Collective Aspirations in Contemporary Indian Poetry K.

Satchidanandan How does contemporary Indian poetry negotiate a culture of consumerism, the growing tyranny of the marketplace? K. Satchidanandan investigates various strategies of dissent. Contemporary literature, even when deeply rooted in the past, cannot help but reflect contemporary e perience. !iberation movements across the "#hird $orld% seem to have dried up overnight as commitment to the market system has become sheer "common sense% and no longer a political programme. &ll values other than those of business society seem to have been abolished and any discussion of the issue of ends, to have become anathema. #he intellectual caste celebrates with euphoria the "end of history% and seals the ac'uisition of its own professional guild values like "freedom% of speech and "free% elections and holds out a hand for money to that great champion of freedom, the (nited States. #he (.S., in turn, is gearing up for local "defensive% operations around the world, buying nationalised industries on the cheap and reaping the benefits of the cheap labour being thrown open to the multinationals by the collapse of national states and the deterioration of the former "Second $orld% into "#hird $orld% status. #he emergence of the new aggressive ruthless capitalism has already sounded the knell of autonomous development in the "#hird $orld%, including South &sia, forcing the people to become either avaricious consumers or labourers for foreign capital. #he days of the grand social engineering pro)ects seem to be over* the dreams of a better society are dismissed offhand as flights of fancy or declarations of subversive intent. &lternative ends are invalidated on the strength of the proved ineffectuality of means. & )ubilant valorisation of the careeristic values of a competitive society appears to be the only ethical possibility. !iberty has boiled down to mere consumer choice+ poverty is a positive dis'ualification in a world that privileges the rich. #he market interpretation of freedom translates communal needs into acts of individual ac'uisition. It also abhors autonomy and reduces cultural diversity into a variety of changeable fashions and marketable lifestyles. Consumer societies are always hostile to collective identities. #hey believe in standardisation, uniformity and define difference as deviation, a "problem% that re'uires "solutions%. ,r else alternate ways of life may arouse spectator interest* they belong to the outer world of theatre and spicy spectacle, like tribals dancing on a #- screen in a city hotel. #olerance here degenerates into estrangement instead of leading to solidarity. .ifference is considered safe as long as it is confined to the world of the symbolic game of representation, and does not spill over into the realm of daily coe istence, when it is perceived as a threat. #he other%s inferiority is )ustified by difference* thus, tolerance

becomes fully compatible with social domination. #he promise of e'uality is withdrawn as difference means distance, non/cooperation, and hierarchy. #he global origin of problems, economic, ecological and cultural, is effectively hidden from view as new sensitivities are confined to neutral, depoliticised technological discourse. #he remedy of social ills is also privatised. #his clash between the social nature of risks and the privatised means of their containment is one of the contradictions of late capitalism. #rue, the patronage state has collapsed with its suppression of democratic opposition and individual freedom, as well as its monopoly of needs/satisfaction and social status. 0ut is the open market with consumer society the only alternative? Should the obvious failures of the Statist model of socialism lead to a passive submission to the norms of a business society? .on%t we need fresh visions of radical social transformation illuminated by the ob)ective e perience of the ma)ority of our people and inspired by indigenous egalitarian ideas and e periments? .on%t we need a political aesthetic that affirms the primacy of the present, the present of struggle and suffering? 1emember that the totalitarian systems punish the dissenting artist with prison, e ile, or even death, while the market society absorbs and contains him, turns him into a showpiece and thus incapacitates him, subverting the very intent of his rebellion. It permits even opposition as long as it is marketable. How do the writers of our country react to this situation where their identity is either eroded or turned into a purely private, personal, saleable commodity? !et me take the case of Indian poetry. #he early modernists of the 23s and 43s were basically committed to the freedom of the individual against the background of debilitating post/industrial infernos with their massification of human beings. I will not say that the modernist problematic is obsolete. #here are and will be conte ts where the private has to be upheld and defended against the encroachment of the omnipresent ga5e of the modern state that turns individuals into sub)ects without will. #he dark days of the mid/63s belong as much to the reality of the immediate past as to the possibility of the immediate future. Still, the modern State is different from the authoritarian regimes of the left and the right varieties precisely because it privatises and diffuses dissent, rather than collectivising it into an e plosive energy that shatters the system. #his compels writers to evolve counter/ strategies for the collectivisation of dissent. !iterary modernism in its Indian form had meant an articulation of the angst and alienation, the divided self, of the Indian caught between the gilded image of his pre/ colonial past and his s'ualid present that roamed the crowded thoroughfares of the post/ industrial metropolis. &t the ontological level, it meant a search for the lost identity of the individual+ a 'uest that often bordered on the metaphysical. 0.S. 7ardhekar, .ilip Chitre, 8.7. 7uktibodh, Harbha)an Singh, Sitanshu 9ashashchandra, 8opalakrishna &diga, Kaa :aa Subramaniam, :.:. Kakkad, &yyappa ;aniker, :avakant 0arua, Sachi 1outray and other pioneers of modernism in Indian poetry responded to the modern environment in this way. #heir responses are not without social dimensions, but their central concern seems to have been the destiny of the individual in modern mass society, rather than that of communities caught in the maelstrom of e ploitative modernisation. However, roughly from the 63s onwards, Indian poetry begins to concern itself with collective destinies. &

glance at the present poetic landscape in India reveals certain radical concerns whose boundaries often cross one another. I #he most dominant of these streams may be termed the progressive modernist. #he attitudes of the poets embraced by the term are by no means uniform. &t one end of the spectrum stand the votaries of armed peasant struggles like the :a alite poets of 0engal and &ndhra ;radesh whose action poetry combines a virile modern idiom with a sincere moral indignation. &t the other end stand the followers of 8andhi and !ohia and liberal humanists whose frustration with the system is as intense as those of the :a alites, e cept that they hold on to indigenous ideals of peaceful social transformation. $hat unites these writers is their recognition of the e istence of class ine'ualities* this, however, is combined in the best representatives of the trend with a deeper awareness of the comple ity of human e perience and an introspective search for their own selves in relation to the world of outer reality. #hese tendencies along with their subtler and newer sense of form and idiom rescue these poets from the slogan/mongering and rhetorical mode of some of the early progressives. :agar)un, Kunwar :arain, Kedarnath Singh, -inod Kumar Shukla, &sad <aidi, -ishnu :agar, 1itura), 7angalesh .abral, Sur)it ;ather, (.1. &nanthamurthy, ;. !ankesh, Chandrasekhara ;atil, H.S. Shivaprakash, &li Sardar =afri, :ida >a5li and K.8. Sankarapillai may broadly be said to belong to this genre. Some of these poets, like Chandrasekhara Kambar and Kadmmanitta 1amakrishnan have moulded a folk idiom to present themes, issues, and structures of feeling related to the life of the rural folk and the marginali5ed sections of society. #he insurrectionary political poetry of the 7aoist activists and their co/travellers was an attempt to subvert both the solipsistic ideal of high modernism and the sentimental romanticism of the earlier decades. !ook at the poem, "!ove%, by 7urari 7ukhopadhyay of 0engal+ $hen in love, .o not become the moon. If you can, Come as the sun. I%ll take its heat &nd light up the dark forest. $hen in love, .o not become the river. If you can, Come as the flood. I%ll carry its passion &nd break the dams of despair.

$hen in love, .o not become a flower. If you can, Come as the thunder. I%ll lift its roar to my breast &nd send forth the battle/cry to every corner. $hen in love, .o not become a bird. If you can, Come as the storm. I%ll borrow its force &nd destroy the palace of sin. #he moon, #he river, #he flower, #he stars #he birds ? $e can look for them later. 0ut today, In this darkness #he last battle is yet to be fought. $hat we need now in our hovel Is ? >ire. #he poet re)ects the usual ob)ective correlatives of love employed in romantic poetry, especially symbols and metaphors like moon, river, flower, stars and birds. He replaces them with the warm sun that would illumine the dark woods, the flood of revolutionary passion that would challenge despair, the thunder that would help the poet carry his war/ cry to all parts of the world, the storm that would lend him strength enough to pull down @the palaces of sinA and the fire that would burn down the decrepit, decadent, old world. It is difficult to say that the poem is antiromantic* rather it inverts old romanticism and creates a revolutionary romanticism that employs energetic signs like flood, fire, sun and thunder. & similar re)ection is seen in ;ash, the ;un)abi poet, when he says+ @:o, I don%t think now aboutB such things asB the fine hues of redB when the sun sets over the villageB nor do I care about how she feelsB when the moon glides over her threshold at night.B :o, I don%t worry about such trifles nowA C":o, I am not !osing 7y Sleep ,ver . . .%D. #he :a alite movement also led to a regeneration of the oral folk literature, in an attempt to bridge the gap between the elite urban sensibility and the rural one that demanded another language and another kind of knowledge. &ctivist/poets like Subbarao ;anigrahi Cwho later became a martyrD and 8addar of &ndhra ;radesh actually went to the villages to learn their idiom while urban co/travellers like -aravara 1ao felt they would never

understand the worker+ @#he truth that the worker%s sweat will never utter . . . B Can a drop of ink from a poet%s penB ever e press it?A ;oets like .hoomil in Hindi fashioned a sharp, unsentimental language full of concrete images in order to articulate the new e perience+ @& manB severs the neck of another from a torsoB &s a mechanic separates a nutB from a bolt.B 9ou say+ #his is murder. I say+ this is the dissolution of a mechanism.A He takes his readers @to the territory of poetryB in the wilderness of languageB where cowardice has run awayB #hrowing an empty revolverB &nd defiance has gone forwardB in the darkA. #here were also many poems flavoured by a special brand of humour, a mi ture of self/mockery and self/defence. #he more comple attitudes were e pressed in varying degrees of irony+ bitter, playful, whimsical, tragic, self/flagellating. #he later poems in this category are often like confessions or signs of frustration. Cherabandara)u, the #elugu radical poet, admits, @#oday the helm is no longer in my hands* it is I who is in its handsA. Civic Chandran of 7alayalam )oins in+ @our legs were short and the alleys unfamiliarA. Sur)it ;ather e presses the mood of the survivors poignantly+ #o go back home now is difficult. $ho will recognise us? .eath has put its mark on the forehead, >riends have left their footprints on the face. &nother face stares at me from the mirror. 7y eyes sparkle with a dead glow !ike the light from the broken roof of a house. It would, however, be wrong to think that this trend is entirely past as there are 'uite a few poets, especially in #elugu, 0engali and Hindi, who refuse to give up all their hopes about a Communist revolution. ;oetry has not abandoned its social critical function even in poets who have no direct commitment to the revolution. ,ne such poet is Kunwar :arain of Hindi. See his poem, "#o .elhi%, for e ample+ & familiar sight, then as now, &b)ect, pitiful, dragged 0ehind victorious horsemen. Hands tied together, pitiful, $ho was he this time, ,n the road to .elhi? :o one knows. ,nly a pair of hands, tied together, 7ade it there.

II #he .alit poetry in 7arathi, 8u)arati, Hindi, ;un)abi, and #elugu, and the 0andaya poetry in Kannada, together constitute another dissenting collective, another alternative nationhood. #his articulates the silent anguish and indignation of the so/called "untouchables% relegated to the bottom of the caste hierarchy for more than thirty centuries. #o these poets, the socio/cultural phenomenon of the caste is more real than the economic category of "class% Cthough "caste% may be considered a "social class% in the sense in which :icos ;oulant5as sees the termD. #here is indeed a diversity of attitudes even among the .alit poets that springs chiefly from their ambivalent relationship with the 0uddha, 7ar , or &mbedkar. Some deify &mbedkar while some long to go beyond him. &run Kamble, 9aswant 7anohar, &r)un .angle, =- ;awar, :amdeo .hasal, .aya ;awar, ;rakash =adhav, 0hu)ang 7eshram and 7eena 8a)abhiye of 7arathi* =oseph 7acwan, =ayant ;armar, 7angal 1athod, Kisan Sosa, ;raveen 8advi and 1a)u Solanki of 8u)arati and Siddhalingaiah of Kannada are some of the prominent .alit poets writing today. .alit literature has created its own alternative aesthetic by redrawing the map of literature, by discovering and e ploring a whole new continent of e perience that has so far been left to darkness and silence, by helping literature overcome stagnation through a cleansing renewal. It has disturbed the sterile complacency of the dominant social groups, by challenging their set mores, fi ed modes of looking at reality and their established literary canons. It thus brings to focus neglected, suppressed, or marginali5ed aspects of e perience, vision, language, and reality and forces the community to refashion its tools and observe itself critically. .alit poetry re)ects the norms set by brahminic poetics and throws overboard classical values like propriety, balance, restraint and understatement. #he diction of these poets is deliberately subversive as it challenges the middle class notions of linguistic decency. .alit poets at times make fun even of concepts like patriotism. 0aburao 0agul, the 7arathi pioneer of .alit poetry, says+ @9ou who have made the mistake of being born in this countryB must now rectify it+ either leave the country or make war.A He advises the rebel to go towards the settlements like =esus and speak to them like the #athagata, since the "untouchable%, the beloved son of the revolution, lives there. Chokha Kamble advises himself+ @#here is no cloud, no shower of rainB no open sky or sun for meB and yet, my stupid, foolish mindB don%t give in to despondency.A :amdeo .hasal%s highly imagistic poems like "7andakini ;atil% and "Hunger% combine violent images with intense e periences. He asks @the innumerable sunsA abla5e in his blood to @march on city after city, setting each on fireA. 9ashvant -aghela, the 8u)arati .alit poet, says+ @#he stones of centuries piled up over usB & pyramid of tearsB Here today we are mummiesB Stuffed with wailing voicesB but forging destiny in our smithies.A =ayant ;armar, another 8u)arati poet, challenges 7anu who legitimised the caste system+ @,ne day in front of my houseB on the neem tree I will hang you nakedB I will split open your veins to seeB how much blood of my elders you have drunk.A

.alit women poets like 7allika 7aarsheikh, Hira 0ansode and 7eena 8a)abhiye have given a feminist slant to .alit poetry in their poems that are more introspective and less given to sloganeering and abuse. See, for e ample, "9ashodhara% by 7arathi poet, Hira 0ansode+ , 9ashodhara+ 9ou are like a dream of sharp pain, !ife/long sorrow. I don%t have the audacity to look at you. $e were brightened by 0uddha%s light, 0ut you absorbed the dark (ntil your life was mottled blue and black, & fragmented life, burnt out. #he new phase of .alit writing seems to be more mature, sober, larger in its concerns, more conscious of form, less angry and complaining. #here is even a tone of celebration of .alit identity in the new generation of poets. III #his takes us straight to the third form of collective poetic dissent+ that of India%s women poets. India has always had great women poets, from &kkamahadevi and 7eerabai to 7ahadevi -erma and 0alamani &mma. It is perfectly possible and legitimate to deconstruct their work from the feminist perspective. However, a committed feminist poetry ? one that emphasises difference in terms of gender and seeks to rewrite the patriarchal discourse and challenge the phallocentric order of things ? is a more recent aesthetic phenomenon in India. #hese poets are engaged in revisionist myth making and the establishment of a parallel semiotics centred round the female body. ;oets like &mrita ;ritam, Kamala .as, 8auri .eshpande and :abaneeta .eb Sen were the first to create a sacred 5one for the female sub)ect* they have now been )oined by literally scores of women poets from all Indian language, from Savitri 1a)eevan and -i)ayalakshmi in 7alayalam, 7 1 Kamala and S (sha in Kannada, & =ayaprabha and Kondepudi :irmala in #elugu, Chandrakanti and Indira 0havani in #amil, Kabita Sinha and 7allika Sengupta in 0engali, ;ravasini 7ahakud and 1an)ita :ayak in ,riya, 7an)it #iwana in ;un)abi, 8agan 8ill and Katyayani in Hindi, ;anna :aik and Sanskritirani .esai in 8u)arati, &nuradha ;atil and &runa .here in 7arathi, 7eena &le ander and Eunice de Sou5a in English, to cite only a few names. #ogether they seek a new politics of desire that can restructure the male/dominated world on the basis of love, freedom, and e'uality. Kamala .as and the women poets after her have brought great diversity into feminine and feminist poetry reflecting their varied regional traditions and different social circumstances and e perimenting with different forms. #hey have recognised, with Eunice de Sou5a, that @the histories they know are not fit to printA and that @the perfect

book is one long cry in the darkA. 7amata .ash, the ,riya poet, invites the murderer to take her life as she feels mauled and defeated+ @Come, murdererB Step into my sacred courtyardB you%re my last guest, after all, aren%t you?B Come, today I feel you also are my final love.A :abaneeta .eb Sen from 0engal compares love to a bird whose fi ed phrases pour honey into her ears and then @in private, )ingles its chains in raucous laughter to itself and sheds its feathers in empty spaceA. Kamala Hemmige, the Kannada poet, is conscious of class that even divides women when she asks+ @9ou who grow cactiB in flower potsB and wearB roses in your hairB do you knowB about the nude womenB worshipping their 8od in Chandragutthi? . . . 9ou skilful oneB who can drink teaB without smudging your lipstickB do you know the story of the girlB who was stripped nakedB for wanting to eat?A Indira 0havani of #amil speaks sarcastically of the ten "-ishnu% avatars of the male, while Savitri 1a)eevan of 7alayalam compares herself to worn/out kitchenware elevated to iconic status. &. =ayaprabha of #elugu warns the avaricious oglers+ @& day will comeB when women in this country haveB thornsB not only in their eyesB but all over their bodies.A #here are occasions when women poets identify themselves with 1adha deceived by Krishna Cfor instance Sugathakumari+ "$here is 1adha?D, with .raupadi insulted in the royal assembly Cfor instance !akshmi Kannan%s ".raupadi%D or with the saint poet &kkamahadevi who roamed naked and battled against male wits Cfor instance 0hagya =ayasudarshana, ">or &kkaD in an attempt to find their roots. IE'ually significant is the search for regional and linguistic identity in Indian poetry. #his may be seen as a natural continuation and fulfilment of the process of cultural decolonisation that accompanied India%s struggle for political independence. It is a celebration of the pluralism that is the very essence of India%s culture, an interrogation of the hegemonic canons flaunted by the bourgeois market as well as by the revivalist Hindu communalism. #hese canons are often a rehash of the orientalist notions of Indianness governed by wrong premises like the privileging of high te tuality, the marginalisation of non/canonical, performative, and counter/hegemonic te ts and trends, aesthetic reductionism and revivalist nostalgia. 7any writers feel that the basic democratic idea of geopolitical and linguistic federalism is being undermined every day in the practices of our governance. #hey realise that only a constructive concept of multiculturalism and heteroglossia can fight the atavistic retrieval of an ethnic past and the pressures of standardisation imposed by the culture market. #he battle, of course, is not between the ideals of integration and disintegration, but between two different concepts of unity+ one that believes in an insipid uniformity imposed from above Cgiving rise to a forced cultural compound, a superficial tinsel collageD, and the other that places its faith in a genuine fraternity of our diverse cultures and languages, each encouraged to develop to the full its distinct mode of popular creativity. #his centripetal tendency e presses itself in various forms. In the languages of the South, it appears primarily as a 'uest for a .ravidian poetics, implied, say, in the works of the #amil Sangam poets and the Kannada -achanakaras. #he post/Subramania 0harati

period in #amil poetry, as represented by poets like 0haratidasan and :. ;ichamurty has shaped a regional consciousness distinct from the earlier pan/Indian patriotism. #he Kannada poetry after &diga has demonstrated the gap between the rich cultural memory of the Shudras and outcastes and their present political e perience of marginalisation, as is evident in the poetry of ;. !ankesh, Chandrasekhara Kambar, Chandrasekhara ;atil or Siddhalingaiah. ;oets like S.1. Ekkundi and H.S. Shivaprakash have invented an indigenous progressive poetry that draws a lot from Kannada saint/poets and philosophers like 7adhavacharya and 0asavanna. In 7alayalam this regionalism appears chiefly as a celebration of local myths, especially counter/myths like that of ,nam Cthat deifies 7ahabali, the great demon king, and thus indirectly denounces -amana, the impish avatar of -ishnu who van'uished himD ? an attempt to discover a tradition distinct from the pan/Indian one. #here are also attempts to de/Sanskritise the poetic language as represented by 7. 8ovindan, :.:. Kakkad Cin his later phaseD and &ttoor 1avivarma Cin his recent poemsD. #raditional metres, familiar rhythms, provincial archetypes, regional rituals, cultural symbols and local flora and fauna are staging a comeback, constructing an eco/aesthetics of racial retrospection and introspection. &yyappa ;aniker%s long poem, "8otrayanam% C#he ;assage of the #ribeD is an attempt to reconstruct regional history at the level of myth. Kadammanitta 1amakrishnan%s poems with their folk rhythms are also intensely regional. #he .alit poets of 7arathi and 8u)arati and the revolutionary poets of &ndhra have also drawn freely on regional forms, rural dialects, and tribal languages, thus giving their poetry an intensely native idiom. :orth/eastern dialects like :agamese and Kokoborok have also begun to produce their first generation poets, who, like the poets in 7anipuri, draw largely on tribal myths, local customs and beliefs. #he ;un)abi poets of our time like Sur)it ;ather, 8ul Chauhan, 7inder, Swar)bir, 7ohan)it, =aswant .eed, and others have also attempted to forge a typical ;un)abi idiom with references to local history, regional heroes and saints. #he uttar/adhunik Cpost/modernD poets of 0engal like &mitabha 8upta, &nindya Chaki, 0ipul Chakravarty, Ekram &li, 8autam 0asu, 8ita Chattopadhyay and others, have made a similar gesture. #hey constantly go back to local themes, rituals, festivals and heroes and make innovative use of folk/rhythms and metres. @#he roots lie deep in the soil, loud sophistries are but a desperate invocation,A says 0irendra Chattopadhyay, denouncing bookish education and affirming the legacy of the rustic peasant. $hile it is futile to try to discover a single "post/modern% movement in contemporary Indian poetry, it can safely be said that since the seventies every fresh poetic initiative has been in some way stimulated by a conscious or unconscious desire to re/establish poetry%s deep and meaningful relationship with nature and society, without at the same time losing sight of the decisive stylistic revolution brought about by modern poetry. $ith some risk of generalisation, we may note the following features as the common conte ts of our indigenous "post/modernisms%+ F. & revolt against the solipsistic tendencies of early modernism and the conse'uent longing to communicate even with the public traditionally kept out of poetry%s sacred grove*

G. a pursuit of the politics of difference reflected in an attempt to forge collective identities based on differences of class, caste, gender, region, language and culture Cas a response to the homogenisation of Indian culture sought by hegemonic forcesD* H. & non/atavistic revival of the past that at times results in a kind of bricolage, a fre'uency of 'uotations of elements from previous styles and periods, I. & growing perception that the status/'uoist ideas of progress do not take into serious account cultural differences and variations in world views* 2. & conse'uent suspicion of all universalising ideologies that conceal differences, or reduce them to a single dimension* 4. #he loss of the modernist confidence that high or avant/garde art is intrinsically more valuable than low or popular art* 6. a growing disbelief in the modern pro)ect that was supposed to be valid for all mankind, but found mankind divided ? one part confronted with the challenge of comple ity and the other confronted with the ancient task of mere survival* J. an awareness of issues beyond class struggle+ of caste, gender, war and ecology* K. a preoccupation with post/cognitive and ontological 'uestions like, @$hich world is this? $hat is to be done in it? $hich of my selves is to do it? How are the worlds constituted? How do they differ? $hat happens when different kinds of worlds are placed in confrontation or when the boundaries between worlds are violated? $hat are the modes of e istence of the te t and the world?A and F3. & multi/directional movement within the poetic scene in general, and a polyphony within specific poetic te ts, resulting from these perceptions that go against all forms of standardisation natural to consumer societies. &bridged version of the essay from "Indian !iterature+ ;ositions and ;ropositions%, FKKK Modernism and Beyond & Conversation with ;oet 7akarand ;aran)ape 7akarand ;aran)ape In this interview with 7akarand ;aran)ape, K. Satchidanandan talks about issues as diverse as subaltern politics and style, sound and sense, 7ar ism and spirituality ? and how he is still old/fashioned enough to believe in the power of inspiration.

7akarand ;aran)ape+ Could you tell me something about your beginnings as a poet? K. Satchidanandan+ ;oetry came to me 'uite early in life though I cannot tell from where it came+ from proverbs or folksongs, leaves or rain, or from that solar radiance of the 1amayana that was perhaps the first e perience of poetry in my life. 7y wild and untamed fancies sought articulation in the pages of the school and college maga5ines. I began to publish in regular periodicals. .uring my undergraduate days, the kind of poetry we were writing was considered difficult. ,nly little maga5ines ? the ones like 7. 8ovindan%s "Sameeksha and &yyappa ;aniker%s Kerala Kavita ? came to our help. It was a real struggle in the initial years+ we had to fight the old sensibility which we did through discussions, public readings, little publications, analytical studies, re/evaluations of our predecessors and, of course, translations from modern world poetry as well as contemporary Indian poetry, in all of which I had a vital role to play. Slowly the circle of readers of modern poetry swelled, especially among the youth, even though the conservatives refused to acknowledge our presence. It took more than a decade for us to become the mainstream of poetry in 7alayalam. 0ut by then modern poetry had begun to redefine itself . . . 7;+ 9ou are one of the pioneers of modern poetry in 7alayalam. How did the movement start? KS+ 7odernism emerged visibly in 7alayalam only in the FK43s, much after 7ardhekar in 7arathi, &diga in Kannada and 7uktibodh in Hindi had already transformed the poetic sensibility in their languages. In 7alayalam, it was the product of a struggle on two fronts+ it re)ected the clichLs of romantic poetry while it also fought the simplifications of the so/called progressive poetry that revelled in rhetoric and mechanically reproduced the known truth of politics. 7odernism had its beginnings in poets like :.- Krishna -ariyar, but became self/conscious only with poets like &yyappa ;aniker, :.:. Kakkad and &ttoor 1avivarma, who had a decisive influence on my generation. 0y the mid/si ties, we had also ac'uainted ourselves with the European voices who fascinated us more than #.S. Eliot who had deeply impressed the previous generation. In the first phase of modern poetry, the focus was on style+ we were striving to evolve an idiom that would best e press the e perience of modernity that in India co/ e isted with tradition. #his e plains the re/interpretation of myths and the re/deployment of archetypes in the first phase. &yyappa ;aniker%s Kurukshetram CFK43D was thus very typical. 7;+ $hat about the second phase? KS+ It was in the seventies that a break came+ my reading, observation, thought and a few important friendships led me towards the radical left in Kerala. 7y commitment was more of a moral nature than political. I shared its indignation and its passion for social )ustice and chose to associate myself with its cultural front. It was a natural movement from angst to choice. 7ost of the radicals shared the modernist frustration and disillusionment with the system that also included the orthodo left. #heir sensibility was also more contemporary. #he "status/'uo%/ist progressive literature was inane, and the

"status/'uo%/ist modernism was morbid. $e found our counterparts in !atin &merican and &frican poetry, as well as that of the European left. I translated :eruda, -alle)o, !orca, Eluard, 0recht, En5ensberger, Senghor, .iop and others. !ittle maga5ines mushroomed around, campuses were alive with poetry readings, and streets burst into life with street/plays. I travelled all over the state, reading in campuses, workers% colonies and even in market places. ;eople%s response was like those of the Chilean workers to :eruda%s poetry+ we may not entirely understand your poetry, but we know you are a poet. 7y poetry as well as that of my fellow poets moved from the lyrical towards the dramatic. It was no more monologic. & new kind of dynamic and virile prose became the chief vehicle of poetry* images grew more energetic and even aggressive. It was leftist, but modern. It was social, but had an e istential, introspective dimension to it, as we were also struggling with ourselves. #he Emergency )ustified our protest, we grew more vocal during the period. But internal dissensions and global changes soon fragmented the movement; each of us was again alone. 7;+ How did this affect your thinking and your poetry? KS+ 7y poetry entered a period of critical retrospection and introspection. I had never abandoned my scepticism even during the heady seventies* I had always been critical of Stalinism. Even now I did not abandon socialism, but grew more critical of the authoritarian tendencies of 7ar ism itself and more aware of its crucial silences. I began to read !ohia, 8andhi and &mbedkar seriously, lost my faith in violence, and grew more sympathetic towards voluntary gender and eco/movements. Class/reductionism, I found, was the bane of 7ar ism. 7y poetry developed in new directions that were more humane, regional, and culture/specific. 7y reading in critical theory also might have helped me arrive at a polyphonic and open concept of poetry. 7;+ 9ou seem to have tried every possible form of poetry from the short lyric to the se'uence. How do you e plain this variety? KS+ Every one of us contains multitudes, and each re'uires a different form. #here are very few forms I have not employed in my poetry, from the pithily ironic to the imagistic and the se'uential. I en)oy writing poems where images proliferate Ceg. ">aces in the 1ain%D as also where several metaphors constitute a single image, like the South Indian temple towers C"7y 0ody, a City%D. &t times I en)oy a $hitmanes'ue deployment of proper nouns as in the .elhi poems, "House%, where they almost form an inescapable labyrinth. Sound is a ma)or component of my poetry+ a 'uality almost entirely lost in translation. I am no musician but am a great lover of music, having even written poems addressed to 7. 1amanathan, Kumar 8andharva, and 7allikar)un 7ansoor. I also love to paint in poetry ? I have attempted painting myself and have written poems on Salvador .ali, ;icasso, -an 8ogh, and Swaminathan. &nother form I en)oy is cycles of se'uences that help me go beyond the limitations of the single poem* many such have been inspired by travels like ".elhi/.ali% Con .elhiD* "7adhyamavati% Con 7adhya ;radeshD, "Indian Sketches%, "#raveller%s =ournals% Con various places in IndiaD, "$estern Cantata% CEuropeD, "Snow% CSoviet (nionD, ":orthern Cantos% CChinaD, "&merican .iary% C(S&D or "Imperfect% CSweden and >ranceD. I also love to enter other poets ? a kind of

transmigration ? as in my poems on ;aul Celan, Carlos 8erman 0elli, #u/>u, &i/Ching, .hoomil and seven poets of Kerala. !et me tell you these are not very conscious choices, for I am old/fashioned enough still to believe in the power of inspiration ? or what !orca calls "duende% ? to synthesise the cerebral, the visceral, and the spiritual into a single e perience. I appreciate purely cerebral poets like 0recht or 1aghuvir Sahay and also visceral poets like Sylvia ;lath or Kamala .as, but I would never write like any of them. & poem should be like a man, with a brain and a heart and a soul, all in organic harmony. 7;+ Has being in .elhi affected your poetry? &fter all, you were in Kerala during your formative years. KS+ 7y relationship with .elhi is one of love/hate* she is the beloved and the slut, Circe, 7edusa, Helen, Cleopatra, all in one. #he se'uence, ".elhi/.ali% sums it all up, the loveless labyrinth, the charm, the s'ualor. #he urban element in my poetry has grown stronger here, but there has also been the negative impact+ my feelings for my home state, my language, and my rural childhood have also grown more intense here, as e pressed in my recent long poem, "7alayalam%. 7y poems on Kabir, 7ira, :amdev, !al .ed and #ukaram too are, in a way, tributes to the great cultures of :orthern India. .elhi has given me new themes, new directions. I have no regrets. 7;+ I can sense a deep spiritual unease behind and beyond all your social concerns. KS+ I have, in all the phases of my creative life, consistently admired certain authors+ .ostoevsky, Ka5ant5akis, Herman Hesse, #arashankar, $illiam 0lake, &le ander 0lake, $0 9eats, !orca, :eruda, #agore, Kumaran &san . . . #hese writers, even if some of them profess otherwise, have a deep spirituality about them that they combine beautifully with their awareness of man and society. ;oets should e plore the relationships between man and nature Cincluding the "lower% beingsD, man and CwoD man, man and himself or herself, man and 8od or the cosmos, thus carrying their perceptions beyond the colour spectrum of politics and sociology. ,ur saint poets did precisely this though their subversive, indignant, egalitarian, subaltern spirituality that 'uestioned the man/made order from the point/of/view of a "divine%, )ust order. I am trying to e plore this perspective in my series on our saint poets. I have already written poems about Kabir, 7ira, #ukaram, :amdev, 0asava, &kkamahadevi, &ndal and !al .edh, each taking up different aspects of the 0hakti view of life. I may write more ? on :anak, #yagara)a, 0aba >arid and 7ir .ard, for e ample. Communalism and casteism cannot be fought with rationalism in India, but only with an enlightened trans/religious spirituality that sides with the oppressed. 8andhi was perhaps the only modern leader who realised it. So much has been revealed. I am still waiting. &ppendi to How #o 8o #o #he #ao #emple C;oemsD, FKKJ.

Poetry is my religion by #apan .as 8upta ;rof K Satchidanandan Cborn 7ay FKI4D is a prominent Indian poet and intellect of national and international recognition. Having done his 7& in English !iterature from the (niversity of Kerala an his ;h . in ;ost/Structuralist !iterary #heory from the (niversity of Calicut, he worked as ;rofessor of English at Christ College Kerala. &fter G2 years of teaching, he left Kerala to )oin the Sahitya &kademi on its invitation to take up the editorship of its prestigious literary )ournal in English, Indian !iterature in FKKG. He took over as secretary, Sahitya &kademi on :ovember F, FKK4. ;rof Satchidanandan has represented Indian poetry in several national and international festivals. He has also been a ma)or translator of poetry and has F2 collections of world and Indian poetry in translation. 0esides about 43 significant Indian poets, he has translated several European, !atin &merican, &frican and &sian poets into 7alayalam. He has been one of the most influential literary critics. He has done e tensive work on Indian and $estern poetics and has been an interpreter of 7odern and ;ost/7odern trends in many other Indian literatures. He has also been a campaigner for religious pluralism, ecological causes, womenMs liberation, civil rights and democratic socialism, music, painting, philosophy, culture, religion, and political thought. ;rof Satchidanandan has been on several important academic and literary bodies and the )ury of national awards for literature and cinema. He has taken part in scores of national and international seminars, edited anthologies of poems, short stories and essays in English, published and edited five important )ournals of culture and literature. His books of poems and essays have been te tbooks at the post/graduate level and sub)ect of academic research, Indian !iterature+ ;ositions and propositions, a collection of his English essays on Indian literature. #he countries he has visited as a writer include 1ussia, !atvia, #hailand, China, Croatia, (S&, $est 8ermany, Sweden and >rance. #apan .as 8upta+ How were you attracted by literature? $hat was the first book that drew your attention? ;rof Satchidanandan+ I was attracted to literature very early in life. I used to feel the magic of words while reading the 7alayalam &dhyatma 1amayana by E5huthachhan. I did not understand the whole of what I read as I was only 4 or 6 years old at that time* but I could feel the luminous radiance of the poet%s words and the intensity of his devotion to 1ama and Sita. 9es, that was the first ma)or book of my life, to be followed soon by 7ahabharata and the Holy 0ible, two other great human documents. #.8+ $hen did you start writing? $hat was your first printed composition?

;S+ I started writing at FG or FH, but it was nothing but an e ercise in poeticisation. 7y first poems were printed in college maga5ines, the one that appeared in a regular )ournal was probably a love poem* I was F4 at that time. #he )ournal was called "=ayakeralamM. #.8+ $hy do you basically write poetry? ;S+ #his is difficult to answer. ;oetry is my religion. I consider it to be the densest and most intense of verbal arts, and it gives me )oy. #.8+ How do you assess the reflection of modernism in Indian literature? ;S+ "7odernism% is an ambiguous term. $hen used as an aesthetic 'uality, we can find a lot that is "modern% and everliving in .ante, Shakespeare, 8halib or Kabir. (sed historically the term denotes an urge for discovering new formal devices fit to e press the comple modern e perience of hope and despair, of solitude and alienation, of the possibility of infinite progress and of the complete annihilation of the human race. In India, modernism chiefly reflects the fears and doubts of the urban middle class uprooted from their villages. 0y the late 43s however, a new radical avant/garde had come up in most of the languages representing the :ew !eft ideology in various forms. 0engali had its "Hungry 8eneration%, #elugu had its ".igambarakavalu% and "-irasam%, 7alayalam, 0engali, #elugu, Hindi and ;un)abi had several poets with serious social concern and revolutionary 5eal. #hen came another wave of .alit poetry and $omen%s ;oetry along with a poetry of regional and ecological consciousness. In short, today we will have to speak not of one modernism, but several "modernisms%. Some of these movements also have been termed "post/modern% because of some of their features like a concern for difference, an awareness of different "worlds%, the retrieval of tradition in novel ways and a critical stand towards the solipsistic and pessimistic tendencies of "high/modernism%. #he Nuttar/adhunik% movements in 0engali and 7alayalam, the "parishkruti%, or nativist movements in 7arathi and 8u)arati along with the subaltern literature of .alits, women and tribals in some sense are "post/modernist% though I would not like to use this loaded term. $e can e plain movements in Indian literature without recourse to $estern terms and concepts. #.8+ English writings by Indian authors have received a lot of recognition in recent times. -ernacular writings are also being translated in good numbers. $hat kind of institutional support, strategy and network are re'uired to take vernacular literature to the world at large? ;S+ "-ernacular% is a colonial term for the languages of the slaves or sub)ects. !et us instead use the term Indian languages. #rue, there is a new interest in English translations of works from Indian languages. Sahitya &kademi CIndian :ational &cademy of !iteratureD had already done pioneering work in the field by encouraging translations among Indian languages alongwith translations into English. :ow ,rient !ongman with their ".isha% series, East/$est with their "7anas% series and 7acmillan with their "7odern Indian :ovels in #ranslation% have )oined in besides ;enguin, 1upa, Kali and Katha. 0ut mostly these publications are meant for a pan/Indian readership. It is high

time we e plored possibilities of marketing translations abroad and also getting works translated into foreign languages other than English. Sahitya &kademi is trying to do this on a moderate scale. 0ut we need tie/ups with foreign publishing houses and distributors. #.8+ How do you manage time for creative literary works in spite of your busy schedule as the &kademi Secretary and how does the post of the &kademi Secretary affected your literary activities? ;S+ 9our concern is right. #he work in the &kademi leaves little time for my creative work. #he only free time I get is two/three hours in the early morning and occasionally some Sundays and public holidays. #his pressure however has had one advantage+ I choose to write only what is absolutely necessary, it has also given my writing a new intensity. #he work in the &kademi also gives me opportunities to e change notes with eminent Indian and at times foreign, writers. 7y creative range has definitely e panded during my so)ourn in .elhi. I have published three new collections of poetry in the last three years / after my taking over as Secretary. I have reduced prose/writing in 7alayalam, but have been writing articles in English some of which have been collected in my book "Indian !iterature + ;ositions and ;ropositions%. #wo collections of my poetry translated into English have also been published in the last three years / "How to 8o to the #ao #emple% and "Imperfect and other ;oems%. #hese are besides my earlier collection, "Summer 1ain%. #.8+ ;lease name some books and authors that drew your attention? ;S+ It may seem strange to you that I have mostly been reading India%s medieval poets in the recent months. 0asava, &kka 7ahadevi, &ndal, #ukaram, -emana, =nandev, Kabir, 7eerabai, 0ulle Shah... they simply fascinate me. 7ir5a 8halib is still our contemporary. &mong the contemporary Hindi poets, I particularly like Kunwar :arain, Kedarnath Singh and -inod Kumar Shukla. I consider &fsal &hmad Sayeed of ;akistan the best among contemporary (rdu poets / he is fresh and energetic. <imborska and #omas #ranstromer are two foreign poets who have attracted me in the recent years. &nd then there are novelists // Ka5ant5akis, 7ilan Kundera, 8arcia 7ar'ue5, =.7. Coet5e... my all time favourites // $ell, there are so many others too. #.8+ How do you consider internet for the promotion of literature in general and Indian literature in particular? 9our comments about 7eghdutam.com ;S+ $e should make full use of the possibility of internet in the promotion of Indian literatures by opening our own sites, providing information, even making selected te ts available for perusal. 7eghdutam is a good beginning, but you will have to be more choosy about the materials that you put on the net. #.8+ $hat is the perspective of &kademi%s website? ;S+ &t present, our website only provides basic information about the Sahitya &kademi. $e mean to e pand it by adding bibliographies, a $ho%s $ho of Indian !iterature, an interactive site and also some creative materials, chiefly from our )ournals.

#.8+ 9our future plan of action as the &kademi secretary. ;S+ #here are 'uite a few schemes on the anvil+ translations of ma)or Indian literary works into foreign languages, a series of collections of tribal oral literature, a thoroughly revised edition of the Encyclopaedia of Indian !iterature, improvements in the distribution and sales mechanism, special 7illennium programmes, preparations for the 8olden =ubilee of the &kademi, e pansion of &rchives of Indian literature, a scheme to publish books by young writers, supplementary histories of Indian literatures, a series of collections of $omen%s writing in Indian languages, more schemes for collaborative publication... #.8+ 9our future plan for literary works. ;S+ ;oems, as you know, are not planned beforehand. 0ut I have been working on a series of poems on Kerala and another on the saint/poets of India. I have already written some poems in both the series. I am also working on a book of alternative Indian poetics that I call "Sramana% poetics, a counter/hegemonic principle implicit in Indian literary practice, especially that of subaltern writing including 0hakti poetry. #.8+ $hat is your tip for budding writers? ;S+ In fact, even after more than thirty years of writing, I still consider myself a beginner because every new e perience calls for a new pattern of e pression, a new verbal structure. I can only re'uest the new writers to be honest to their e perience and honest to language. If you are truthful to a new e perience, you will certainly avoid the clichL and be fresh so that the element of wonder or magic in literature is kept alive.