The Predicate

Last Wednesday, I interviewed Prof.Indira Parthasarathy for more than an hour, live on radio. It was a part of a programme called "It's Different", that aired on KZSU Stanford 90.1 FM in the bay area. The audio of the interview can be found at It's Different. I've posted the first part of the interview below. I will post the second part tomorrow. I will also write about the drama workshop that he conducted last week.

Prof.I.Paa needs no introduction. He is one of the finest writers in Tamil literature. He has written several novels, plays and short stories. He has received numerous awards, including the Sahitya Academy award and the Saraswathi Samman for his play, Ramanujar.

The interview was in English due to Stanford radio regulations.

I.Paa: I started off writing in fact in the early 60s. At that time, the usual magazines were catering to the middle class brahmin families. But, Ananda Vikatan, at that time started appealing to the serious readers as well, by introducing serious literature by people like Jayakanthan and others. It made me optimistic, I thought I could also write. There was a sentimental part of why I started to write, I don't want to discuss why I started writing at that time. Anyway, when I sent my story and it was accepted, and because I never expected that they were going to publish serious stuff, but (the acceptance) encouraged me to write and it was great fun.

I.Paa: Before 1947, most of the mainstream magazines were catering only to middle class brahmin families. But there was new intelligensia, new literate people coming up after independence. The majority of them were not brahmins. So the popular magazines had to cater to the new readers. They invited Jayakanthan to write. At that time, Jayakanthan was only contributing to the literary magazines in the leftist groups. So, they had to start to do these things. I saw that it was a better literary climate (than before) and I started writing. I am not saying that it continued or so, but there was a competition for Ananda Vikatan at that time. Kumudam was started just then. So they had to accomodate serious literature, some low-brow stuff.. I mean, it was a mixed bag. In the 1960s. Kumudam also invited serious writing, one or two stories (per issue).

I.Paa: Today, it is a different thing. I think magazine readers don't expect stories or any such thing. At that time, there was no TV. For entertainment and education, they solely depended on magazines. But now the situation is different. So, now they have to be more visual in the magazines. Now you find all the tamil magazines very glossy. Magazines in tamil have always been glossy and the color schemes were obscene. I am sorry for saying that, but I had an experience when I was teaching in Delhi University. The then vice-chancellor, C.D.Deshmukh, he sent for me one day. I was in Tamil department in Delhi University at that time. He said, I have a complaing, most tamil magazines are very glossy and very obscene in color, and he put in front of me all these magazines. I told him Ananda Vikatan and others were all respectable and popular. He said, I don't know anything about the content, but the color scheme is so obscene. It was like that. Now, it is still worse. People may disagree with me.. but it is worse, not just in quality. Nowadays, all magazines look alike, whether it is Kumudam or Vikatan, they all look alike.

I.Paa: Yes, they look like tabloids.

I.Paa: These are the writers like me, who are now called as senior writers, like Ashokamitran. Ramamirdham (La.Sa.Raa) never contributed in popular magazines, because his kind of writing was totally different. Sujatha also started in that period.

I.Paa: When I started writing, I had one basic disadvantage: One professing in that language and also writing in that language. To profess a language and write in that language is a kind of contradiction in terms. Because the language was old, the tamil scholars were all living in the neverneverland of Dravidian wisdom and all that, and sentimentizing history. So, it was a great disadvantage. But, once when I started writing.. Ananda Vikatan did not know who I was, and I contributed from Delhi. I wrote in the name of Indira Parthasarathy, I don't know whether they thought I was a woman. The first story which was published.. it was in muththirai kadhaigaL. They gave a special award to those stories that appeared as muththirai kadhaigaL, once a month. So, Jayakanthan was writing a story one month, and the next month I used to write and so on. They did not know who I was. They thought I was a captain or a Major in the Army, because I was living in a place in Delhi called Defence Colony! Later on I came to know from Manian, who was the editor, that they thought that I was in the Army. Anyway, it was great fun. In the early days, six stories of mine came in Ananda Vikatan, and then I started contributing to literary magazines like Deepam and also to Kalki. It happened that most of my novels were published in Kalki or Kanaiyaazhi.

I.Paa: I believe that when you are sharing your thoughts with people, your goal should be to communicate. As I told you earlier, because of tamil's antiquity, the pundit style is to revel in old and archaic language, absolutely they were not bothered about the readers, who are going to be the readers. I was not bothered by it, because my only goal was to communicate. Writing, like theatre, is a social institution. When a kite is flying, you see, it needs an opposition of air to fly. Likewise, I need a reader with whom I want to communicate. That is why, when I write, I am very conscious of the fact that I must write as simple as possible, but not in a simplistic way.

Basically, it is very difficult to adopt a simple style. It is not so easy. When you see a very well-trained musician play an intricate taal, it comes so easy and effortlessly. You would think it is spontaneous. But there would have been a lot of hard work already done, and he would have worked it out in his mind. Same way, you work out a simple style in your mind. I've been constantly thinking of that. I would say a simple style has its own complexities.

Srikanth: Is there any writer who inspired you before you started writing?

I.Paa: I was always a great reader. My background is such that my father would have never expected me to study a tamil M.A. My family background is totally different. In the early part of my life, my interest was only in literature, whatever language it was in. I think language is incidental. I am not emotionally involved with tamil because it was my mother tongue and all that. I just find that the only way I can express myself is in my mother tongue tamil because it is the nearest approximation to my thoughts. I've been reading, and the influence is just how you assimilate it.

I.Paa: That's right. Janakiraman was my teacher when I was studying in my school, 10th standard, those days it was the school final as they called it. He belonged to Kumbakonam, he was living there. I used to look at him and Ku.Pa.Rajagopalan from a distance. I used to read a magazine called Graama oozhiyan, which was edited by Ku.Pa.Rajagopalan. Janakiraman perhaps wrote his earliest novel in this magazine. At that time, when he was our teacher, he used to write when he gave us exercised to do in the classroom. I read him, but I don't know whether Janakiraman influenced my writing.

I.Paa: Totally different. There were other people too. At that time, in Kumbakonam, Gopulu, the great artist was also living there. Ki.Ra.Gopalan, who is no more, he won the first prize in Kalki competition, the first short story competition ever held. So, he used to encourage me to write. Janakiraman also encouraged my writing. But I never sent anything for publication till the Delhi phase of my life, that is in the early 60s.

I.Paa: Pudhumaippiththan, one of the greatest writers in the Manikkodi history, I used to read his stories. I used to read the serious writers.

I.Paa: I had the advantage of having a private teacher when I was young. I never studies elementary school. I was straightaway admitted in sixth grade, because I was having private tuitions before. That teacher was greatly fond of literature and Shakespeare. So, he used to read me out the tales from Shakespeare, compiled by Charles and Mary Lamb. I don't know whether these books are popular right now. Also, 23 tales of Tolstoy and all that. So, may be that was one of the reasons why I got hooked to literature.

I.Paa: Unfortunately, our traditional view on literary criticism is totally different from the western view. For our tamil works, or for Sanskrit works for that matter, those people who wrote commentary were only those who liked what they were writing on. Even if the author slipped, the commentators would make ample amends by explaining it away. Anyway, constructive criticism is only a western view. Literary criticism in English is also not of very early origin. Only since the 17th century, after the likes of Samuel Johnson, Mathew Arnold and others. In tamil, some attempt has been made by Ka.Na.Subramaniam, who was totally impartial. Earlier he was a creative writer. He was greatly influenced by western writing. His criticism was also based on what he liked and what he disliked. It was a purely personal point of view, with no particular yardstick or such thing. That was how Ka.Na.Su did and that school has been rigorously followed by Venkat Swaminathan and others. The academic exercise in literary criticism has been going on. Now, of late, you can't say that there is a total lack of literary criticism. People belong to different schools, like Marxist school, but there has been no literary criticism as such from the literary school!

I.Paa: It happened in 1969. The irony was, the people who came to power at that time, they swore by the underdogs, the people who were unprivileged. It so happened that the landlord set fire to a hut where 42 harijans were cornered. It was a very tragic incident. At that time, it shook the entire country. No such thing had been reported earlier. It was a human tragedy. That shook me. Later on, it prompted me to go and study what happened, because it happened in my district. Now, in the course of time, you find in Bihar and so many other places, these things are regularly happening. We have become immune to these human tragedies.

I.Paa: You can call it righteous indignation, not really anger. I feel that no great literary work can be written just at the point of indignation or anger. It has to settle down. You have to assimilate that anger. It took me two years to complete Kurudhippunal. The incident happened in '69, and the novel was written in '71.

I.Paa: If somebody has been done wrong, humanity expects him to react. He doesn't have to be a dalit, he doesn't have to be a brahmin. Tragedy is common to anyone. Dalits or oppressed people, what they say is that the plight of the oppressed people can be emotionally better expressed by themselves. Earlier, such things when they were expressed by the underprivileged, they had no education and they had to be written by someone belonging to a higher caste. But now, a powerful literate class is coming up. So, their sufferings and their nuances can be better expressed by those people who are in that plight.

I.Paa: No, I don't subscribe to that. If that is the case, no literature can be ever written. When I wrote about the 42 people who were burnt, they were all dalits. If somebody, say a brahmin is killed, can only a brahmin write about that tragedy? They say that the descriptions of their (dalits') daily sufferings, can be better expressed by those people. It is not like others cannot write.

I.Paa: Due to globalization, the world is becoming smaller and smaller. The situation is the same with the blacks as well. The first novel written about the blacks, Uncle Tom's Cabin, was written by a white. Though it is being condemned by the blacks now, at that time, it was a bible for those who were not privileged. Everything has to be viewed only in the background of the particular period or era in which it was written. Current conditions cannot be the yardstick for judging what was written much much earlier. Things are changing. Once when I saw a movie, Guess who comes for dinner. Starring Sidney Poitier. Now, the same picture has been criticized (for softpeddling on issues).

I.Paa: Nobody said that I should not have got it, I was fortunate that way. Invariably, the wrong writer gets award, or the right writer gets award for the wrong book. When I got it, people said it was the right book and the right writer. I was happy about that.

I.Paa: Marxism is also basically a human reaction to things. You can't have the same timetable theories and all that now. Say for instance, Marx said that revolution will take place only in the highly advanced industrialized country. He wrote it when he was in England. He thought revolution will take place only in a country like Britain. But what happened was, it was the most backward country like Russia where the revolution took place. So, all these timetable theories are not valid. Marx could not have dreamt of these multinationals and corporations. So, situations are totally different now. The bottom line of Marxism is really good, that is the feeling for the suffering of people.

More on I.Paa's plays, theatre, our traditional theatre and more tomorrow.