Dear all, FYI
Aryan A Note on Remembering Kamala Surayya, Honoring of C Ayyappan http://bit.ly/Rkhbd Yesterday, at the venue of Book XPLO 2009, about 40 people gathered to remember Kamala Suraiyya and honor C.Ayyappan. V.C.Harris , C.R.Omanakkuttan and K.K.Baburaj spoke.C.Ayyappan gave an autographed copy of his recent anthology to Sumi Joy, inagurating its sale at Bookport. V.C.Harris Naming/interpellation/reference is a complicated issue while thinking of Kamala Suraiyya.Which name would represent her correctly? How will we fix her identity? Is she kamala Suraiyya who wrote with the pen name Madhavikkutti? Or Kamala Das who wrote as Kamala Suraiyya? This complexity is not limited to her name. It extends to her oeuvre.It represents a complex and complicated author’s world. Thus assessing her as a writer is not at all a simple task .Her place in Malayalam literary filed is unique. We cannot find another writer like her. Her status as a bilingual writer explains the nature of her writing .In fact every woman inevitably have to be bilingual while writing in one’s own language. They have to transgress the phallic language in which they are immersed. As a poet she made breakthrough in Indian English writing in 50s and 60s. “My Story”( partly story, partly autobiography) evoked much furor in Kerala when it came out. If we are to juxtapose it with the overwhelming ‘reception’ given to her posthumously in Kerala, we could understand all the contradictions defining the Malayali society. “MyStory” is a work which defies all definitions. Harris narrated his personal experience of translating her stories and difficulties in finding a publisher. How Penguin Books delayed and eventually rejected the manuscript( she thought it was because Khuswant singh was in the advisory panel), how it subsequently got published through Orinet Longman, and her immediate response to reading the translation. She invited him for a feast at her home! There she introduced Harris to some other guests as a Malabar muslim who is blessed with the traditional wisdom of reading faces and predicting future! He was chased down by those guests for telling their fortunes! She has played with her life in similar fashion all through. She was an author who took such games seriously in her writing—Harris concluded his commemorative speech. Then he narrated how he accidentally came to know about C.Ayyappan. It was during “Kurichi struggle’, a dalit social movement in Kottayam. A Dalit feminist group performed a play, which inspite of its amateur / imperfect rendering caught the imagination of the audience.While enquiring about it Yesudasan, a scholar told Harris that it draws on a short story by C.Ayyappan. Finding a copy of C.Ayyappan’s short story collection published by N B S was also very difficult.. Nobody at the bookshop was aware of such an author. In the end he managed to get hold of one copy from the godown. Fascinated by Ayyappan’s stories, Harris decided to make a film out of one of his stories. Though the script was completed, it is yet to materialize due to financial reasons. C.R.Omanakkuttan C’R Omanakkuttan began his speech by noting that though Kamala Suraiyya lived in Ernakulam, he met her only once. But C.Ayyappan never met her. It is not intentional or accidental. Even prominent literary critics like M. Leelavathi and M.Achuthan who were colleagues of Ayyappan never recognized or acknowledged him as a writer. Omanakkuttan shared the joy and wonder in finding powerful short stories like “kaval bhootham’ and “arundhathee darsana nyayam’three decades ago.Ayyappan’s place is Malayalam is unmatched and unique. Omanakkuttan also shared his experience as a colleague of Ayyappan in Ernakulam Maharajas College.He also pointed out the opposition he faced from some fellow members of MGUniversity board of studies when he argued that C.ayyappan’s story should be included in the syllabus. All the Malayalam professors in the committee were ignorant of the existence of such an author. Though Ayyappan wrote about twenty odd short stories over three decades, those stories are powerful enough to question the Malayalai literary establishment, he opined. K.K.Baburaj Baburaj also began by sharing the surprise in reading Ayyappan in late 80s, during his student days. Those were days when the regime of modernism prevailed in Malayalam literature. There was something which questioned the nature and authority of dominent literary imagination in his stories. It is a constitutive problem for traditional theories and critics that an author like Ayyappan remain invisible to them. They can’t see anything beyond / below middle class .His stories foregrounded the subaltern masculinity which was erased through multifarious reform discourses. His stories broke the silence and gave voice to the subaltern male in such a disruptive way that instead of asserting “aham’ ( like in Modernist classics like “Alkkoottam’ by Anand), it inevitably ended in diffusing the subjectivity. Subaltern male agency is forced to live in underground or appear only through ‘magic’/ masquerade in Malayali literary traditions which are built on violence toward the subaltern. ( vasavadatta in Kumaranasan’s writing being a case in point).Ayyappan broke with these traditions and wrote by discarding such formulae which celebrates violent exclusions. C.Ayyappan in his brief response thanked all who spoke about his writing. Chandran K K offered vote of thanks. 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