http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/goa/vishnu-surya-wagh-and-the-worm-of-casteism/articleshow/60250391.cms
Give the tiger of St Andre due credit. It has been more than a year since Vishnu Surya Wagh was struck by a debilitating heart attack that took him away from his highly visible gadfly role in the state legislature. Nonetheless, even while still recuperating, his name and writing is centre stage in the biggest controversy to roil Goa's cultural realm in many years. His 2013 collection of poems 'Sudhir Sukta' has sparked fierce debate after being finalized for a Goa Konkani Akademi (GKA) award. One of the judges, poet-journalist Sanjiv Verenkar prematurely announced the jury decision in protest, telling an interviewer, "Leaking the result is unethical, but my intention was the greater good. The poems are critical of a particular community, and have the potential to stoke communal tension...a government agency shouldn't endorse such vulgar, reckless writing." Whether or not Verenkar's actions have any merit, he did at least read the book of poems. That is quite obviously not the case with the clamouring mob of instant would-be censurers who popped up four long years after Wagh's book was published, all demanding 'Sudhir Sukta' be denied the state award, while berating the poems for being, among other things, "a threat to society", "of discriminatory nature", and "a harsh attack...using filthiest language". Taking matters further, the credentials of one of the judges are being questioned, as she "has no particular literary work to her credit". Meanwhile, another person, who has actually read the poems, the book's publisher Hema Naik, has unequivocally declared, "He has the freedom to write what he wants," and, "there is no basis to the allegation that the book targets a specific caste." Immediately after this dispute aired, educator and translator Augusto Pinto has been rendering the general public a great service by swiftly producing "rough draft" translations of some of Wagh's poems. Despite the obvious strictures under which he's working to bring the original Konkani into English at high speed, Pinto's renditions already easily demonstrate that 'Sudhir Sukta' is made up of striking, vivid works with terrific contemporary value, and of undeniably significant literary merit. While raw with emotion, and powerfully vituperative in parts, these poems are clearly amongst the most significant contemporary contributions to Goa's literature, as well as an all-time landmark achievement for Konkani poetry. "Here nobody asks/ About the other's caste/ But everybody knows/ Who's who." As Wagh alludes in his poem 'Castes' the purportedly egalitarian society of Goa is almost imperceptibly jigsawed by caste (regardless of creed). Despite the availability of multiple perspectives and viewpoints, much too often the pendulum defaults to privileged upper castes and their spokesmen (women also remain disgracefully under-represented). Though the state's political realm experienced what Goa University's Paresh Porobo calls, "India's first democratic revolution", its entrenched cultural elites have never been challenged by a democratic plurality of voices. Wagh's poem quoted above poignantly continues, "Every caste has some desire/Some agony/But does desire and agony/Have any caste?" Read in the context of modernist literature, there is absolutely nothing controversial about Wagh's poems. Instead, they fit perfectly well into a grand global tradition that encompasses everyone from the late Philip Larkin ('This Be The Verse') to the brilliant young Meena Kandasmy ('Algorithm for converting a Shudra into a Brahmin'). Wagh himself has evidently drawn strength from the formidable Marathi poet Namdeo Dhasal, who wrote, "I am a venereal sore/ in the private part of language," and whose 'Man, You Should Explode' is a direct fore-runner of 'Sudhir Sukta'. But there are many other antecedents, including Bengal's "Hungyalists" of the 1960s, whose Debi Roy (born Haradhon Dhara) similarly faced accusations of obscenity for his forceful verse. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Wagh's 2013 book is suddenly unavailable. But even now, as each additional poem is released in the media, or via Augusto Pinto's translations on the Goa Book Club mailing list on the Internet, the lasting worth of 'Sudhir Sukta' is being underlined. Many verses are indeed profane, and also acerbic, wounded, resilient, and filled with defiance and joy. While the Goa Konkani Akademi must endeavour to maintain its integrity, and find a way to resist the shameful pressure now being exerted on its leadership, there should be no doubt these works are going to be read, remembered and celebrated even if the state award is diverted. As Wagh's title poem says, "And all who are with us/ Will see that our fortunes are reversed/ Not because we are Sudhirs/ But just to live like human beings/ Just to live like human beings."