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| m k harikumar |
"Hunger saved me and made me free"
a revelation of critical practice
Question: Today, there is an increase in people who lack new theories, thoughts, and stances. There is no perspective—no modern vision whatsoever. Sixteen years ago, you wrote a book titled Uttara-Utharanadhunikatha (Post-Postmodernism). It doesn't seem to have been discussed meaningfully. Would you agree that the vast majority of critics in Malayalam do not take an independent stance toward new theories and trends, and that they are driven by personal interests?
M.K. Harikumar: I have been writing about post-postmodernism since 2008. It was first presented in Aksharajalakam. I even wrote a whole book on the subject (Uttara-Utharanadhunikatha), featuring interviews with Western post-postmodern theorists like Raoul Eshelman, Nicolas Bourriaud, Alan Kirby, and Samuel Roberts. In addition, I wrote over thirty articles. However, none of this was discussed in our language. There is no compulsion regarding this; those who wanted to read it, read it. Naturally, those who lack knowledge about it cannot discuss it. Some people pretend not to see it simply because I wrote it, perhaps because I have criticized them or because I did not endorse their opinions.
They will accept and review a work if it is written by someone of their choosing. If you analyze their mindset, you will find that the majority of them carry the remnants of a feudal attitude. They hold various prejudices. I do not have these barriers; whoever writes, if there is substance in it, I will support them.
Your statement that there is "no independent stance towards new theories and trends" feels crucial. That is a problem of intellectual bankruptcy. The criticism written by university academics is unreadable. Convoluted language and archaic expressions stand out prominently. The language of most is the same, and their way of thinking is uniform. It is written for researchers; they have no original ideas of their own. Most of them lack the capacity to think. They do not know how to think.
Remember what prominent critic Colin Wilson said: that an artist travels against the force of gravity, and imagination is what helps him do so. This is an example of what it means to think. Here, no one is able to go beyond what they learned in universities. They are intoxicated by carrying old schools of thought on their heads and repeating the past. There must be a Zen value in thought. When you think, only that should exist; it is the meditation of freedom. Zen is thinking away from all bondages—it is a meditative form. To know a single moment in its true scope, it must be free from the weight, dominance, or judgment of anything else. Independent thinking arises in this state.
Malayalam critics have no theories of their own. A theory happens naturally within criticism; it is born from the combination of a perspective and an idea. Here, a bunch of people keep repeating the word "Marxist." Using a rusted method employed by many does not make someone a critic; it makes them a teacher. There is a long distance from a teacher to a critic. If you write an article applying psychologist Freud's ideas to a poem, you do not become an independent critic; that is merely an academic habit. The critics here only need to maintain the status quo; they require neither independent taste nor inquiry. They elevate the slavery of thought into a grand philosophy.
Question: Aksharajalakam is a column you have been writing for over a quarter of a century. Beyond being a mere literary column, it has become a mirror reflecting the subtle movements of contemporary literature. However, don't the sharp attacks you launch through this column invite severe hostility? How do you view the intolerance of our writers towards criticism?
M.K. Harikumar: Aksharajalakam started in Kerala Kaumudi in February 1998. It has now been 29 years. There is no other column like this in any Indian language. It is an in-depth analysis of literature and an aesthetic experience—not a routine arrangement of simply pleasing people.
This is neither mere opinion-mongering nor book introduction. Aksharajalakam has intervened. It continues to introduce new thoughts by challenging the status quo. Its content consists of a weekly article, related contemporary thoughts, and reviews of current writings. I write without tailing any political party or organization, which is why it might be uncomfortable for many. There are those who oppose this. Do not write off those who keep silent outwardly; they are likely engrossed in gossip. They are immersed in secret plots to destroy our public contact and independent personality as writers.
They will employ every tactic to obscure my books. When I sent the novel Sree Narayanaya to Mathrubhumi Weekly in 2015, they didn't even send an acknowledgment receipt. That didn't cause me any loss. Sree Narayanaya and Jalachaya are the ultimate peaks I managed to reach in novel writing. It is difficult even to find people to publish such works. Some tricksters lacking intellectual capacity have brought publishers under their control.
Those who are certain they won't gain anything from criticism have installed political leaders in the place of critics. Recently, I saw a middle-aged writer storming into a train with his novel, handing copies to political leaders sitting in the compartment, taking selfies, and posting them on Facebook to market it! Those who seek such degraded methods cannot have any pride in the creative excellence of their own work. They are just trying to market the book somehow. They go to party offices, influence leaders to make them speak the name of the book, record it, and show it to editors to establish themselves as great literary figures! Neither Kuttikrishna Marar nor Dr. Sukumar Azhikode would ever do such things.
Question: You have stated that this is an era where literary discussions have completely lost their authority. Isn't this a statement that cancels out your own ongoing literary activities?
M.K. Harikumar: It is true that literary discussions have lost their authority. Who is discussing literature here? Absurd discussions on nonsensical topics take place at literary festivals. You won't find people who read books seriously or love their ideas as dearly as life itself there. Instead, you find people with no originality who are unaware of past writers in literature. They won't have heard of Jayanarayanan or Unnikrishnan Thiruvazhiyod.
Today, literature is rarely discussed at book launch events or literary conferences. A few months ago, the Sahitya Akademi organized a discussion on P. Bhaskaran in Thiruvananthapuram. I went upon being invited to present a paper. However, fifteen minutes into the speech, the people on the stage were squirming in their seats. The organizers were displaying the discomfort of piles. I had to finish speaking rapidly. There is no space here to introduce a new idea, nor are there organizers with the mindset to listen to it.
I fail to understand by what logic my literary work is connected to this. I am someone who presents substantive literary discussions week after week. My columns like Anudhavanam and Aksharajalakam, along with other articles, are meant for that. For how many years has Hemingway's novel The Old Man and the Sea been interpreted here as a sign of man's great victory? It was corrected in my article. I opened a new path of ideas. I wrote that the work contains the grotesque acts of human cruelty and anti-nature. How delightful it is to see fish swimming in the sea! Large fish rising and dipping in the sea resemble a dance infused with divinity. When it swims, God is swimming too. But a human devoid of divinity injures it with his spear, ties it to a boat, lets other fish tear at it, and brings it ashore. What remained on the boat was only the skeleton of that massive fish. This is cruelty. This is a work proving that humans are incapable of witnessing God's dance. The unending vengeance of man came out through that old man; no one controls him. That beautiful fish in the sea becomes helpless. One must see this. When humans celebrate victory, the suppressed freedom has many dimensions. This is what is conveyed through my article. To view this act as a right to kill fish or as a sign of human triumph is sheer foolishness. Such cheap stances are examples of how a novel should not be read.
Question: I have noticed that you have written praise for many of your own works. In an interview, you also said, "What is there to boast so much about oneself?" and "The world doesn't even know those who praise themselves." Isn't this a contradiction?
M.K. Harikumar: I have not boasted about my articles. There are several other writers who do that routinely. They have fewer creative contributions; you might see one or two writings a year from them. I have criticized them out of the firm conviction that their work is below average.
However, they bring those works to literary platforms and discuss them. That is what I have pointed out. On the other hand, I have spoken of my actual achievements. If I don't speak of them, readers won't know. Since I do not have the backing of major publications, I need to state them for the knowledge of readers. I am the one who coined the compound word Uttara-Utharanadhunikatha (Post-Postmodernism). I was the first to say that postmodernism is dead. I formulated the philosophy of Navadwaitham (New Advaita) and expressed it in my novels Sree Narayanaya, Jalachaya, and Van Gogh-ine. The book titles Aathmayanangalude Khasak and Manushyambarangal were coined by me by joining words together. I am also the one who first wrote about Navadwaitham. I have published 38 books, in addition to columns and articles. After Dr. M. Leelavathy's generation, I am the one who has written the most. Aathmayanangalude Khasak (1984) is the first work based solely on a single Malayalam novel. I don't think it's a good idea to keep quiet about all this. This is the fiftieth year of my writing. It began when I wrote a poem while studying in the ninth grade and showed it to my Malayalam teacher, C.N. Kuttappan sir.
Question: You write that when many of today's critics equipped with the machinery of intellect write, a literary work falls to the ground paralyzed. Can you point out anyone leading Malayalam criticism in the right direction through the height of genius?
M.K. Harikumar: Many use the machinery of intellect. There are those who cannot write a single sentence expressing that they enjoyed a literary work. Yet, these same people will write and publish twenty-page articles in magazines about a single poem. They do not generate an independent appreciation; instead, they hunt down what others thought and display it. Appreciation requires a heart. In my reading, I use sensitivity and intuition rather than logic.
Most people simply pass off a literary work as a domain of art and beauty without depth. They are in a hurry to drag poetry into production-distribution systems, class struggle, and cultural materials. A young poet recently said that poetry is a system for equality and democracy. This is a misconception. If poetry were a system for democracy, we wouldn't need other democratic institutions; writing a single poem would instantly bring democracy and gender equality. In reality, poetry is artistic expression. If it lacks art, it isn't worth a straw.
Poetry should not be reduced to a medium for proving and demanding democracy and equality. Beauty holds the first place in poetry. The great epic masterpieces of the world—Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach, Pablo Neruda's The Heights of Macchu Picchu, Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, and T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land—do not discuss equality and democracy. Try to understand this.
Poetry contains the intense melancholies and cosmic inquiries of the artist. Ignoring all this and viewing poetry merely as an instrument of democracy is wrong; it is an immature perspective. If there are supporters of this view, it must be understood that people with immature views have multiplied like comets.
Art has a meditative quality. The problem today is that critics who do not know this by themselves end up writing criticism. Children graduating from universities approach and analyze literature with intellect, destroying the empathy required for it.
Question: Along with criticism, you also write novels. Why do you occasionally drift away from criticism like this?
M.K. Harikumar: Novels were at the bottom of my mind. I wrote them when creative pressure arose. They cannot be classified as traditional novels.
Works like Sree Narayanaya, Jalachaya, and Van Gogh-ine are written in a way that rediscovers the literary form of the novel. After Jalachaya came out in 2012, several readers informed me with evidence that many wrote novels mimicking it. I changed the concept of the art of the novel and shaped a novel narrative. One novel should not be like another; every novel should be a marvel. Therefore, I have not slipped away from criticism. I always write critical articles.
However, what feels most pitiful is something else: when I see some people stealing the ideas I write in Aksharajalakam and Anudhavanam and posting them on Facebook pretending they are their own, I feel pity—isn't it due to poverty of ideas? They think they are the only ones reading this column!
Question: Instead of Advaita philosophy, which assigned a central place to Brahman, you have placed man at the center through the theory of Navadwaitham. Are you rejecting Advaita philosophy through this?
M.K. Harikumar: Advaita and Navadwaitham have no relation; naming it that way is a convention in the field of philosophy. Advaita is Upanishadic philosophy, which proclaims that there is no difference between this universe and our consciousness—everything is one. Thus, even God is not separate.
Navadwaitham, however, is distinct from that. It deals with a state where the self-negation and self-construction of an object's existence happen in a single moment. I have described this in my book Ente Manifesto. A word has existence in itself; it negates itself, joins another word, and thus constructs itself. Language survives by thus self-negating and self-constructing.
Question: We saw writers in this election too, competing to issue statements in favor of various parties. What is your stance on writers who display allegiance and commitment to partisan politics rather than commitment to writing?
M.K. Harikumar: Writers have no ideals; do not misunderstand them. Still, some try to create the illusion that they are people of ideals. Writers favor whoever is in power. Writers everywhere in the service of authorities. In the story The Magazine, Isaac Bashevis Singer writes about how, right after Stalin came to power, dissident writers overnight turned into Bolsheviks. If it means getting a position and an award, it doesn't even take an hour to lean toward any side. No matter how many positions and awards they get, they are never satisfied! If they see any writer thinking independently, they will gossip about him and ruin his opportunities. Changampuzha wrote about this beautifully in his poetic work Paadunna Pisaachu (The Singing Devil).
They tend to view those who criticize them like enemies. This is what is called a "broad heart."
Question: A new government is coming in. In the changed political scenario, what interventions do you think the government should make in the literary and cultural sphere of Kerala?
M.K. Harikumar: I have no experience regarding the subject of the cultural sphere and the government; I don't know if the government can do anything. The idea that institutions like the Sahitya Akademi exist only for certain party members has been propagated here. In the past two decades, the Kerala Sahitya Akademi has trampled Malayalam literature. I have never seen such an impolite, ungrateful, and ignorant administration in my life. I saw certain people being awarded continuously!
If you go to a government hospital, the doctor doesn't check which party the patient belongs to; they examine the patient, diagnose the disease, and treat them. There is no politics there. One doesn't need to change parties to get consideration at a village office. The Sahitya Akademi should behave similarly. They have no right to move an inch beyond that because it is a government institution, not a party's.
For the past few decades, we have seen partisan politics swallow the Sahitya Akademi. What hatred they propagated! Sunil P. Ilayidom, who ran around everywhere giving speeches to prove he is living in the era of Ambedkar, won't speak about injustice. There is no use in speeches by those lacking a sense of justice. Ilayidom simply sat and speechified, enjoying the nepotism shown by the Sahitya Akademi. The Left leaders at the Akademi had intense fury toward independent thinkers!
Question: How would you signpost the critic M.K. Harikumar in the art of Malayalam criticism?
M.K. Harikumar: The critic M.K. Harikumar articulated his own philosophy. For the first time in the history of Malayalam literature, he presented his own manifesto. I was able to introduce concepts like Navadwaitham, Thanimanasu (Pure Mind), Vayanakkaranute Krithi (The Reader's Work), Jalaathmakatha (Aquatic Nature), Uttara-Utharanadhunikatha (Post-Postmodernism), and Samvedanaathmaka Vimarsanam (Interactive/Sensory Criticism). All of these are new; none were stolen from anyone. Based on these thoughts, I wrote literary works—novels, poems, and stories. My criticism spans the fields of theory, creativity, columns, and philosophy. I am reminded of what Sukumar Azhikode wrote: that it is through people like Harikumar that the blazing torches of criticism must rise henceforth.
Aathmayanangalude Khasak (1984) is the first work that turned literary criticism into an art. It has an internal language—a romantic, aesthetic, surrealistic, and mystical language. It is a work that took criticism out of the iron armor of logic and into language and art. The universities here won't talk about it; that is their "breadth." Equally relevant are books like Veena Poovu Kavyangalkku Mumbe (Before Veena Poovu's Poetry) and Karunya - Karunyathinte Adrishyatha (Compassion - The Invisibility of Compassion). Both are deconstructions. The former is the first book to refute decades-old arguments about what the flower in Veena Poovu symbolizes. Karunya - Karunyathinte Adrishyatha was written by completely rejecting prevailing notions about Asan’s Karuna. In it, Upagupta is put on trial, and it is declared that Asan is not a Buddhist. The book was written to criticize Upagupta and establish that compassion is an emotion we still need to discover from within.
God can be seen anywhere, but compassion is nowhere to be found. Through the column Aksharajalakam, I was able to discuss literature and prove that it can be made to be read by many. Aksharajalakam is not a column meant to bring name and fame to anyone. There are social, political, and cultural issues that I have logically analyzed, and I wrote with fierce disagreements.
Nikos Kazantzakis says in his work Christ Recrucified that hunger saved us, hunger gave us freedom. The same thing helped me too. It is the story of birds raised in a net for sale. Because they were birds raised to be sold, they were given good feed. Only one bird ate nothing; thus, it became lighter and thinner, and that single bird flew out through the meshes of the net. That is why I wrote that hunger saved and freed me.
As a writer, I too gave up food—meaning, I did not go fraternizing with the big names; I didn't go to such houses to make omelets to get their breadcrumbs. I didn't go to a great man's house at dawn to cook food for him. I did not compose panegyrics. For those reasons, I did not get their favors. Therefore, my weight decreased, and I managed to slip out through the meshes of the net. Hunger saved me and made me free.
Question: What is your "Interactive/Sensory Criticism" (Samvedanaathmaka Vimarsanam)?
M.K. Harikumar: I have written articles about this. The book Ananya Manya Ormapathakalil Lokam Etha Punarjanikkunnu is its realization. It is the name I gave to my criticism. The critic's sensitivity is criticism; it is interactive. It converses with a literary work, and through that mutual dialogue, it arrives at a new idea. When evaluating Sunny Thayankari's novel Kulapathikal, I arrived at the strange idea that "man died in God's mind." When reviewing Swami Bodhitheertha's book Bharatha Darsana Manjari, something similar happened: I discovered that in the marrow of the human mind, Charvaka philosophy and Yoga philosophy are in conflict at every moment. This is not taken from the works of any Western critics; it is my own.
Question: Which branch of literature is struggling for survival in today's Malayalam literature?
M.K. Harikumar: It has been a long time since I felt that the short story died. It was the journalists in traditional literary media, who cannot recognize a good story when they see one, who led the short story to its death. They print a worthless story and, to trumpet it as a major event, print the author's photo on the cover! After U.P. Jayaraj and E. Harikumar, I haven't seen short story writers of that caliber.
criticism, malayalam writers, malayalam language, poetry, thiruvithakur, poetis meet, critical jistice, revaluation,
*m k harikumar interviewd by journalist Jayan Madathil for NEPTUNE online magazine .
