We Tāmilarā are not fanatical!!!!!!

We Tāmilarā are not fanatical!!!!!!

It is not surprising that Tamils are loved all over the world. In Northern India especially Tamils are loved for their genial and gregarious nature, wit, intelligence and more than anything for their law-abiding nature. But, invariably among people of other communities beyond the borders of Tamil Nadu if there is one thing people don’t like that is associated with all the Tamils, it is their love of their language.

Yes, surprisingly, over past two decades many a native speaker of other languages of India have told me and on and off written in vernacular languages – these Tamil chaps take their love and affinity to their mother tongue to the level of fanaticism.

Last year in a meeting of the doyens of Indian literature [among them were Jnanpith award winners and who’s who of Indian literary scene], many of them told me that while Tamilians are role models in preserving and promoting the mother tongue, they don’t approve of fanaticism. I am no body in front of those doyens. So, I quietly listened to them as they went on and on.

Some people even went to the extent of saying this ‘fanaticism’ of Tamils and Tamil nationalism of 20^th century are sowing disruptive seeds among other communities and showing definitively a wrong way. Unanimously they all are of the opinion that Tamil Nationalism and ‘Tamil only’ was the first of its kind and while there are some positives to be taken away in the approach, the fanatical element is the impediment to knowing other cultures and ways of living.

How accurate and correct are these perceptions? I want to give many examples but limit myself to a case where there are no ambiguities and that which is beyond dispute.

First and foremost, in the last 500 years [any period less than that loses value in the minds of modern ‘intellectuals’ – LOL!], Tamilians were not the first or alone to reject the influence and usage of Sanskrit and Hindustani languages!

Much before the advent of early 20^th century Tamil nationalism even took the seed form, there was a cyclone sweeping entire Bengal [entire = including present day Bangladesh].

Coinciding with the rise of Raja Ram Mohan Roy, loud whispers began to emerge all over Bengal as to the usage of Sanskrit and Hindi and the ensuing corruption of the original Bengali. By 1850s the whispers were turning out to be loud roars. The turn of events in the next ten years quietened down things a bit. But not for long and by this time journals (!!!!) have started and people were writing in pure Bengali.

Furious debates took the centre stage on the ‘acceptable style’ of Bengali writing and almost all the periodicals that were in vogue voiced their opinions. Two strong and warring sides, Sanskritpanthi (proponents of Sanskrit usage) and Banglapanthi (proponents of Bengali usage) were at loggerheads.

Raging debates saw plenty of acrimony and sarcasm spewed on air like never before. At one point it even threatened to split Bengal into three. Then came along Bankim Chandra!

He wrote a superb essay "Bangla Bhasha" in Bangadarshan [1285 Jaishta / May-June, 1883] and dismissed the Sanskritpanthi as Prachinponthi (backward looking), but did not completely support the Banglapanthi and he pointed out the perils of ‘only Bengali’ thought process.

He advocated the middle-path, the path aimed at enriching the still evolving Bengali language by using pure Bengali wherever possible and at the same time retaining Sanskrit words wherever necessary. The situation demanded that kind of authority and scholarliness. It is unbelievable that Bengalis, who are one of the most argumentative in the world, took his word and settled the dispute once for all. They had run-ins with English, Hindi and Urdu / Persian at various times in the 20^th century but had wonderful guide rule to settle down in the middle path.

These events are recorded facts. Given that it is remarkable that even the most well-read people from all over India hold on to such false assumptions – even Bengalis.

Without doubt, part of Tamil renaissance in 20^th century took casteist dimensions but that was part of higher anthropic principle in operation at that over Tamil Nadu. Struggles between various castes and communities will go on, but when it comes to Tamil Language nationalism, the intentions were not fanatical.

The intentions and actions are about resisting what my beloved friend on Twitter @dagalti wrote

#மதுரமல்லிமதுரமல்லிமதுரமல்லிமதுரமல்லி    

*I have selected and edited a fine English translation of Bankim’s “Bangla Bhasha” and it will appear in June or July issue of Indian Literature journal. Those who are interested can buy that and read.

To Be Natural Is the Best Form of Discipline

It has become a norm, a standard, a trend over last seven or eight decades to look down upon the alternate lifestyles, especially that of those who are prone to wander around jobless and those who lean towards spiritual practices at a very young age disregarding the established patterns of leading a life. Invariably the elders advise these ‘vagabonds’ to ‘settle down’ in life. By ‘settling’ down it is assumed and understood the life style where a person should go to work, earn money, mate with the opposite sex and beget children. Further lectures would be on the way if one were to resist this advice on any grounds. And those lectures would always be accompanied by a finishing touch – this is the norm laid down and followed by human societies for thousands of years. Curious!

Equally curious are the opposition, especially in the last decade and half, to this stand on alternate lifestyles. More often than not, modern people to rubbish the opposition to alternate lifestyles as ignorance soaked ‘traditional’ thinking or deep rooted ‘religious evil’.  Even Swami Vivekananda, who felt that Indians are leading a routine, timid lives and have become pre-dominantly vegetarian [how wrong he was / is!] society and lays the blame squarely on the heads of Jainism and Buddhism. This mentality has led to incredible shrinking of space in modern Indian literature to vagabonds and hipsters and the number of works focusing on alternate lifestyles has become very negligible.

India and many civilizations have had rich history of people who do not fit into any fixed category as a householder or student or business person or a mendicant etc. So, the opposition to such behaviour is based on religion or religious practices? I do not know what religion that people are referring to. If you take Hinduism, right from Rig Veda [where ‘vatarasanas’ among others are eulogized] to Upanishads [there is even one called as Parivrajakopanishad] to Puranas and extraordinary number of references to vagabonds / nomads in the vernacular language works. In Jainism, from Rishabha Deva [the founder] to Mahavira and through centuries we find a religion dominated by the wanderers and ascetics. In Buddhism, right from Buddha and his sangha to 20^th century works, the religion is full of wanderers and Buddhist travellers. In Christianity, from Christ to nameless wanderers and wayfarers who took the message of God in musical form to remote corners of their countries, we find a religion full of such people. So is the same with Islam.

Here, I have been careful not to mention those group of people in all the cultures who were not very religious in a conventional sense but practitioners of various spiritual practices. Reasons are obvious to be stated here again.

If religion is not the base for looking down upon the alternate lifestyles and vagabonds, then could it be the traditional, local cultural practices sans religion were behind such an outlook? I doubt so. Even in India, a much maligned country as being too religious, we have had hordes of wanderers in every nook and corner of the country for centuries. They were never maligned. Rather, at times, they were patronized and eulogized. Bauls of Bengal, Pathis of Uttar Pradesh, Meenas of Rajasthan and Haryana, Siddhas and Bhagavatas of Tamil Nadu and Andhra, Paridhis of Maharashtra and Karnataka give us ample testimony for their existence within societies. They were not born as such, but were classified later on based on their nomadic behaviours. It is British rulers who were allergic to these wanderers branded many of them as thieves, tribes, riff-raffs and so on in their attempts to ‘teach’ culture and civilized behaviour to desis.

Then what leads to such an outlook? Wandering life has got its own charm and glamour without any burdens of life that the rest of us endure. But it is highly vulnerable and dangerous. There is no security and comfort in leading such a life though it is devoid of burdens and responsibilities. The old age is very cruel for the wanderers. So, it is natural for the parents [especially those of 20^th century where the dynamics of living and economics changed beyond recognition] to have a fear that if allowed one vagabond may lure 100s of their young ones. It is this fear of loss and natural concern of the grown-ups for the welfare and safety of their young ones drove them to a rigid stand of rubbishing and banishing all wanderers as undesirable and dangerous.

The same fear lies at the root of the adults when confronted with the so-called ‘modern’ issue of homosexuality and other ‘offbeat’ behaviours. Ruth Vanita has compiled two wonderful books on the same sex love and marriage from ancient India downwards. Word is that the third in the series may also appear sometime soon. Please go, buy and read those books, especially the ones cited in them. I do not agree with many of the things contained in the books, but she has done wonderful compilations. I need not write as what is the point of repeating that which is already there in the public domain? Reading those is very essential, especially for the youngsters who are all likely to be confronted by these issues. They should deviate from their elders by equipping themselves with knowledge rather than blindly acting out of passion. After all, to be honest, this phenomenon has been there for a long time. Were those people banished from the societies in the centuries before us? No.

Another important book in relation to all this is Ghumakkar Shastra.  As I was writing a critical evaluation, last week, of famous Indian polymath, writer and critic Rahul Sankrityayan for a vernacular journal, I was appalled at seeing a number of opinions that Sankrityayan wrote all such books only as a response to various anti-vagrancy acts that were being enacted in India during the middle of 20^th century. Nothing could be farther from truth than this. One Sankrityayan was too great a scholar to be writing such serious books in response to some stupid non-enforceable laws being enacted by states. Second, his Volga se Ganga was written much before the acts came into existence. He wrote those works simply to de-mythify the very outlook I have been talking here.  In these works Sankrityayan heavily romanticizes the offbeat behaviours, vagrancy and other modes of existence within a human society. He was not advocating renunciation; he was not eulogizing proper sannyasins but Vagabonds, especially in Ghumakkar Shastra [in Tamil ஊர் சுற்றி புராணம் ; in English Treatise on Vagabondage; translations are available in almost all the Indian languages and French and German too] where he makes virtue out of vagrancy, aimless wandering and all related stuff. It is an extreme book where he goes to the length of arguing for the separation of children [both boys and girls] at a very young age and set out for roaming around.

Another book is The Wayfarers, a monumental collection by William Donkin of what he termed as masts [not those who renounced the world, not religious people, but spiritually enlightened vagabonds] in India. It contains details of such people in every nook and corner of India. It is a painful book to read and offers no tangible purpose and usefulness to the reader. Yet, it is a constant reminder that such people did and continue to occupy ‘our’ space and along with us.

I always had and continue to have a dim opinion of the philosophical works of DK (and his chelas too), but he was something that was needed at that time in India. He was a quintessential hipster. He was the guy who loved getting under the skin of as many as possible. He wore bathroom slippers while coming to International Conferences; smoked beedis in pipe holder; pouted contradictory views on almost everything but filled with carefully chosen expletives; roamed the world with the eunuchs, gays, prostitutes. But beneath all the facades he was a scholar and we all remember him for that and not his vagrant behaviour.

          So, dear modern ‘intellectuals’, please do not rubbish the fears and concerns of your elders as ‘traditional’, ‘religious’ and ‘close minded’ stupidities. The elders, please do not thrust your fears and concerns beyond a point on your young ones. For fear constricts the personalities, not only yours but also that of your young ones. Let them be natural. If they can be as they are and natural without deceiving anyone through their lives, that is the best for them and the society in which they are going to live. That is the best, disciplined life you can offer them. As Ramana Maharishi once wrote 

“To be natural is the best form of discipline.”

MT - Rock Star of Malayalam Literature

This short tribute to M.T, Vasudevan Nair was written on the occasion of Thunchan Festival this year 

========================================================================

MT

       —A Gentle Malabar Breeze

“When he smokes beedis, so do some of his readers. Even superstar Mammootty smokes beedis, it is said, because MT does so.”

Sri Vasudevan Nair (MT) is widely considered as the one largely responsible for the resurgence of short fiction in Malayalam. MT entered the Malayalam literary scene when it was dominated by the progressive writers and social realism was the ‘in-thing’. The focus was chiefly on the objective world and class and caste oppressions were the dominating themes.

MT tilted the focus to ‘subjective’. Not that he was the first to do so – before him the legendary Vaikom Muhammad Basheer, with his extraordinary ability to dive deep into self and offer hitherto unknown insights had paved the way before MT. Few more, like Pottekkat and Uroob too had tread paths different from the one central to ‘renaissance fiction.’

But, as it were, MT was a gentle breeze from the coast of Malabar, out to soothe the scars of rage and fury of the era gone by. His ‘man’ was not an abstract, philosophical ‘being’, but rather something more objective one with the feelings, thoughts, filled with the angst of quest.

MT was an existentialist, but the truth would emanate only from the relationships. Communities and societies were not lost sight of, but were rather sublimated and viewed through the individual’s place in them. MT’s stories bring out his broad and deep sympathy for the marginalized and oppressed, but he has never identified himself with any particular political ideology or movement. The protagonists of his stories are men at war with themselves.

His landscape was rural. Into that setting were cast the middle and lower middle class, their loneliness, poverty, struggles and conflicts of a country side living and seemingly losing fight against the new forces of urban world. In this canvas, MT painted romance and many more themes.

In this poetic motion of story-telling, MT, much like La. Sa. Ra. from the neighbouring Tamil Nadu, developed a highly nuanced narrative idiom that set him apart forever. More than all these, his knowledge and understanding of fiction writing and its structure gave the power to MT that very few writers of his generation had at their disposal.

But MT will be remembered for more than just the quality of his literary works. The feature films he has scripted and directed have exploded a popular myth – that good authors and books do not necessarily make good directors and films. If Nirmalyam launched Sri Vasudevan Nair in the film world in a grand way, his Oru Vadakkan Veeragatha is one of the all-time block busters of Malayalam Cinema. Almost all his movies have won critical acclaim, some have fetched him important awards at national level and some like Kadavu won awards at International film fests.

There have been great writers before Sri Vasudevan Nair and in future too there will be a number of great writers. But he was also a great human being. Among the writers he was a genial giant, the giant who not only inspired generations of writers, but also identified wonderful talents and helped them to grow. He evokes immense desire among one and all to emulate him but not jealousy. Indian literature will never be poorer if we had more people like MT.

Indeed, the literary legacy of MT is the one worth emulating.

Remembering Ravuri

This is a short tribute I wrote last year when Ravuri passed away.
========================================================================

Ravuri Bharadwaja

          – A Rare Genius

Ravuri Bharadwaja, the “Bhishma” of contemporary Telugu literature, was the man who had innumerable tales to tell, who had the knack of depicting anything in the vast cosmos. He wrote prolifically, his writings covered vast genres and yet every single page that he filled in shone with remarkable clarity and depth. Every single person that he met, every single event that he witnessed and numerous situations that he encountered in his long and fruitful life – Bharadwaja converted all of them into tales.

He was the man with a passion, a passion to tell tales. In this way he was more akin to Bijji. But comparisons end there, for Bijji was an educated man, a voracious reader and he gave more often than not voice and expression to others’ tales. On the other hand, Bharadwaja was uneducated and he was a miraculous fountain that sprung-forth numberless sagas.

This “Seventh Standard Graduate” ended his career with seventeen novels, thirty seven anthologies of short stories, six novellas, eleven books for children, three books of essays, eight full length plays and five collections of poetry that is bound to increase with countless elegies awaiting to be reborn in book form. One hundred and seventeen publications is definitely not a bad achievement at all for someone who could not go to school beyond class seven!

He was the writer whose mind, ears and heart were glued to earth. May be that is why he was different in whatever he was doing. He started his life as a journalist, but he interviewed, not the celebrities and those who made news, but the commoners and the stories he filed were full of the aspirations and wailings of a common man.

The characters of his stories [in the first half of his career at least] betray a sense of fatality that can only be approximated by the poor and hopeless. Despite being an uneducated man in the conventional sense, he had a keen eye for observing things that are ignored by the humanity in a constant flux. He felt that best of science literature was being denied to lay public, he swung into action and produced scores of books on popular science.

It is widely believed and heavily whispered in literary circles that if only had Bharadwaja been educated a bit more, he would have given even the ‘legendary’ Yandamuri a run for his money! His books meant for children too are offbeat in the conventional sense but are fountains of inspiration for the young and new.

Bharadwaja’s relentless pursuit in deciphering and finding new meanings in human relationships and his unquenchable thirst for liberation of women from the shackles of merciless patriarchy betray, however much he was unwilling to show, enduring influence of two great minds of his native land – Chalam and Jiddu Krishnamurti. If Paakudu Raallu made waves and Kadambari flowed in and opened new vistas and all the influences and traits mentioned above are shining in them, it is in Jeevana Samaram that we see the sweep, depth and imagination of Ravuri in full splendor.

He wrote wonderful poetry too. Early poems were more “progressive” in tone and nature. But the ones he wrote after the loss of his wife were in new direction and Bharadwaja was in a “Zone”. He published five collections of them in Elegiac form.

While I slip into your thoughts

Losing myself somewhere

I’m transformed as your thought!

Looking at my own image

I melt and melt

And become your sight.

Carefully following your footsteps

Falter, totter, tremble - hesitantly

I merge into your step

(Tr. Dr Bhargavi Rao, “Heartbeats of a Septuagenarian,” Andhra Pradesh Times, 1997)

At youth, when everyone around him was scurrying towards points of no return, the life and destiny kept Ravuri Bharadwaja stationary. Towards the end of his life, when the fans, literary enthusiasts, awards, money and fame were rushing towards him, he chose to remain stoic, nay, achalam. After his departure he must be resting in some comfortable place planning for a literal literary coup d’état in his next life.