When history is invoked for censorship and divisive politics; to hate, maim and to exclude, writer Perumal Murugan invoked history to aid humility and oneness.
At the Thagadur Book festival here, the acclaimed author speaking on the topic Sarithara Therchi Kol , spoke of how sense of history refines life in general, and mere pride in one’s history without accompanying research and proof will mean nothing.
History is everywhere, and in everything. Even names have a history, or at least they used to have a history, when names were rooted in the place of their birth. The author alluded to his own name that piqued people’s curiosity on the irreconcilability of Perumal and Murugan, representing Vaishnavism and Saivism.
“In my village, both were gods, and people knew of no such divisions. Children were named Perumal or Murugan depending on the month of their birth, and girls derived similar names.”
Citing an anecdote, the writer narrated to an incident in his early 20s, while visiting the home of his professor in a village in Coimbatore. Perumal Murugan was refused water, after the family heard his name Murugan. “They assumed Murugan could only be the name of someone from the oppressed caste, and names such as Murugayyan and Murugesan belonged to the intermediate castes.” That was also one of his insights into the oppressive and graded Caste structure.
The author from Tiruchengode, who had once declared himself dead as a writer after being hounded by caste outfits for his writings, spoke of how sense and knowledge of history will reveal that we are only a dot in the historical continuum. “The history of a book would reveal that we are just a dot in a continuum, and with this awareness, the ego of the self destructs itself and hatred for the other vanishes.”
To drive home the point, Perumal Murugan spoke of U.Ve.Swaminatha Iyer’s essay Innum Ariyaen that narrated his lasting regret of not getting to meet the anonymous donor, who handed over the rare manuscripts to Swaminatha Iyer’s student to be handed over to him and that eventually came to be the book Tamil Vidu Thoodu , a literary work on Saivism.
To appreciate Tamil Vidu Thoodu, one will have to read the history of the book in ‘Innum Ariyaen’ to understand the arduous journey of a book, said Mr. Murugan.
Even a book’s cover tells a history. Once the history of a book , or its author is known, it is impossible to leave a book unread. Literature and history have a connect, yet literature takes hyperbolic liberties with history. “It is important to understand this fine line,” the author said.
