Umar Nizar
The Malayalam novelist NS Madhavan claims that James Joyce was a major influence on his writings. But that leaves one wondering about the fact that Madhavan’s works bear none of the labyrinthine complexities of Joyce. His short stories have been celebrated in Kerala. Perhaps Madhavan is referring to Joyce’s `Dubliners’, a magisterial collection of short stories. There were accusations of Islamophobia raised by Prof.MT Ansari, against his short story `Higuita’ in which a Muslim man traffics a girl who is rescued by a clergyman. It can’t be coincidental that Madhavan cites `The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick’ by Peter Handke, another writer of repute who has been accused on Islamophobia for his tacit support of the Serbs in the Balkan civil war and the Bosnian genocide. Madhavan has written sarcastically about OV Vijayan, who hails from an OBC community, whose `Khasakinte Ithihasam’ (Legends of Khasak) is often claimed to be the greatest Malayalam novel ever.
Apart from his short story `Higuita’, Madhavan has levelled allegations of inauthenticity at the celebrated Malayalam author, Vaikkom Muhammad Basheer. The highlight of Basheer’s writing is that it is derived from experience. But Madhavan has alleged that Basheer has in fact not travelled to all the geographical locations in the Afghan border and so on that he depicts in his narratives. The proof that Madhavan offers for this is the fact that Basheer’s language is less detailed when it comes to the foreign terrains he claimed to have travelled to. This is a serious allegation and was raised after the demise of Basheer.
Basheer, apart from being a writer of great humanity and an immense wealth of experiential knowledge, was a spontaneous writer. He has set a benchmark for Malayalam language and literature which even today reels under the mediocrity of casteism. Basheer himself has confessed that his earlier writings were of a radical if not polemical nature and his later writing style was the result of a premeditated effort to tone down that intensity. This claim is vouched for by the fact that his play `Pattathinte Pekkinavu’ (The nightmare of Pattom) against the then Travancore Congress leader Pattom Thanu Pillai was banned in the erstwhile Travancore state of British India and copies of the play were confiscated and Basheer himself was sent to prison (This has been the context for the long story `Mathilukal’ or `The Walls’ which was made by the controversial film maker Adoor Gopalakrishnan into a movie starring Mammootty). Basheer’s spontaneity is studied, yet difficult to replicate. Jack Kerouac, the American Beat author is the one who comes to mind when thinking of this conscious deployment of the technique of spontaneity. Kerouac’s `On the Road’ is a classic of beat literature. `I think of Dean Moriarty’ is a classic closing line.
The male machismo of the mid 20th century, which without being toxic, rebelled and charmed in equal measure, was easily available to Basheer, as it was to Kerouac. Kerouac’s bravado and tales of male camaraderie and most importantly sense of freedom are part of a mid century episteme. Basheer could have merely been immersed in the spirit of his times. There is a distinct Islamicate voice in Basheer that many found enticing, before the current wave of fashionable Islamophobia kicked in. Baseless allegations that Basheer was directly inspired by the Norwegian Knut Hamsun’s `Hunger’ were fitting answered by Basheer himself. Guptan Nair and M.Krishnan Nair tried to be bete noirs of Basheer, the latter of whom later became a penitent convert. Basheer also wrote a sarcastic letter to Guptan Nair, which has acquired cult status and is part of the bestselling collection of Basheer’s works brought out by DC Books.
The fundamental dialectic at play is over the claims to an ownership of modernity. Modernism in the Malayalam literary milieu is often mistaken for modernity. The dominant Shudra caste of Kerala, the Nairs have ushered in a discourse surrounding Kerala Modernity (there in fact is an active `Kerala Modernity Collective’ which is a ragtag bunch of budding intellectuals who have brought out a risible volume titled `Kerala Modernity: Ideas, Spaces and Practices in Transition’ which purports to buttress such claims of ownership. Udaya Kumar, a JNU Professor with a D.Phil from the University of Oxford has published his thesis on Joyce, which is titled `Joycean Labyrinths’. It is curious to see that perhaps the first person from Kerala to an Oxford D.Phil in English literature had to choose Joyce for his subject matter. The obsession with Joyce also spills over into that other exemplar of macho modernism, Ernest Hemingway.
The Jnanpith Award winner MT Vasudevan Nair , who arguably is at present the `patriarch’ (from a traditionally matriarchal group) of Malayalam literature, has been an aficionado of Ernest Hemingway. Nair also was an editor of the elitist Mathrubhumi Weekly in Kerala. Nair, who was a protege of Basheer, shared an intimate connection with Basheer, though he later accused that a group of people came to interview Basheer and created a religious narrative. The reference here is to `Ormayude Arakal’ (Chambers of Memories), where Basheer comes out as a Muslim without being apologetic or playing a victim. Thus Islam and modernity are seen as being irreconcilable polar opposites and Malayalam literary sphere has created a discourse surrounding this religious social binary, by often pathologizing perhaps the greatest ever writer of Malayalam literature.
The Malayalam writer Benyamin has recently commented at the `Matrhubhumi International Festival of Letters’, that he hardly visits the Middle Eastern countries nowadays, where his major novel `Goat Days’ (Aadu Jeevitham) is set, due to the controversial topics dealt with in two of later books `Jasmine Days’ (Mullappooniramulla Pakalukal) and `Al-Arabian Novel Factory’. But Benyamin, also adds that he visits the Sharjah Book Fair in the UAE, since as a guest of the government, the chances of him being prosecuted or persecuted or both, are slim. Thus even Benyamin, who comes across as being genuinely concerned about the men and women who work in the middle east, cannot reconcile these two demonised and valorised aspects of a region and religion which he has extensively dealt with.
Thus from Basheer perhaps being inspired by the spontaneity of Jack Kerouac to Joycean Madhavan, completes an impossible trajectory of inequity where Vaikkom Muhammed Basheer cannot lay claim to modernity, whereas NS Madhavan easily can announce his Joycean sources with pride.
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Umar Nizarudeen is with the University of Calicut, India. He has a PhD in Bhakti Studies from the Centre for English Studies in JNU, New Delhi. His poems and articles have been published in Vayavya, Muse India, Culture Cafe Journal of the British Library, The Hindu, The New Indian Express, The Bombay Review, The Madras Courier, FemAsia, Sabrang India, India Gazette London, Ibex Press Year’s Best Selection, and also broadcast by the All India Radio.
