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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.