Relationship between writer and society should not be one of censorship, says Geetanjali Shree

It is perceived that writers have a responsibility to society. But doesn’t society too have a responsibility towards writers? International Booker Prize winning author Geetanjali Shree has said that the relationship between the writer and the society should be one full of love, freedom and sensitivity, and not of censorship.

Delivering the first M.R. Narayana Kurup memorial lecture at Government College, Madappally, here on Monday on ‘A writer’s responsibility’, the author of Tomb of Sand (Ret Samadhi) said writing, for a writer, was as natural as breathing. “How can I breathe when the atmosphere is so polluted? But I have to find strategies to do it even in such a condition,” she said, adding that censorship crushed the story and limited knowledge and that the curbs to freedom should come from within the writer.

Ms. Shree explained, through several anecdotes, how most people thought that writing was not a profession that had something to covet, that writing in a regional language was not necessary when the writer was educated and were often surprised to find an educated writer writing in his or her mother tongue.

She said one of the disturbing ideas that she had encountered was the public’s view regarding the “usefulness” of a writer, which she attributed to the stormy pace of life. “We need instant results, which a writer is unable to provide unlike an engineer, a scientist, or a doctor. There is no time for ramblings, meditation and musings. Offering answers is not the protocol of literature,” she said.

Ms. Shree said literature took care of society by preserving its language and culture, while it toppled things upside down in healthy humour, as part of its relationship of love with society. On the other hand, society too should take care of literature by giving it its due space. “There is nothing sacrosanct that literature cannot touch,” she said, stressing the need for writers to be left alone and to be allowed to keep their personal and political identities separate.

Academician Arun Lal was the moderator of the session, in which the writer answered several queries from students. Former MLA C.K. Nanu inaugurated the lecture series.

Later, Ms. Shree took part in another conversational session organised by Insight Publica as part of Kozhikode Life-Letters International Festival.