“Don't change your mind just because people are offended; change your mind if you're wrong.”
Criss Jami
Dear Mr. Murugan,
Your decision to not write any more has made so many of us deeply sad. To have a pen stilled because of fractious politics and petty-mindedness is distressing. When that voice belongs to a scholar in Tamil, a teacher of great learning, an expert in his field and a prolific writer of fiction, poetry and non-fiction, we begin to question the sanity or the lack of it, in the world around us.
What was it about Madhorubagan , that offends so much? Was it the re-telling of an ancient practice? May we remind ourselves of a famous instance along the same lines in the Mahabharata ? Was it your shining light on the pressures of a childless couple that discomfited so many? Seeing their own selves in that harsh and unforgiving spotlight can have that effect. Five years after it was first published, your Sahitya Akademi Award recommended novel has people up in arms.
The timing is just right for protest. We live in a time and mind space of deep intolerance, where we choose to be offended rather than look at the world around us and the serious issues that still prevail. Your book, Mr Murugan, is the perfect flogging post, for those who have an axe to grind and not a pen to wield.
Poetry is no stranger to controversy and the diktats of society. I am reminded of Beat poet, Allen Ginsberg’s, Howl . The book in which it appeared was even tried for obscenity. Howl celebrates sex, speaks of homosexuality; Gisberg was a proud gay man long before it was a talking point. The poem is like a giant exclamation, a slap in the face of the puritanical mind-set that still prevailed. I also read about a poem by Aram Saroyan that consists of a single misspelled word. Here’s the poem: lighght .
Yes, I know. I was thinking the same thing. It wasn't the poem that was controversial but the circumstances that surrounded it that made it so. It pitted the arts against the government and at one point of time, the issue was vehemently discussed even in the Congress. The poem, like your book, Mr Murugan, became a symbol.
Closer to home, I recall how Kamala Das’s frank and unapologetic poetry still raises hackles and eyebrows. And how A.K. Ramanujam’s interpretation of the Ramayana , as having different versions, earned the ire of students of politics. I can go on and talk of Hindi poet, Suryakant Tripathi ‘Nirala’, of poet Iqbal, of so many modern Indian poets and their work. I am reminded of Salman Rushdie, no stranger to controversy and persecution. He says, “It is very, very easy not to be offended by a book. You just have to shut it.” I remind myself of this when I am horrified and distressed by what passes off for best-sellers in our country.
If you stop writing, Mr. Murugan, you let them win. Those minds that cannot bear to have a mirror held up to their parochial mind-sets and small-mindedness. Who attack a man of letters because the power of what he can do, scares them senseless. You hold the power, sir. It is essential that you wield it. Your victory is our victory.
Your book, Mr Murugan, is the perfect flogging post, for those who have an axe to grind and not a pen to wield
Srividya is a poet. Read her work at www.rumwrapt.blogspot.in
