At one of the literary events, Perumal Murugan said in Tamil: Times ago, I thought I could write anything. Today, there is a fear. Me believes Perumal Murugan, One Part Woman and Pyre. Possibly, when he wrote them Perumal Murugan was a writer who did not have to look behind. He just had to stare at the paper, write down stories, perhaps midnight; Perumal said he wrote between 12 and three midnight. Perumal Murugan announced his death as a writer and the fright morphs into a clutch of political poems: Songs of a Coward: Poems of exile. His English translator Aniruddhan Vasudevan notes: He wrote these poems during that period of exile when he was struggling to find his bearings, trying to make sense of all that was happening in his life and how it might affect his existence as a person and writer. 210 poems, political poems, are perhaps something unsual. Fear walks the book. Perumal is an honest customer, owning up a fear, a nauseating way of living. The poem, Surrender, runs: I/bring a flower/You/bring a sword .. Not only a fight/Even peace is not possible/Only surrender/Total surrender. Shivers a Touch - Me- Not: ....They waited/When the first leaf unfolded/ one of them touched it/with his threatening voice/It shuddered and shrank/ After that, the touch of their voice was enough/Not a single leaf unfurled. In A Baby Crow, the poet is upset ...Any friendly smile lasts/only as long as the traffic lights do. Are there smiles in Tamil Nadu? Son Ganesh asks: Why is he disliked so much and he has turned over reading One Part Woman. Rama has all his Tamil writings ordered from Kalachuvadu. Sitting and talking at literary festivals, Perumal may have intoned his own lines: ...It is not easy/getting used to being/an exhibition piece. Maybe in nights of 2015 and 2016, Perumal might have pondered over hanging up and the hint is there in The Song of a Coward .....A coward/never turns into a murderer/But/he does think about suicide/and does it too. Is the poet shuddering, seeing Bhakts and feeling the Modi Fear barbering India since 2014, in A Full-Body Shave: The king has decreed/ that humans shall be skinned alive.....And the artists stand/dripping blood/from searing wounds/and pretending that/they are just getting/ a full-body shave. In yet another piece Perumal confesses: I dont wish to live any longer. Bhakt India has snuffed joy in living; joy there is in killing or shutting up. It had never been so. Surprisingly Perumal does not invoke Marx and the Left and the Red Flag. The Left never has stood for freedom. The term Bhakt is nowhere. He seems to suggest an excuse to live in Nature: My gaze falls anew/on nature/Nature is the last refuge/for one who has lost everything/has nothing/is dead.... Yes/Time/asks me to make/my poetic subject/pure nature/that knows/no human scent. Will Perumal of One Part Woman ever be? He is a dryland farmer, school teacher and a poet. Will the poet tap the computer key board or is it going to be Delete? In an interview a journalist asked him about the day's politics. No remarks, Virumbavillai, said Perumal in Tamil. He is not going to back out. He is going to fight with words. If Perumal backs out, its over. One billion Cowards there will be. When is your next book Sir?
Monday, December 18, 2017
Songs of a Coward
At one of the literary events, Perumal Murugan said in Tamil: Times ago, I thought I could write anything. Today, there is a fear. Me believes Perumal Murugan, One Part Woman and Pyre. Possibly, when he wrote them Perumal Murugan was a writer who did not have to look behind. He just had to stare at the paper, write down stories, perhaps midnight; Perumal said he wrote between 12 and three midnight. Perumal Murugan announced his death as a writer and the fright morphs into a clutch of political poems: Songs of a Coward: Poems of exile. His English translator Aniruddhan Vasudevan notes: He wrote these poems during that period of exile when he was struggling to find his bearings, trying to make sense of all that was happening in his life and how it might affect his existence as a person and writer. 210 poems, political poems, are perhaps something unsual. Fear walks the book. Perumal is an honest customer, owning up a fear, a nauseating way of living. The poem, Surrender, runs: I/bring a flower/You/bring a sword .. Not only a fight/Even peace is not possible/Only surrender/Total surrender. Shivers a Touch - Me- Not: ....They waited/When the first leaf unfolded/ one of them touched it/with his threatening voice/It shuddered and shrank/ After that, the touch of their voice was enough/Not a single leaf unfurled. In A Baby Crow, the poet is upset ...Any friendly smile lasts/only as long as the traffic lights do. Are there smiles in Tamil Nadu? Son Ganesh asks: Why is he disliked so much and he has turned over reading One Part Woman. Rama has all his Tamil writings ordered from Kalachuvadu. Sitting and talking at literary festivals, Perumal may have intoned his own lines: ...It is not easy/getting used to being/an exhibition piece. Maybe in nights of 2015 and 2016, Perumal might have pondered over hanging up and the hint is there in The Song of a Coward .....A coward/never turns into a murderer/But/he does think about suicide/and does it too. Is the poet shuddering, seeing Bhakts and feeling the Modi Fear barbering India since 2014, in A Full-Body Shave: The king has decreed/ that humans shall be skinned alive.....And the artists stand/dripping blood/from searing wounds/and pretending that/they are just getting/ a full-body shave. In yet another piece Perumal confesses: I dont wish to live any longer. Bhakt India has snuffed joy in living; joy there is in killing or shutting up. It had never been so. Surprisingly Perumal does not invoke Marx and the Left and the Red Flag. The Left never has stood for freedom. The term Bhakt is nowhere. He seems to suggest an excuse to live in Nature: My gaze falls anew/on nature/Nature is the last refuge/for one who has lost everything/has nothing/is dead.... Yes/Time/asks me to make/my poetic subject/pure nature/that knows/no human scent. Will Perumal of One Part Woman ever be? He is a dryland farmer, school teacher and a poet. Will the poet tap the computer key board or is it going to be Delete? In an interview a journalist asked him about the day's politics. No remarks, Virumbavillai, said Perumal in Tamil. He is not going to back out. He is going to fight with words. If Perumal backs out, its over. One billion Cowards there will be. When is your next book Sir?
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