mujeeb finds himself in the fateful starts talking to his sheep. He began naming tunnel of life that keeps meandering deeper them. And one newborn lamb was named in to darkness, with out even hinting a ‘Nabeel.’ It was the name he treasured for his glimmer of light at the end. But the intense baby boy back home. He had no one else and primal yearning for living keeps him but the sheep, to share his lonely misery and sane. The strong belief in good faith and his grief-stricken dreams, and once he even hope, even in the abyss of helplessness, shared his body too with the sheep! permeates a sublime light of optimism. A staunch faith in human survival, against all However mean and horrid the life in the pen odds, as in the “Story of the Shipwrecked may be, Mujeeb holds on, with out opting to Sailor” (Gabriel Garcia Marquez), keeps the end all his suffering in one go. At every bout mast of human will up in the skies. The very of self consuming depression, in the depths same instinct is what makes of despair, he manages to keep afloat, ‘Aadujeevitham,’ a saga of human survival. leaving everything to Allah. Until and at last, The novel believes in the trickles that lost the mercy of the almighty reaches him in the their way in the dessert, it believes in Oases, form of his friend Ibrahim Khadiri. The in mirage. escape from the solitary confinement in the dessert was not without its share of tragedy. Translated by RANJITH The cruel dessert haunts them with a pack of

MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 33 Portrait of a Wounded Poet in Ayyappan’s Poetry Vineetha George

. Ayyappan is a poet who has proved the theory “Art is A 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” The poem “Chuvanna Mashi (The Red Ink) is a description of his identily card. All the wounds a “Didn’t mention the caste. man can ever Upper caste or experience in a Outcast lifetime can be What is my caste? seen in the poems When called a lower caste of Ayyappan which Why do I get angry?” is written in a short He repeats the word ‘black’ in the poem to designate himself. span of fiftyone He caricatures his wounded feelings in his poem. years. “Uncouth hair Staring eyes

34 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY looks like a thief.” “Loved Hitler The second wound, an orphaned feeling Played cards with Mussolini because of the loss of his parents is Departed from God reflected in the poem “Marakkuthira” (The Hated marriage wooden Horse) Lost home and stomach “Before becoming a toddler In the poem “Pesaha” (The passover) he my mother’s potu was taken away expresses his repentance for becoming a drunkard by yielding to the persuasion of his ...... friends. When the fire ashes from “The resurrection of the red on the calendar Father’s funeral pyre..... Around the table his friends tasted my mother too God, will my life end I felt death.” By today’s supper” His description of his mother’s death in the Poverty narrated in his poems serves as a introduction reveals the depth of his wound. medium to express the wounds that inflicted He met the ambulance carrying the dead pain in his life. The poem “Athazham (The body of his mother while he was celebrating supper) talks about a five rupee note which his victory in the school elections by he got from the pocket of a person who died orgainsing a rally with his class mates. in an accident hence to thus the source for Failure is love during childhood in also supper of a poor family. shown in his poems as a wound that made In the poem Jathakakatha (The Horoscope him what he is. The poems “Aalila & story) he laughs at the sad plight inspite of a Sumangali” also reveal the essence of the glorious destiny promised by the horoscope. pain inflicted on him. In the poem “Chuvanna Mashi” (Read Ink) he narrtaes. “I have two scribbles on my pates Either I will rule the world “He loved the one Or I have to beg for food whom I loved In my horoscope I am to rule more than I In my life I am to beg.” He tied the tali to my sweet heart” All these wounded experiences have made him a poet full of sorrows. He views life with Another poem “Churathile Chuvadukal” (The indifference. foot on the ghat) depicts his longing to substitute poetry in the place of the broken “Asurageetham” (The song of the devil) he relationship with his sweet heart. says, Give me a gold bangle of poetry “Life moves from sunlight to five Which is not broken Human life is a burning icon” By the broken bangle piece” This study concludes with the realisation that Similarly another poem “Kazhchayaude Ayyappan’s poems are the expression of his Idavela” (The interval of sight) speaks of the wounded heart as he writes in the poem breaking of the black bangle. “Sanyasiyumothuoru Theevandi yathra” (A train journey with the monk) His teenage company which led him to a wayward life, indulging in exessive drinking “I’m a spring of wounds is highlighted in poem “Chaya Nrutham” My life has received wounds only (Shadow Dance) My poetry is the reflection of my life.”

MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 35 Ideology as Articulating Identity: The Politics of Resistance in Mother Forest Dr. N. Prasantha Kumar

he narrative, Mother Forest 1, is the translation of the T 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 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY is ambiguous of gender, it is obvious from The most remarkable feature of the text that the narrators belong to a the text is the explicitly first community of tribal women. In this context, person plural narrative voice: the the text is a communally articulated cultural autobiographical “we.” This construct. The community of narrators, as a collectivity of tribal women, is the object of makes the text a self-referential multiple oppressions of race, gender and narrative. It reflects the assertion class. In this regard, the tribal female identity of an articulating tribal 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 into a single space of resistance. It is, constructs appropriated by the political therefore, difficult to differentiate between the power structures to deny equity and justice narrator’s personal identity and the collective to certain groups of people classified identity of the community. differently as, for instance, tribals, women and workers. As a representative of the tribal community, the narrator belongs to a subculture. She The first two themes of the text are Adiyars’ turns out to be a primitive rebel, as Stuart strong link to land and Adiyar women’s Hall observes, to deconstruct the popular dependence on land for survival. Land is through the articulation of their cultural emblematic of their culture; it is the visual identity2. This cultural identity, which symbol of their culture, history and identity. withstands the onslaught of political As the male folk of their community are nationality, is symbolic of their cultural evasive, exploitative and oppressive, the distinctiveness. But, this cultural identity females depend on land for the survival of creates a kind of embryonic nationalism in their community as well as themselves. In the community. Their identity evoloves out of this context, the collective cultural identity of the cultural difference not only from the tribal women is a site of struggle and mainstream society but also from analogous survival. Their identity is articulated as a self- tribes. One of the themes of the text is the referencing landscape. For the tribals, land is distinctiveness of the Adiyar tribe to which not merely a metaphor of survival; it is the Janu belongs and their lives. The articulation symbol of their culture well-engraved in their of the identity is essential for the survival of racial unconscious. So the loss of the land, the community of narrator(s). Articulation is, mainly forest land, is a symbolic loss of their therefore, an art of necessity. Literary culture: its retrieval is the retrieval of the lost articulation consequently creates a literary culture. The tribals’ struggle for lost land has text. In the case of subalterns, especially a cultural significance which is female subalterns, the constructed literary incomprehensible to politicians. From the text is always loaded with protest and perspective of the tribals, the land is a resentment towards perpetual state of structural paradigm of culture. The quest for oppression. This kind of literature that the lost land is a quest for a culture invaded reflects their predicament of subordination and vandalized; it is a quest to retrieve the and struggle is the literature of necessity, as cultural identity. This quest finds a manifest J. Saunders Redding phrases about Black form in the landscaping of resistance the literature3. It is an imaginative realm of narrative voice attempts. freedom and dignity. Ideology, according to Louis Althusser, is a Though the first person plural narrative voice set of ideas in the unconscious that makes

MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 37 violent exit.7 The voice of the tribal woman, As the male folk of their though borrowed from patriarchal and community are evasive, colonialist powers, is stifled by the dominant power structures of race, gender and class. exploitative and oppressive, the So the text is full of voids and silences: what females depend on land for the is left unspoken is more significant than survival of their community as what is spoken. well as themselves. In this The meditations which Mother Forest context, the collective cultural undergoes as a text are fatal to the identity identity of tribal women is a site of the narrative voice: a community of tribal of struggle and survival. 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 one represent a reality in a particular way4. transformed into a male-constructed written Ideology is assimilated unconsciously by the narrative. The symbolic order of the male- society. But Michel Foucault thinks that centred language, according to Jaques ideology is reflected in the ways in which the Lacan, is represented by the presence of society is organized and is evident in the phallus. So Bhaskaran has also 8 power relations of that organization5. It is phallocentricized the written text. Thus, related to a set of values and the strategies Janu’s oral text is at once graphocentricized involved in strengthening them. In Mother and phallocentricized by Bhaskaran while he Forest, the identity of the narrative voice is an rendered the oral narrative into the written amalgam of racial, gendered and cultural form. The graphocentric text brings in the identity. The ideology of the narrative voice is complexities of semiotics. It problematizes unambiguously expressed in the explicit the process of signification. Linguistic statement of the dominant themes of the problems like ambiguity and polysemy exist text. The narrative voice makes an attempt to only in graphocentric text. Semantic articulate the identity which is in polysemic problems like ambivalence can be detected phase with the ideology. in graphocentric text. As phonocentric text has no visual structure, the oral narrative Ideological construction of gendered evades deconstruction. It is in this context subjectivity, as Gayatri Chakravorthy Spivak that Derrida comments that speech is observes, leads to male dominance and logocentric and hence orality of text is also 6 consequently fortifies patriarchy . Colonial logocentric in nature.9 For, orality is representation of women is an aesthetic logocentricity and orality is authenticity. problematic. As racism or sexism is an What Bhaskaran has done is to provide a internal form of colonization, the gendered graphic mould to a phonic text. It is a subjectivity is often represented through process of providing a new set of linguistic absence and silence: woman, as a signs to the unconscious of the readers. This susbaltern, is represented in terms of is an attempt to devoice or negate the paradigmatic elements and associative articulating identity of the text. Thus, the first relationships. Subalterns have no history or mediation counters the resistance to the language of their own; female subaltern or literary text in the form of active articulation. gendered subaltern, as Spivak remarks, is So the first mediation is an attempt to distort just a shadow. Caught between the power the identity of the narrative voice. structures of patriarchy and imperialism, the third world subaltern woman confronts a The English rendering, Mother Forest, is a

38 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY bad or mediocre translation. It is true that the no language or historical space. Rendering linguistic obstacle of cultural untranslatability the articulated narrative voice into English is negotiated and reconciled. But translation not only depoliticizes the ideological content is a homogenization of medium and but also distorts the identity which is a unification of content. Translation is, as cultural construct. Englishing the native Stephen Duncombe observes, a form of woman is fatal to the emancipating strategy “politics that does not look like politics.”10 of the community of women. Thus, the Any attempt at homogenization or articulation of the native woman is an art; it unification is an attempt to depoliticize the is an art expressed in a borrowed language. ideological content of the text. so the At its best, it must be an unedited audio- translation of the written text into English is visual text which can be transmitted orally an attempt to depoliticize and overlook the from generation to generaiton, as was political issues articulated in the text. It is an followed in the case of folk ballads. An attempt to neutralize the ideology of the text unedited audio-visual text can resist and consequently to distort the identity of subversive forces like mainstream media and the narrative voice. social hierarchies. Thus, logocentrism can As language is the medium of representation offer a linguistic guard to native female and as the target audience of each language articulation. varies, the selection of language is a political REFERENCES choice. Mother Forest as a representation of 1. Bhaskaran. Mother Forest. Tr. N. Ravi Shanker. New ethnic and racial culture betrays an Delhi: Kali for Women, 2004. obsession with the native. It is an instance of 2. Stuart Hall. “Notes on Deconstructing the Popular.” the native on the shelf which signifies the Cultural Resistance Reader. Ed. Stephen Duncombe, process of comprehending the native. As a London: Verso, 2002: 185-92. colonialist discourse English has an inherent 3. J. Saunders Redding. To make a Poet Black. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1939: 3. quality to fortify imperialism or cononialism 4. Louis Althusser. “Ideology and Ideological State vicariously through distorted imagery of the Apparatuses.” Literary Theory : An Anthology. Ed. Julie colonized and similar politics extended by Rivkin and Michael Ryan. London: Blackwell, 1998: other means. As consciousness is mediated 297. through language, the choice of language 5. Michael Foucault. The Archaeology of Knowledge. Tr. forced on the articulating voice can impede A.M. Sheridan Smith. New York: Pantheon Books, 1971: 18. the spontaneous representation of the 6. Gayatri Chakravarty Spivak. “Can the Subattern unconscious. A translated text becomes a Speak?” Postcolonialism. 4 Vols. Ed. Diana Brydon. marketable commodity, as market is a space Vol. 4. London and New York: Routledge, 2000: 1444. to appropriate any subordinate culture by the 7. Spivak: 1468. dominant culture. Contemporary native 8. Jaques Lacan. “The Symbolic Order.” Literary Theory : writing is a construct of oppression. In this An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivking and Michael Ryan. sense any narrative in native/tribal language London: Blackwell, 1998: 187-88. is a specimen of polemic literature. The 9. Jaques Derrida. “Linguistics and Grammatology.” conflict between the native and non-native Deconstruction. 4 Vols. Ed. Jonanathan Culler. Vol. I. London and New York: Routledge, 2003: 85. languages offers a kind of resistance to the 10. Stephen Duncombe. ed. Cultural Resistance Reader. natives/tribals to preserve their culture and London: Verso, 2002: 89. identity through the medium of the text. Being the community of tribal women, the narrative voice is the subaltern women with

MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 39 The Mist Karoor Shashi

emories of previous births blur the vision MReal 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 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 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

MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 41 The Poet Who Walked Before Time on the ‘Bridge’ of Kuttippuram Dr. Sheeja R. S.

oets are blessed with the ability to breathe life into and Pmould 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 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY “Ariyathor thammiladipidikal, He stood on the threshold of Ariyathor thammil pidichupoottal, imagination to look upon the Ariyathor thammilayalapakkakkar, progresses of times yet to Ariyunnorellarumanyanattar” come; to laugh with pride about (“Strangers in fights Strangers in strife them and to feel pain at the Strangers are neighbours consequences they bring with And friends are all outlanders) them. It is doubtful whether the reality that we experience today could be expressed with more prophetic beauty and clarity. material correspond directly to losses in the Edasseri established himself firmly in the emotional. Along with the disappearance of time that he lived in and the purity of the verdure, we are also faced with the erosion of rustic life that surrounded him while writing a sense of community. In the state of poems on events that deeply moved his apprehension created in him by such mind. A wide variety of subjects are developments, the poet tries to make his unravelled in his poetic world. Through his readers aware of what is to come. In his own writtings we see evolving quite naturally words he was not “someone who welcomes contemporary social issues, images of origin the progress of the age of machines with and narrative moments in the puranas. He undue enthusiasm”. In both “Kuttippuram stood on the threshold of imagination to Palam” and “Nellukuthukari Paruvinte look upon the progresses of times yet to Katha” he depicts the vanishing prosperity come; to laugh with pride about them and to and beauty of the village along with feel pain at the consequences they bring humanity in its inhabitants and rising with them. Edasseri always preferred the unemployment with the onslaught of rustic life. Even when the poetic world was urbanisation. These poems written sometime moving on with new subjects of the in the 1950s emphasise a prophetic modernist renaissance, he surveyed the disposition in the poet. prosperity of the village to mould his poetry. One of the current issues of debate in the Once again the chaste village, its virtues and literary world is the adverse consequences of pleasures, its planes of heartiness and the urbanisation. Ecological transformation is a agony, anxiety, disquiet, passion, and part of this particular concern. In the world of exhortation that arise from the wounds Malayalam poetry, Kuttippuram Palam was inflicted on them are themes closest to his one ‘Edasseri poem’ that welcomed the heart. When he depicts the deeply insightful endless advance of the human being’s sceneries absorbed from a full-fledged bravery, reformation and progress while confrontation with his times and reacts with expressing concerns regarding the same. rigour against them, it is an underlining of The conflict of culture that he presented the belief that “Janani janmabhoomischa through his poems back then is not alien to swargadapi gareeyasi”. Edasseri thus us now. While accepting the changes becomes a poet who chained untameable brought about by progress on one side, we subjects, language, and the strong-willed are also forced to suffer with pain the bitter river to be at his beck and call so that he can consequences that such changes brings. breath the warmth and strength of life into The poet was able to predict the them; in this way, he is a poet of ‘power’. transformation that the events of his present Keralites have always accepted any kind of are likely to inflict upon the future. progress with open hands. It was as a result

MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 43 of globalisation that the urban came to the little state of Kerala. In “Kuttippuram Palam”, We see the poet observing with the poet describes with anxiety the apprehension the destruction of deterioration of values, the life force of the the value of the essentially rural and human relationships that is Malayalee lifestyle that has concurrent with the naive acceptance of such changes. The river crossing at been passed on from generation Kuttippuram was something familiar from to generation and the dangerous early childhood. Standing atop the growth of new lifestyles in their embankment, thinking of the wonderful place: 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 on the diminished Perar), we see the poet in both its banks to submit itself and make way agony at the loss of an era’s cultural for the sturdy pillars of the Kuttippuram heritage. The entry of the urban into the rural bridge; with man’s. permissions, the river can becomes a cultural invasion here. Even when only ease its way through the mighty pillars. he says “Unmayilpputhulokathinu At the same time, he openly expresses the theerthorummarappadiyamippalam” (“The nagging that he feels in simple yet harsh bridge built in virtue as the threshold for a diction. new world”) equating the bridge with the “Kuttippuram Palam”, written in 1954, was a virtue of the future, he comments on how the poem that took birth much before vast green and yellow paddy fields swaying environmental issues started affecting the with ripe stalks, the fruit laden orchards, the ecological equilibrium of our surroundings hillsides blooming with many coloured and concerns regarding such issues began flowers, the festivals of the sacred groves to affect the human thought process. with the devotional lamps lighted at the Edasseri describes the way in which this Altharas built around sacred fig trees, and mechanised culture would completely alter the folk songs of the farmers all becoming the life in Kerala. Human beings are always distant memories when he says eager to internalise anything new. This is an “akalukayaniva mellemelle/ anayukayallo undeniable fact. chilathuvere” (“All these, moving away slowly/ And some others approching fast”). In “Kuttippuram Palam” the poet describes In these “some others” we find the poet’s how it was everyone’s wish that a bridge anxiety regarding the changes that adversely would come across the river to make affect nature. These anxieties have now transportation easy. A bridge was built become true when the “trayar” (tyre) and the spending Rs.23 lacs. The poet is proud of petrol race through the streets raising dust this fact. At the same time he recalls with and mayhem night and day, the stone and nostalgia how he played “poothankolu” on coal and the cast of concrete all become the the sand banks of the river, how he dunked pride of modernity: these “some others” are and played in the river as a child, how the now the reality of modern life. The backlash kingfisher, the sparrows and cranes all flew of mechanised progress on the human high over it and how the flowers of relationships and values that the poet aattuvanchi swayed in its breeze. prophesied in “ariyathor thammiladipidikal” When he says “Abhimanapoorvam njan eeri is something that is commonly witnessed nilpa/ nadiyile soshicha Perar nokki” ( I am today. Looking upon Perar today, reduced to standing atop here with pride/looking down a mere sand bankl we see how the poet

44 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY calling the river a gutter of filth was not a that poets are in fact prophets and only they matter of hyperbole at all. can travel beyond time to expose the follies “Madhurima thookidum gramalakshmi of the present. Akaleykakaleykakalukayam We see the poet observing with Avasana yathra parayukayam” apprehension the destruction of the value of (“The fortune-goddess of the village the essentially Malayalee lifestyle that has Is moving far, far and away been passed on from generation to Is bidding the final farewell”) generation and the dangerous growth of new The verity of this statement may have been lifestyles in their place: suspect at the time of its composition. But it “Kaliyum chiriyum karachilumay is all too true today when not just in cities Kazhiyum naranoru yanthroamayal but even in villages we hardly ever know our Amba perare, nee marippomo neighbours. The walls that come up between Aakulayamorazhukkuchalay?” houses embody the selfishness of the (“When man who lived in his joys and human mind. tears Six decades later, the invasions that Becomes a thing of mindless machine, modernity has made on human beings, Will you, Mother Perar, transform into human life and the environment is beyond A gutter of garbage, plying sorrow?”) the scope of our comprehension. Forests When Edasseri finishes the poem with this and ponds that have disappeared over time, question, “Kuttippuram Palam”, the product the polluted river, the polluting vehicles racing of the labours of a poet who thought beyond without rest and the atmosphere that they time, becomes a work of art that itself pollute every moment, the conflict among transcends time. people that these result in directly or Works Cited indirectly, are all things that we as human Aadhunika Sahithyacharithram Prasthanangalilude. C. beings are faced with today. It is imperative Benjamin (Ed.). that we observe the environmental disasters Edasseriyude Kavithakal. Nair, Edasseri Govindan. Edasseri caused by the indiscriminate advance of Publications. 1988. modernity with our eyes and ears open. If we Edasseriyude Kavyalokam. K.P. Sarathchandran. Vima do not consider them with adequate Publication. Kottayam, 1993. seriousness, the aftermath of horror that they Itha Oru Kavi. Edasseri Smaraka Samithi. Edasseri Publication. 1977. will leave for the future generations is not Harithaniroopanam Malayalathil. G. Madhusoodanan (Ed.). something we can speculate on. Thus the D.C. Books. Kottayam. themes of “Kuttippuram Palam” remind us

MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 45 N.S. Madhavan’s Vanmarangal Veezhumbol and Nilavili : a Study in Political Milieu Dr. J. Anjana

olitics remains a topic of eternal interest for writers down Pages. 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 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY a captive of her own lonely self. The wide Sister Agatha who had been world outside the convent had absolutely no listening to both, television as influence on the confiined space. well as the commentary, felt the On the cold October 31st of 1984, the news whole thing really nauseating. which rocked the entire nation, the She says, “It is for the first time assassination of Mrs. Indira Gandhi, reached in my life that history has this quaint home as reported by Father affected me physically” 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 to give a comprehensive definition to the responded differently to the tragic news. term political fiction when he states, “The Sister Angelica reminisced Mrs. Gandhi’s visit novel’s great strength as a mode of to Orissa while Sister Martha poignantly apprehension is in its grasp of character, recollected Mrs. Gandhi’s visit to Indore and the political novel at its best can show where she had worked as a teacher. She concretely and subtly what politics does to recalled how Adivasi children wrestled with character, what character makes of politics” each other to capture the flowers thrown by (42). Mrs. Gandhi from her garland. Though the N.S. Madhavan is a versatile writer who has daily routine of the convent was not ingeniously carved a niche for himself in hampered by this terrible event, it did provoke Malayalam literary scenario by presenting a sense of curiosity among the members. illuminating portrayals of individuals caught News of the spurt of violence in the city too in the whirlpool of power game. Vanmarangal reached the convent through a phone call by Veezhumbol (When Big Trees Fall) is a Father Thomas the next day. They could hear celebrated short story written against the distant gunshots and could see rising back drop of the assassination of Mrs. Indira smokes in the city; still they were secure and Gandhi and the subsequent carnage against unaffected in the guarded convent home. the Sikhs. He unravels the impact of such an They watched the funeral ceremony of Mrs. unfortunate and politically significant Gandhi on television and Sister Sicily gave a incident on the quiet and placid lives of running commentary of the whole inmates of a convent old age home in procession with minute details to those Meerut without resorting to any hyperbolic sisters who were visually impaired. Sister expressions. Though there is no active Agatha who had been listening to both, confrontation of political indicents, television as well as the commentary, felt the contemporary political events affect the whole thing really nauseating. She says, “It course of action of the story in an indirect is for the first time in my life that history has way. The story is presented in first person affected me physically” (21). narration by sister Agatha, the incharge of Till the night of November 4th this calm and the home. The temporal and spatial serene convent did not have a direct impact configuration of the story is fixed through her of the turbulence outside. As the night narration. The narrative conveys subtle approached, a mortally frightened Sikh lady sketches of the uneventful and droning life of along with her child took refuge in the inmates who had spent their entire life in the convent. She narrated the gruesome murder service of humanity. They had come there of her husband and her elder son by the from different parts of India to spend their rioters and how she had managed to escape last days peacefully. Each inmate remained from their clutches to reach there. She says,

MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 47 ‘My name is Amaljeet. They killed many The plan was executed successfully though people in our colony. This year our colony they had to encounter the rioters on the way. did not celebrate Diwali as a protest against After the departure of the mother and son the army operation in Harmindaer Sahib. everything went back to normal at least in That is why they were angry with us” (22). that convent home. It resumed its usual Besides, her husband’s business rivals tedious swing of life with the inmates wanted to finish them off in the camouflage returning to their cocooned existence. The of communal riots. The writer projects a writer winds up the story leaving the readers typical example of how culprits take with a heavy heart: The narrator says: advantage of turbulent and highly volatile Sister Mary did not get up from her political situations to wreak their personal bed. Sister Katrina rolled her wheel vengeance. chair to far distance. Sister The presence of a little child with his Margaraetta hesitated to take innocence and enthusiasm had a medicines. Sister Angelica tried to tremendous influence on the otherwise dwell on her past. Sister Davis was in monotonous life of the inmates. It her murmuring self. Sister Karuna sat rejuvenated the dreary environment of the in front of the piano without playing it. convent and sisters vied each other in Sister Martha prayed the whole day. pampering the child, Juggy. His presence Sister Wilfred returned to her bed in the temporarily obliterated their deteriorating hospital room (28). physical condition and his charisma instilled The usual tedium of existence returned with a new hope and inspiration to the inmates. renewed vigour in the convent. The direct Sister Agatha recalls: “That day Sister victims of the political events, mother and Margaretta demanded medicine. Sister son are presented as a microcosm of Katrina on her wheel chair moved in and multitudes of innocent victims in the country. around Amalijeet and Juggy. Sister Karuna The simmering heat of politics goes in a long was busy making cake for Juggy” (24). way affecting hapless persons and turning Mother and son were bound to Delhi and their life into veritable hell. when curfew got relaxed the next day, they decided to proceed to the railway station Nilavili, written in 2002, is a fictionalized along with Sister Sisily. On their way they encapsulation of a real life incident in were again chased by the rioters and were Ahmadabad. It was translated into English brought back to the convent. Sister Agatha as The Cry by Catherine Thankamma. (All ingeniously devised a plan to take them to quotes are taken from its electronic versions). the railway station. She suggests: The story portrays how politics penetrates Amalijeet will disjuise as a nun. Juggy into the lives of ordinary individuals and shall lie inside a coffin in an make them innocent victims thereby ambulance. Some of us should be breaking their life into smithereens. Godhra inside there and praying. The incident of 2002 which triggered a spate of ambulance shall enter the cemetery violence, killing thousands of innocent through the east gate and could be people, both Hindu and Muslim forms the driven out through its west gate backdrop of the story. The protagonist, without any one’s notice and from Qutubuddin Ansari is a real life character, a there to the church near the Railways tailor from Ahmadabad who later became station. It will be very easy to go to the the face of Godhra tragedy. The story reads station from there (26). as an autobiographical sketch of the protagonist, “I.... Qutubuddin Ansari, 29,

48 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY tailor. I live with my mother, wife and daughter in Ahmedabad’s Bapu Nagar Political imagination of a writer colony”. is a reflection of his interest for He narrates his unassuming and the society, its problems and a unpretentious yet happy and satiated life deeply felt concern for the entire with his family. The story transcends the humanity. 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 Mother exclaimed, irritated: “What’s got much hyped television serial Kyonki Saas Bhi into you? I know the times are not Kabhi Bahu Thi. He actively participated in good, but why these crazy the kite running competition in his locality preparations? Amdavadis and and even tried some hideous means to Gujaratis are kind people, vegetarians, defeat his contenders. His circle of friends Bapu’s people, Jains who walk with included people from almost all bowed heads; they wouldn’t hurt an communities. Religious sensibilities never ant. barred their relationships. He is a true One February night the entire world of representative of an ordinary, hard working, Qutubuddin Ansari turned topsy turvy, contented Indian citizen. Soon everything everything that has been on the right track changed and changed forever. He says: just seconds ago were rendered into rubbles. But nt so long ago I, Qutubuddin His friend, Bhai Chand reported to him the Ansari, was transformed into a news that a compartment of a train carrying symbol. Delhi has India Gate; Jaipur, pilgrim’s from Ayodhya was torched at Hawa Mahal; Calcutta, Howrah Godhra station and in retaliation Muslims Bridge; and Bombay, the Gateway of were being targeted by the Hindus. For the India. But Ahmadabad had no such first time in their life in that city Ansari family instantly recognizable symbol. A city could not sleep out of fear. On the very next without a symbol is faceless; it lacks day their worst fears came true. His house identity.... Ahmadabad never had a got besieged by a mob of rioters. He symbol unique to itself - until I filled the recollects, “Then they came for us. They gap. poured kerosene all around the house and set fire to it. The gas cylinders that had Hassan Sheikh, his neighbour, has alerted disappeared from the market now made their him of an impending danger, a premonition appearance”. He was cornered by people that something hideous is going to happen: whom he knew for years, people who wore As early as February, the pigeons dresses stitched by him, people who had alerted us to the unknown menace discussed television serials with his mother that lurked somewhere in the days to and wife. He pleaded for his life and this come. Hassan Sheikh said: “The birds pathetic moment of helplessness was just won’t fly up. Something bad is photographed by Reuter’s photographer: going to happen.” That very day I went The next day’s newspapers carried that to the market and stocked up the picture of mine taken by the Reuters house with atta, dal, potatoes and photographer - the green of my besan. Gas cylinders had already unfocused eyes heightened, the become scarce, so I couldn’t get one. brimming tears and cry stifled and

MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 49 sealed off forever in the cold pages of more than imagination, sometimes pollen the newspaper; my joined palms flying about from contemporary events begging to be rescued gave you a fertilizes minds. Political imagination of a glimpse of imminent death. I became writer is a reflection of his interest for the Ahmedabad’s symbol. society, its problems and a deeply felt Fictional aspect of the story coalesced with concern for the entire humanity. The the factual one at this point since all the brooding presence of politics and the extra news papers projected the picture of Ansari ordinary interplay of fact and fiction enthrall who became an emblem of Gujarat violence. the political sensibility of the readers. The This fusion of fact and fiction renders it an politically agile mind of Madhavan could not incredible realistic touch. Ansari was sent to but respond to the violence and atrocities in the relief camp along with his family where the contemporary world. The simple and he tried to pick up the shreds of his shattered lucid narrative style could find a direct route life. into the reader’s sensibility. The writer does not take any political stance in his work He says: neither does he criticize or justify the I had not seen my face for quite a few perpetrators. He is only concerned with the days. My reflection now showed that a devastated life of ordinary citizens who never beard had sprouted and darkened the had any kind of political affiliations. lower half of my face. Fear still lurked Works Cited in the eyes. I decided to try something I Alter, Robert. (Ed.) The American Political Novel: Motives had not done for many days, for Fiction. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1984. 38-45. something I had almost forgotten - to Howe, Irving. Politics and the Novel. 1957. New York: smile. Columbia UP, 1992. In both the stories, there is no direct Madhavan, N.S. Higvitta, Vanmarangal Veezhumbol. Kottayam: DC Books, 16-28. 1993. encounter with the harrowing political (Quotes are translated into English by the author of the incidents but the personal fates of the article) characters are intrinsically linked with the flux ..... Nilavili. Kottayam: D.C books, 2007. of contemporary politics. there is a http://www/littlemag.com/bloosport/nsmadhavanhtml harmonious amalgamation of the political (All quotes are taken from the English translation as The and the personal in these stories. N.S. Cry by Catherine Thankamma.) Madhavan himself has once clarified that

50 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 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]

yloppillil Sreedhara Menon [1911-1985] became well- V known 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.

MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 51 “Ivanekkoody Sweekarikkuka” [earth, receive that constitute biosphere or biotic this honoured guest too] writes “Dear uncle, environment. If there is only one speaking forgive us, ‘the epoch of sweet mango fruits subject in a text and if that is humankind, is over!”]. that text is anthropocentric. If a text Since the Silent Valley Movement [1978-1983] accommodates multiple points of view, the in Kerala and the advent and advance of views of non-human beings also, it is environmental awareness all over the globe biocentric. It is dia-logical presenting, more following the publication of Rachel Carson’s than one kind of logic. The Malayalam poet Silent Spring [1964], major writers and Vyloppillil Sreedhara Menon in his “Sahyante writings have been interpreted ecologically. Makan” [Sahya’s Offspring, 1944] How and how far any literary or cultural text foregrounds a biocentric view or elephant contains or communicates environmental logic. values and visions are the premier concerns Superficially, the poem narrates the story of of ecocriticism. Ecocriticism or green studies an elephant that turns mad during a temple investigate and evaluate to what extent a festival in Kerala and in fury it attacks particular work or envoronmental movement everything on its running path, including contribute into the representation of Nature, temple towers, decorations and participants. and how far humanity is seen as a strand in The police come and kill the tusker. A typical the wide web of biosphere, accommodate Kerala temple festival and the tusker, which values and visions of biocentrism and mounts the idol of deity and accessories, ecological equilibrium. Richard Kerridge’s suffering long and tiresome sessions of Definition [1998] states that the ecocritic standing and idol-bearing, are described. wants to track environmental ideas and The very sight of long oil lamps and their representations wherever they appear, to see spread of scorching heat are unbearable to more clearly a debate which seems to be the huge dark animal, which is ethologically taking place, often part concealed, in a great designed to thrive or walk through miles and many cultural spaces. Most of all, miles of rainy, tropical evergreen thick ecocriticism seeks to evaluate texts and forests. The tusker, in the poem, under ideas in terms of their coherence and hallucination takes the pillars and palm and usefulness as responses to environmental other kinds of festooning to be his bio- crisis. Ecocriticism is unique amongst partner and bowers for courting. No one contemporary literary and cultural theories among the humens ‘environing’ or encircling because of its close relationship with the the tusker seems to have felt/expressed science of ecology. Ecocritics may not be sympathy to the son of Mother Nature, qualified to contribute to debates about Sahyadri [Mount Sahya]. Kuttikrishna Marar problems in ecology, but they nevertheless in his introduction to Kannikkoythu indicates transgress disciplinary boundaries and that the poet has attempted and succeeded develop their own ‘ecological literacy’ as far in redirecting readers’ sympathy at least as possible [5]. Ecocritics extend the partially towards the tragic tusker. applicability of a range of ecocentric When the tusker falls down trembling, concepts, using them for things other than god in the golden sanctorum may be the natural world-concepts such as growth enjoying a nap, unmindful of the and energy, balance and imbalance, elephant’s heart-rending cry. Readers symbiosis and mutuality, sustainable or are unlikely to appreciate such a god. unsustainable uses of energy and resources On the contrary, readers empathize (Peter Barry, Beginning Theory: 264). with the Mother Sahya, who weeps Ecocritics also desilence non-human strands over the tragic demise of her son, and

52 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY also to the father, if it has that. god in man’s temple has listened to the And thus the poet attempts and elephant’s last cry. The poet is sure that the succeeds in redirecting at least a part cry might have shaken him had god the of the readers’ sympathy to the virtue of compassion in him. Anyway, it sufferer-elephant, who generally are echoes in its Mother Sahya’s heart. anxious only about the human in and Reference around the animal. Vyloppillil Sreedhara Menon. Kannikkoythu [maiden Even at the time, when environmentalism harvest, 1947]. Thrissur: Current Books, 1991. Quotes from Kuttikrishna Marar are also taken from this. and biocentric dialogic were unheard of, the Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary insightful and farsighted critic Kuttikrishna and Critical Theory. Second edition. Manchester: Marar has pointed out this ingrafted Manchester U P, 2002. ecological text. In the concluding four lines Garrard, Greg. Ecocriticism. London: Routledge, 2007: the poet expresses his doubt whether the Richard Kerridge’s definition is from page 4.

MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 53 Book culture in the Present Scenario Dr. Shornur Karthikeyan

erala, known as God’s own country has a strain of K 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 alphabet- starting 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 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY Bhattas and the students were known as Chattas. All the temples kept away a sizable The purpose of literature is to sum for the welfare of teachers and sublimate the human mind and it students. The students were graduated and is for this purpose that the honoured every year before the king. This ceremony was known as the Revathi ancients considered book as Pattathanam. Goddess Saraswathy. 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 Thalasseri in 1851. Dr. Gundert published his and shaped into equal size. The pen, made book on Malayalam grammar in 1851. In of iron with a sharp edge was known as 1867 the Government of Travancore naraya. Our ancestors were experts in writing appointed a Text Book Committee to publish on palm leaves. The written leaves were standard text books for the students. The secured between two pieces of wood and first newspaper in Malayalam dates back to tied with a string. These ancient granthas 1847. ‘Gynana Nikshepam’ and had a place of honour in every house and ‘Rajyasamacharam’ were published under temple in Kerala. Now they have been the leadership of Dr. Gundert from collected in museums and Universities and Thalasseri. The first book on medicinal preserved with care. All the ancient plants, ‘Hortus-Malabaricus’ was published knowledge of Kerala like Ayurveda, in 1678 under the leadership of the dutch Jyothisha, Vasthu, Manthravada and literary Governor Van-Reed. A special printing unit texts are stored in these palm leaves of located in Rome published a book on ancident times. A mixture of Charcole and Christianity called ‘Samksepa Vedartham’. Thulasi juice is used to read the letters in Later a printing unit was established in them. Bombay where the whole of Bible was The book culture had a rejuvenation under printed in Malayalam. Another name to Thunchath Ezhuthachan at the onset of the remember is that of Benjamin Bailey who 16th century. Adhyathma Ramayana gained took the initative to create a printing unit for popularity among the literate and illiterate all the publication of new books in Malayalam. over Kerala. Every home yearned to have a The ‘Grantha Sala Prasthanam’ has spread copy of Ramayana to be read with respect in book culture in every nook and corner of the evenings. The musical nature of the text Kerala. The Government issues grant and encouraged reading and singing in unison. support to urban and rural libraries. Every Under the leadership of the eldest literate year new books are added to the stocks. person, the members of the family and even Every school is expected to have a library the neighbours would join in repeating the and books are issued to the students. The lines of Ramayana. This practice is now colleges and Universities have exclusive followed in the temples. Karkidakam, the library facilities. There are awards for the best last month of malayalee year dedicated to reader and for the best library. the reading of Ramayana, is known as New publishing houses are coming up along Ramayana Maasam. with the old ones. Book publishing has We owe the spreading of book culture to the become a booming business. Several pre- missionaries also who came from far away publication benefits, prizes and rebates are lands to spread Christianity. The Basal offered to the buyers. The literate of Kerala Mission published the first book from always boast of their home library filled with

MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 55 books both in English and Malayalam. When the initiative of A.K. Gopalan (AKG) is owned Book fares are conducted you can see and run by the employees themselves. enthusiastic buyers in every stall. There are Similarly there is a publication house in young people eager to collect rare books. Kerala owned and run by the writers. Its The second hand book shops are also doing name is SPCS or Sahithya Pravarthaka good business. In Kerala book-worms are Sahakarana Sangham at Kottayam started not regarded as ‘Worms’ any more. by the famous short story writer Karur With computer literacy came the e-book Nilakanta Pillai. Million of books have been culture. Computer skills are taught in published by this institution that pays schools from first standard onwards. ‘handsome’ royalties to the writters. Besides there are internet cafes and hubs in The Grantasala Movement initiated by P.N. every nook and corner. Most of the libraries Panikker has also flourished in Kerala. Now are computerized. The availability of there are more than five thousand libraries in Malayalam books is limited on the net but Kerala covering almost all the villages of the new books in English are available and Kerala. downloaded. Appreciations and criticisms of The leftist movement in Kerala has also books always appear on the blogs. This type encouraged the habit of reading under the of advertisement encourages the sale of influence of E.M.S. Nambudiripad and V.T. books. Kerala has always opened its Bhattathiripad. Kerala, the most literate state windows to receive the air of new trends in India can be proud that every home has a everywhere. New books on technology, library along with a pooja room. The reading health care, education and arts are always habit is wide spread there. popular with the Keralites. I shall close the article with reference to the The future of books culture lies with the chinese practice of sending poisoned younger generation. The high cost of new pornographic books to the enemy king to kill books has presented a problem before them. him. The poison was supposed to act They have turned to the internet and the through the fingers of the king who turned libraries to quench their thirst for knowledge. the pages by wetting it on the tongue. the In the rural library, you can see the future story, I hope, is a false story but at present citizen immersed in reading the newest book the reality is that the poison in many works available. A wonderland of ideas and images is acting through the mind because the is opening up before him. Through him a contents of the pages are the worst poison. promise is given to us. The book culture will The purpose of literature is to sublimate the survive the challenges of the day and flourish human mind and it is for this purpose that in future. the ancients considered book as Goddess Kerala is perhaps unique in is co-operative Saraswathy. culture. The Indian Coffee House started at

56 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY The Representation of an Ecotone in “When the Lost Soil Beckoned: Life Sketch Narrated by C.K.Janu” RAJ SREE M. S.

lacing the narrative of C. K. Janu in the larger frame work Pof 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

MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 57 from Malayalam to English by Usha Menon. She gives a brief account of how government The rambling narrative unravels the thoughts officials tried to teach them for the sake of of Janu as well as her people. She talks for money. She then continues to narrate how the whole community who are deprived of they lost their land and eco friendly lifestyle. the forest, their homeland. She ends her narrative with an account of her relation to party and how she and her There is much theorizing about the displaced people felt betrayed. and the dislocated Indians who are happily or willingly settled in foreign land. But what Ecological perspective played an important about the natives of this land who are role in carving the worldview of natives. It is forcefully uprooted from their natural habitat? evident in their routine of worshipping the The glamour coated neo diaspora who nature, trees and stones. European crossed borders for better pastures occupies conventions read nature as a God given the critical arena. Even the discourses on space which is separate from man. Man victim diaspora marginalize the plight of the perceived land or nature as an object to tribal people. Doubly marginalized, their impose his will upon it and man is divinely voice is stifled by the dominant ideology sanctioned as evident in Genesis 1: 28: which supports the institutionalization of Then God blessed them, and God said exploitation of these people. C. K. Janu, to them, “Be fruitful, however, gives voice to the many who are fill the Earth and subdue it: have unable to speak for themselves. It is more dominion over the fish of than a life sketch of Janu, but that of an entire community which suffers as a result of the sea, over the birds of the air, and human encroachment to their habitat. over every living thing She starts her narrative by referring to their that moves on the Earth”. farming and about the low wages they got On the contrary the life and lifestyle of the for their hard work. She describes her tribal people is a critique of childhood days spend in communion with Anthropocentrism which places humanity at nature. the centre of everything and other forms of We used to eat wild berries from the life as resources to be consumed by human forest. Searched for honeycomb in the beings. Their existence is ecocentric to the big trees. Gathered twigs. Amidst core. “When the Lost Soil Beckoned: Life bamboo groves we tried to see if we Sketch Narrated by C.K.Janu” very well could make out the elephant’s testify their being an ecocentric community. footsteps. Sat idly by the waterfall. Though simple and lucid in content and Digging under rocks we searched to style, her life sketch is a living testimony of see if there was water underneath… an ecotone on the verge of destruction. Once in the forest, we don’t feel “When the Lost Soil Beckoned: Life Sketch hunger. We pull out tubers and eat Narrated by C.K.Janu” foregrounds the them. (Janu 128) 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 No one knows the forest like our in Australia, First Nations in Canada, Red people. The forest is like a mother Indians in America, the tribals in India, etc to us with the native land is a predominant element in their writing and world view. To

58 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY these natives across the globe, land is a political and a survival issue. This is very C. K. Janu proposes a going much evident in the sketch. An ecocritical back to the old traditions which perspective on “When the Lost Soil involves a spiritual and moral Beckoned: Life Sketch Narrated by awakening in relation with forest C.K.Janu” reveals the biocentic nature of the and a complete transformation natives as ecocriticism is “not just a means of analyzing nature in literature; it implies a regarding the habits of move toward a more biocentric world view, consumption. an extension of ethics, a broadening of human conception of global community to include nonhuman life forms and the physical environment” (Branch). exiled and their land defiled. To quote Said “exile is the unhealable rift forced between a The plea which runs throughout “When the human being and a native place, between Lost Soil Beckoned: Life Sketch Narrated by the self and its true home” (439) and this C.K.Janu” echoes the concept of ‘deep turns out to be traumatic. They are not just ecology’ as a solution for protecting nature deprived of the forest but of their tradition from destruction. Advocating a biocentric and the vital flow of life. “The lifestyle of our view, deep ecologists reject technological people, rituals and existence itself are closely and managerial solutions which constitute connected to the land. If that is severed, they human dominance. Similarly, she exhorts us have a lot of problems” (Janu 139).Even their to recognize the non human world as having tradition and customs could not thrive in the value irrespective of its usefulness to new environment. mankind who has no right to destroy it except to meet vital needs. She points out All this came from our land, forest and this fact as the reason for the plea for land. nature and our relationship to them. It Only in relation to land, they have existence. can only exist in that environment…Our songs and rituals In our area the maine sand stones are originated and can be preserved only kept for worship…In remembrance of in our life pattern. In other lifestyles our our grandparents and great grand traditions cannot survive. It is all parents a few stones have been placed connected to our farming, to nature, to there. Once a year we worship them. the earth. (Janu 139) Then according to tradition certain rituals are performed. (Janu 133) She justifies her plea in ecological terms. “All this was not merely to encroach on land. It To the tribals or the adhivasis, land is their was an encroachment of life itself — to live godmother, companion and guide. ‘Nature and to die on the land where one was born was there wide open before us for children to and bred” (Janu 142). To keep hunger away observe and learn’. From the forest they draw they need land. It is in such circumstances strength and courage for the present and that the cry for landarises. promise and hope for the future. “No one knows the forest like our people. The forest is Moreover, it became an issue of survival. Cut like a mother to us. Because the forest does off from the forest, they had to find new not go anywhere; it is more than a mother to means of living which were alien to them. us” (Janu 129). Hunger necessitated new lifestyles. “That is how we started to eat what we got from the When they are cut off from their roots- forest, shops. Had to go to the ration shops, had to they are left adrift and rudderless. They feel own a ration card. Even ginger and chilly

MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 59 had to be bought. Cash was very much Works Cited needed” (Janu 135). Earlier forest catered to Branch, Michael P., Scott Slovic, and Daniel all their needs but now it is not possible. Patterson. Ed. Reading the Earth: “Deep ecology proposes drastic changes in New Directions in the Study of Literature and Environment. 1998. our habits of consumption, not only to avert Kerridge, Richard. “Environmentalism and catastrophe but as spiritual and moral Ecocriticism”. Literary Theory and awakening” (Kerridge 536). C. K. Janu Criticism. Ed. Patricia Waugh. Oxford, OUP, 2006. proposes a going back to the old traditions 530-43. which involves a spiritual and moral Menon, Usha. Trans. “When the Lost Soil Beckoned: awakening in relation with forest and a Life Sketch Narrated by complete transformation regarding the habits C.K.Janu”. Samyukta: A Journal of Women’s Studies. of consumption. Thus not only forest is Vol. 2, No 2, preserved but also their life is protected from July2002. 127-143 impending calamities. “When the Lost Soil Said, Edward W. “The Mind of Winter”. The Post- Beckoned: Life Sketch Narrated by Colonial Studies Reader. C.K.Janu” conveys the message of inter Ed. Bill Ashcroft et al. London: Routledge, 1995. dependence and inter relatedness of human 439-42. being and forest.

60 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY Book Review

Bharathiya Kala Charitram A Monumental Study (History of Indian Art) by Vijayakumar Menon on Indian Art Aswathy Rajan

I don’t know what art is, but I know what it isn’t. Brian Sewell he word art comes from the Latin ‘ars’, meaning skill. This T 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

MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 61 familiar with the location and use of sources. of time to look at. Growth, stunting, As an artist he/she should have literary sprouting, blossoming etc. all had happened talents and the ability to perceive broad and here also. Palaces and wanderer’s camp had complex relationships. The subject of equally become the cradle of art. Changes historical research, whether it is an event, occurred due to foreign influence. Along with personality or institution, must have some the great artists, the unknown persons or the relevance to the life of society as a whole. anonyms also happened to be the source of Art history is a changing and contested immortal creations. In the course of time the discipline, subject to longstanding debates cultural signs gained deviation in meaning. over arguments and methods, values and The traditional Indian art could be drawn like basic principles for many decades now. a very big tree with branches spreading on These debates inform all of the components all sides of the society. of the contemporary language of art history. Awakening of patriotism, impulsive Beyond that situation internal to the perplexity, new tendency of technology etc. discipline, however, a new, related field of are the various stages of the evolution of our inquiry visual culture has developed over the traditional art. In this book where the past decade or two. evolution, relevance, vision and the change “Art for art’s sake is an empty phrase. Art for of aesthetics of each novel movement are the sake of truth, Art for the sake of the good historically analyzed. The revival of rural arts, and the beautiful that is the faith, I am regional construction of identity, bewildering searching for”, thus spoke George Sand possibilities of the global age etc. are (1804-76) in his letter to Alaxandre Saint critically evaluated. The study mainly Jean. Vijayakumar Menon, the author of this depends on principles of art criticism and is book, seems to support him. exhaustive, concise and abbreviated, without It is Samuel Butler who opined that; ‘history omitting the details. In the history of regional of art is the history of revivals’. Vijayakumar languages in India, it is the first time in Menon in his History of art tries to analyze Malayalam that a history of Indian art is that history and thereby to revitalize the getting published. This of course increases discipline of art and culture. the degree of fineness of the learned knowledge society of Kerala. This also Of course, recording the history of art, affirms that the position of Kerala in such sculpture and architecture is a big challenge matters is a bit forward in comparison to the that evolves a severe task. For that one has other states in India. to keenly observe and study the deviation in style, the encounters with regard the ideals As the author admits, this is not an and consensus in view happened through independent work. The content of this work centuries. Only those who know the is prepared after studying a number of aesthetic laws or aestheticism and those authentic works. Now a days, a lot of who have authentic knowledge and wisdom researches go on in many unknown areas of with regard the facts can only realize this Indian art. There is indeed in our language, endeavour. This book is the realization of lack of studies using stylistics on an such a great effort. Such a full document of important subject like this. This is a fact that the history of Indian art, from the primitive deserves serious attention of the society. age to the contemporary period, is first of its The stress given in this work is to the nature kind in Malayalam. No other Indian of time or foregone years and not for the languages possess such a typical study. personal contribution of the artists or not Indian art is a big canvas that demands a lot even for their name.

62 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY The book is divided into two sections - a Author analyzes the history of Indian art section that includes cave age and tradition, which starts from the primitive sculpture/architecture and another section period and extends to the Post-Modern which handles the tradition of the art of period of the 21st century, of course a very painting. According to the stylistics of the lengthy and broad canvas. He has tried to study of visual arts, pictures of each and study the tradition of painting, sculpture and every reference should be presented along architecture of India along with its diversity with the argument the author has tried his with regard region, period and style. For this best to insert all the available pictures in this he has included a methodology that book. Casually he also goes through incorporates history, culture, literature, literature, philosophy etc. Here art history music, anthropology, geography, associated with subjects like aestheticism, environment, philosophy etc. He is very culture, politics, economics, history etc much particular that the topic of historical becomes a human subject. The evolution or study must have a relevance to the life of the change of style becoming history of art is a society as a whole. In the first chapter. ’The part of human culture. art beyond history’, he begins with the Altogether there are twenty five chapters. primitive man, the cave man and studies the Under the section vasthu/ roopa silpa stone age, rock caves, cave arts, rock arts paramparyam (Tradition of architecture and etc. in India and Kerala. He examines deeply sculpture), there are nine chapters, that deal the stages of evolution of the human race with themes such as the Art beyond history, and identifies the periods of Neanderthal the Sindhu art, Buddha art, Sculpture and man, Cro-magnon and Home-sapiens etc. Architecture, tradition of south Deccan, He goes through the methodology developed Sculptural and Architectural tradition of by Prof. H.D San Kalia for the study of rock/ south India, Background of central and cave arts of ancient period. The methodology western India., Creations of ancient India used here is; and Spreading of Buddha art. 1) Analysis of the specimen of class of Through these chapters the author closely styles. examines the innumerable ways in which art 2) The study of the periodical changes in has evolved over the centuries in different colours on the surface of the painting. cultural contexts and historical conditions. 3) Super-imposition- The tendency to draw a He tries to trace various ways in which picture on another picture. different art forms had engaged with ideas of the spiritual as well as the mundane over a 4) Comparative study of the style seen in large period of art history. cave/rock arts with the style seen in the vessels made during the same period. In the second part of the book, there are sixteen chapters- Ajanta and other places, He keenly examines the history of primitive Tradition of mural painting, Manuscript art in Kerala in the same period. Among the pictures, Mughal art, Miniature painting rock arts, Edakkal cave of Wayanad, tradition of Rajasthan, Pahari pictures, Marayur of Idukki etc. have much Colonial atmosphere, Ravi Varma, Indian importance. Edakkal cave is the only place thought and feeling of nativity, Outlook of where petro glyphs are seen. Collins revival, Modernity and Evolution of sculptural Mackenzie is the first person who visited the art, Art and Progressive thought, Madras place - in 1890. With the publication of the school, The spread of modernity, Tradition of ‘Indian Antiquity’ by Fawcett, in 1901, folk art and Modernism/Post-Modernism in Edakkal caves gained the attention of India. researchers and historians. Some signs of

MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 63 Sindhu art also have been seen in the notable that the author does not attempt to pictures discovered from there recently. In the examine singly, the changes occurred in the studies by F. Fawcett on Edakkal cave, he field of art. He could bring together the world has attempted to compare the dance figures of thought and functions of Calcutta group seen there with that of the ritual arts of North of Bengal, Progressive artist’s group of Malabar. Bombay, IPTA, the association of drama and In the chapter’ Colonial atmosphere’, the artists. He could also effectively use the author thoroughly examines the change that factors of universality visible even in film occurred in Indian art. The functions of the songs. theosophical society, Brahma Samajam, The splendor of the ethnic, tribal, folk art Arya Samajam etc., together with the ideas forms of each and every region and country and writings of Balagangadhara Thilak, Lala display mutuality with the tradition of Music, Lajpath Roy, Annie Besant, Ma Blavatsky, Dance, Painting, Sculpture etc. of that Swami Vivekanandan, Sr. Nivedita, Arabindo, particular region and country. Folk arts are Ananda Coomaraswamy, R.G Bhandarkar, those that express myths, traditional Gokhale, Karve etc. had greatly influenced practices, beliefs, identical signs etc. Today the Indian art and culture. The art of India the thought that this discipline of art is has no existence without a mention of Raja essentially part of Indian culture has received Ravi Varma. He is the person who created much relevance. The author discusses about and spread a modern art culture in India. In that relevance in detail in the chapter, ‘The the chapter written on him, the author tradition of folk art’. examines the strength and weakness of that Realizing the role of academic studies in veteran artist. Phalke had admitted that for promoting the field of art towards modernity, the creation of the film Satya Harischandra, the M.S University, Baroda has been he had studied the paintings of Ravi Varma. established in 1950. This university brought a The author points out that Romanticism, new chapter in the field of Indian art. The expression, emotions, gestures and such author discusses modernism and its things seen in Ravi Varma’s paintings have extensions and post modernism that remained for a long time like a formula in the originated in India as a result of the later films. Those who have abused him functioning of M.S University. He discusses conferring on him the labels of feudalist, separately the Indian modernity and post bourgeois etc. on the basis of his paintings modernity. on epics and mythology have not gone through his famous paintings like the To analyze such a serious subject like art, the Vegetable Selling Woman, Rural Liquor author has used a simple language. The Shop, Gypsies, Harvest reaper etc.- accuses transparency of the idea presented in each the author. In chapters like Indian thought and every chapter demands special and feeling of nativity, the author properly attention. To make the communication records the controversies and disputes easier, he has given the English version for centered on Bengal and their importance in each and every technical term in Malayalam. the history of Indian art. Vijayakumar Menon This book is designed specifically for the use objectively records the history of Indian art of students and scholars of art history and taking progressive sides during freedom visual culture. It is intended source of struggle and highlights the progressive ideas reference for those involved in teaching and of Rabindranath Tagore and B.K Sirkar, who learning and as an aid for those carrying out opposed the reveling attempts of decay. In research activities. the chapter Art and progressive thought, it is It is no mean task to unearth facts about art

64 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY and art history. This well-argued, to every student of Indian art. Indeed this is a methodically organized and eminently monumental task. readable book is a pioneering work in the References; field of Indian art in Malayalam and it fulfills 1) Word Master, Orient Black Swan, 2012. a long felt need. Moderately priced and 2) Cuddon, J.A, Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary sleekly produced, the book has hardly any Theory, Penguin books, 1999. 3) Ratchiffe, Susan, Oxford Quotations and Proverbs, printing errors. It strongly recommends itself Oxford University Press, 2008.

MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 65 Book Review

O.V. Vijayan: Reclaiming Daiva Sandramaya Kattu by K.P.Ramesh A Prophetic Path Sasikumar Manissery

great writer can mark the era in which he is living by his A 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 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY cultural ambience. The author has also The historical sense that O.V. Vijayan revealed many of his peculiar personal traits introduced was unfamiliar to Malayalam which he had acquired in his childhood and literature till then. He brings back great influenced his writings. He was an introvert historical personalities for intellectual and by nature.He was very much afraid of farcical discussions in his works.He spiders which he used as a symbol of reinvented historical characters to use as unreasonable fear always lurking around the allegorical symbols. The Dharmapuranam, man. one such novel, created a great uproar in the literary and political circles as it clearly O.V. Vijayan believed in roots. His novels depicted the darkest period of Indian and stories are search for the roots which history.It was a scathing attack against were entangled in the chronicles of many dictatorships and power hungry authorities, generations. A person who valued familial which has universal relevance especially in relationships could not escape from their third world countries. The novel not only memories. His grandfather appears as attacked the morality of reading, but also Chamiyarappan and his parents as gave a rude shock to the Malayalam literary Velappan and Pankajakshy in the sensibilities. Thalamurakl. His grandmother is depicted in the Ithihasathinte Ithihasam. K.P.Ramesh Religions have greater role in the world of points out that many of the protagonists like O.V. Vijayan who did not have any type of Narayanan in the Pravachakante vazhi, Ravi animosity towards any religion and tried only in the Khasakinte Ithihasam, Chandran in the to inculcate the truths of all manifestations Thalamurakal, and Kunjunni in the the of the theistic world.But many of his critics Gurusagaram shares his convictions and attempted to crucify him labelling him as a personal expriences. Hindu fundamentalist without understanding his philosophy of life. It may be due to their K.P. Ramesh expounds O.V. Vijayan’s inability to comprehend the truth behind his philosophy that man is not a solitary being greater narratives. The author doubts in a lonely island, but he is a part of whole in whether the lack of support for his positivist the universe. His stand was fully against the and secular thoughts from the writers western existentialist philosophical narratives fraternity had led him to the pitfall to a which ruled the Malayalam literary scene, for; certain extent at the fag end of his life. The he believed that there was not much to learn family background of O.V. Vijayan was a from the west. O.V. Vijayan did not see any synthesis of Indian pluralistic ethos which he difference between animate and inanimate followed in his life also. Many fingers have worlds. The burden of knowledge and been pointed at him ignoring the trials and innocence of the idiot are two frequent motifs tribulations he went through in his life on in his works which mirrors his belief in account of the alleged benefactors. The bygone golden age of cultural primitivism. In author reminds us that during the period of the later period of his literary career, he their rule, he had to move out of Delhi as he turned to the concept of Guru, to whom he raised his voice against Hindu right wing dedicated Gurusagaram. The author admits through his media, while the Babri Masjid that even though it is too difficult to find out issue was burning in Indian body politic. whether he was a materialist or spiritualist, it is certain that Vijayan sought a middle path K.P. Ramesh thinks that the origin of eco- in his fictional world and in his life. The spirituality in Malayalam literature can be inability of a section of critics to understand traced to the works of O.V. Vijayan. The it made him a victim of unfair criticisms than oneness of human, plant and animal life, the that of any other writer in Malayalam. need of co-existence of all elements of

MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 67 animate and inanimate worlds, and extent, but the fact remains unnoticed by communication of the material and spiritual such critics is that the change that his planes are some of the major themes in his women characters underwent in the later works. Water has given a prominent role in phase of his career in tandem with his his works as an elemental force behind the changed concept of woman. The readings of creation and destruction.In short, the women characters of the Khasakinte O.V.Vijayan’s spirituality was embedded to Ithihasam by some critics and members of his vision of co-existence of man and nature. religious orthodoxy have also led to much O.V. Vijayan was versatile creative genius.His unwarranted criticism against creative talents were not confined to the field O.V.Vijayan.They have failed to discern the of fiction. He was a cartoonist and a fact that in his fictional world, the difference journalist par excellence. He contributed between the sexes is of trivial in value, and regularly to The Hindustan Time, The Hindu, he presents the characters and situations in The Asia Week, and The Far Eastern their totality of complex and enigmatic Economic Review.His ideological and human relationships.Many critics fell to the philosophical doctrines were beyond trap of fallacy of quotations by being national boundaries. His cartoons taught selective in reading and criticism. new lessons for the people who thought that The last chapter presents a bird’s eye view of the aim of cartoons was only to present a O.V. Vijayan’s works in varied genres. A list of comical caricature of the reality. K.P. Ramesh translations, criticisms, documentaries and thinks that the majority of O.V. Vijayan’s films about the author and his works are readers in Kerala are not much familiar with also given which will be useful for serious his world of cartoons and journalism, which readers and the students of literature. The were his profession for major part of his details about criticisms in English and other life.His cartoons were of a class by languages should also have been added to themselves in arousing intellectual laughter get a more comprehensive view of the with its refined sarcasm and black criticsim about his works. humour.The fearless social critic and political O.V. Vijayan: Daiva Sandramaya Kattu is, no analyzer in him were revealed through his doubt, a significant endeavour to draw a true non-fction works. picture of O.V. Vijayan, the man and the O.V. Vijayan has been criticised for the role of writer, from his writings. Even though it is a women characters in his novels and short short biography, K.P.Ramesh could deal his stories. The main vilification was that he did subject with justice. It can be expected that not give noteworthy roles to women in his this work may inspire to have a more works.K.P. Ramesh admits in the earlier detailed biography of the master story teller phase or writings it was true to a certain of all times.

68 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY Book Review Feminine Spirituality: Feminine Spirituality by Rosy Thampy Essays on Soliloquies of the Feminine Soul Alwin Alexander

his book constitutes the personal ruminations of a T 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

MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 69 spirituality that takes cognizance of woman, the books of the Bible (Deuteronomy, Amos, body and sexuality is made here. Isaiah etc) are copious in this sections. The final essay of the book traces the presence The next few essays chart gleanings from of women with Jesus in his final journey to very intimate experiences of the author as a the cross and later at the site of his woman and a mother. Pregnancy becomes resurrection. Rosy Thampy sets a template an epiphanic experience for her as it takes for a feminist reading of thescriptures here her higher and beyond herself. Christmas, with a feminist interpretation of the relevant for her, becomes a mother’s festival, soaked passages. in mother’s milk! The essay ‘Jesus and Women’ overviews Jesus’ approach towards That there is no difference between man and women by elucidating three instances of his woman in the presence of the Divine cannot typical interaction with women. He comes be contested. And Rosy Thampy’s basic face to face with three sinful women: the thesis is sound, that women must discover woman caught in the act of adultery, the their rightful place in spirituality, in spite of woman at Jacob’s well and the sinful the inhibitions placed by patriarchal woman who washed his feet. On all of these authorities of organized religion. There are occasions he is very compassionate and some conceptual difficulties in her considerate towards the women. The author proposition that spirituality and sexuality are considers this as a vindication of her call for mutually inclusive. Yet, her desire to have a a greater role for and representation of space for women in spirituality cannot be women in the matters of the Catholic refuted. The work could prove to be Church. She sees a hidden conspiracy foundational for a renewed engagement with among the men to propagate male religious texts and gender discourse. The domination in the church. The next essay book, of course, will have to be susbjected to considers the diametrically opposite and further scrutiny for some of the ‘controversial’ hierarchically ordered aspects of duality in issues of feminine spirituality that it deals man’s discourse (Man/Woman, Active/ with. However, it must be added that, the Passive, Culture/Nature, Intellect/Heart, book is proof enough for the fact that novel Firmness/Vacillation). It also makes a and divergent perspectives are alive and passionate appeal for the correction of the thriving in the feminist discourses of the ‘historical mistake’ of keeping the women out academic and theological communities. of ordained ministry in the Catholic Church. Rosy Thampy’s book provides impulses for The essay ‘Woman, Nature and Spirituality’ further discussions and portends a fertile diligently inspects the facets like feminism, future for feminist studies, specifically the eco-feminism and eco-theology in the task of altering biased social structures. context of feminine spirituality. Allusions to Translated by Sebastian Thottipat

70 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 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.

MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY 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 MALAYALAM LITERARY SURVEY