m k harikumar's Akshara Jaalakam in kalakaumudi
Monday, April 27, 2009
Sunday, April 26, 2009
ഉള്ളതും ഇല്ലാത്തതും
മിത്തുകളൊഴിഞ്ഞു പോകുന്ന
ഈ വേളകള്‍ ആശ്വാസകരമാണ്‌.
എന്താണോ എന്നെ സൃഷ്ടിച്ചത്‌
അത് ഞാന്‍ തന്നെ ഉണ്ടാക്കാന്‍ ശ്രമിക്കയാണ്‌.
ചില കൊടുക്കല്‍ വാങ്ങലുകള്‍
എവിടെയോ ഉണ്ട്‌.
എന്നാല്‍ എനിക്ക്‌ ഒന്നും ആയിരിക്കാന്‍
ആഗ്രഹമില്ല.
മാത്രമല്ല എന്താണോ ഞാന്‍ ,
അതിനോട്‌ പൊരുത്തപ്പെടാന്‍
എനിക്ക്‌ മനസ്സുമില്ല.
എന്നാല്‍ ഏകാന്തതയൊന്നുമല്ല ഇത്‌.
ഇത്‌ ഞാന്‍ തന്നെ ആയിരിക്കാം.
ഞാന്‍ എന്താണെന്ന് പറയാന്‍
എനിക്ക്‌ ഒരു പാഠപുസ്തകമോ , ഗുരുവോ ഇല്ല.
ഞാന്‍ തന്നെ എന്‍റ്റെ ഘടകങ്ങളെ
ഇഴപിരിക്കാന്‍ നോക്കുകയാണ്‌.
ഞാന്‍ ഉണ്ട്‌;
പക്ഷേ അതു മാറിക്കൊണ്ടിരിക്കുന്ന വാസ്തവികതകളുടെ
ഒരു സാന്നിദ്ധ്യം മാത്രമാണ്‌.
സ്ഥിരമായിട്ടൊന്നുമില്ല എന്നതാണ്‌ ,
ഞാന്‍ ഉണ്ട്‌ എന്ന യാഥാര്‍ത്ഥ്യത്തെ തന്നെ
അര്‍ത്ഥപുര്‍ണമാക്കുന്നത്‌.
പക്ഷേ, ഞാനൊന്നും മാതൃകയാക്കാനോ,
പിന്തുടരാനോ ഒരുക്കമല്ല.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
m k harikumar's profile
M.K. Harikumar is a leading critic, poet and columnist of modern Malayalam literature. He was born at Koothattukulam a typical hamlet of Kerala (Ernakulam district) on 30th July 1962. Apart from his unconventional and assertive style of writing, Harikumar is also known for his objectivity, distinctive thought process and selection of subjects
Harikumar was in the lime light with his very first book, “Aathmayangalude Khasak” (1984). It was an in-depth analytical study of late O V Vijayan’s path-breaking novel “Khasakkinte Ithihasam”. The work won him many an award and accolade.
Academic Career
He had his schooling at the local Government School and later joined Deva Matha College at nearby Kuravilangadu for his graduation in economics. He had his postgraduation from Nirmala College, Moovattupuzha.
Literary career
The literary sparks in him were evident during his school days itself. He wrote and presented plays on stage during his upper primary school days. He was equally good at sports. But he chose the world of letters along with his academic career. He had a small stint as teacher handling Malayalam and English classes in a private college.
A voracious reader, Harikumar has over the years traversed through the length, breadth and depths of literature even as he continued his writing. Meanwhile for earning a living he aptly chose journalism as a profession, initially as a free lancer, and then joining some of the leading vernacular dailies like “Mangalam ''and ''Kerala Kaumudi''.
Harikumar has gone through a rough patch of uncertainty in life after his college days mainly on account of his self-inflicted indecisiveness. Even as he strived to prove his journalistic talents while working as a sub editor, Desk Chief and Bureu Chief in the vernacular dailies, his passion for creative writing haunted him like an invincible spirit. There was a stage during which he even feared whether he would ever write again anything other than the conventional news or rewrite the reader’s mails.
In Kerala Kaumudi, he joined as a reporter, and later became Bureau Chief in Ernakulam. He learned to live frugally with his income along with a nucleus family of his own..But the writer in him was restless in the cage of journalistic profession. .By this time, he published quite a lot of articles of his own in leading periodicals.
Columnist
His regular column “Aksharajaalakam” in Kerala Kaumudi and Kalakaumudi soon became very popular. This earned him the widest spectrum of readers on account of its sharpness, punch and gravity. This column also helped him to be recognized as a serious critic in Malayalam literature
Entry into serious writing
His real entry into serious writing was with presenting an introduction for “Three stories”, a compilation of short stories by three upcoming young writers, namely Subhash Charvaka, Rishi Natesh and Monsi Joseph. The introductory piece was titled “Oru Nischalathayude Nimishavum, Oru Nisabdadayude Nimishavum”(A moment of stillness and a moment of silence)
The biggest break in his sprouting literary career was the publication of “Aathmayanangalude Khasak” in1984. Even today it is considered as the one and only serious study into O V Vijayan’s renowned novel, “Khasakkinte Ithihasam”. This was written while he was studying for post graduation.
Most acclaimed works
“Aathmayanangalude Khasak” had many firsts to its credit: It was the first critical book in Malayalam exclusively about a Malayalam novel, it was the first book about O.V. Vijayan, and it was the first book on “Khazakhinte Ithihasam”. In fact this young writer hailing from an obscure village had no other way but to sell a piece of his ancestral property to get the book published!
O V Vijayan, after going through the book wrote to Harikumar “This book makes me humble; though there is an attempt to overindulge in the ecstasy of language, the minute insights by the author is amazing”
“Manushyambaraanthangal” (Horizons of human mind) Next major book by Harikumar hit literary Kerala in 1989 arousing a little bit of controversy revolving round its title. The was coined by Harikumar himself combining two words-Manushayan referring to man and Ambaram referring to sky. The criticism was that there is no such word in Malayalam language and literature.
Other major works
In 1995, Harikumar took up a study under a scholarship of the Kerala Sahithya Academy on the “Creativity of ego element” in Malayalam stories. It was a through analysis the works of leading writers like Thakazhi, Ponkunnam Varkey, Vaikkom Mohammed Basheer, M T Vasudevan Nair, N Mohanan, O V Vijayan, Anand and N S Madhavan. It was later published under the title “Ahambodhathinte Sargatmkatha”
He has also written seriously about writers of the post modern era. These were the pieces he wrote in “Katha” magazine during 1992-95 period. Later they were compiled and published under the title “Katha Adunikathakku Sesham” (Stories in the Post Modern Era). The works of writers including Sara Joseph, Methil Radhakrishnan, Pattathuviala karunakaran, V P Sivakumar, M Sukumaran, U P Jayaraj, Jayanarayanan, and Manasi were subjected to close study.
His other works include “Veenapoovu Kaavyangalkku Munpe” which is a critical study of “Veenapoovu” of Mahakavi Kumaranasan, “Puthiya Kavithayude Darsanam”, an enquiry into the new generation poetry, “Akshara Jaalakam”, a compilation of his column in Kerala kaumudi and Kalakaumudi, “Navaadwaitham, a study of O V Vijayan’s novels, , chinthakalkitayile salabham, ente manifesto[ harikumar's literary philosophy].
In 1995 Harikumar, with his group of close friends instituted an Award under the title ''Aathmayananagalude Khazak Award” for the Latest Trends in Malayalam Literature. The award is now in its 15th year without interruption.
Awards
He has won Kerala Sahitya academy's Vilasini award [ rs 50000 and citation] in 2009.
Another important achievement is India Government's Fellowship in literature in 2000.
He is selected as the decade's best Malayalam columnist by Express Herald online newspaper in America in 2010.
Foray into blogging
Apart from his active literary pursuits, Harikumar has of late successfully forayed into blogging. A tour over his array of blogs both in English and Malayalam is an enriching experience. These blogs have a commendable assortment of poems, interviews, literary reviews and thematic picture galleries.
His own literary philosophy
He introduced his own literary philosophy called navadwaitham.His new book 'Ente Manifesto' is discussing this new idea.
Publishing
Also he has started a publishing house under the banner Bluemango Books. It has already published original works and translations of many an upcoming writer and poet. Bluemango has also instituted annual award to the best student writer. This versatile literary activist has also launched an ambitious mission to plant about one crore trees all over the globe.
Family
He lives with his wife Anitha, and two daughters, Malavika and Hima at Tripunithura. His evenings are totally devoted for his family
എം. കെ.ഹരികുമാറിന്റെ കൃതികൾ
books of m k harikmar
- 1] Ahambodhaththinte sargathmakatha [1995];deep look in the short stories of malayalam writers, viz.. Thakazhi, Basheer, Ponkunnam Varkey, Pattathuvila, N Mohanan, M T Vasudevan Nair, O V Vijayan…
- 2] Aathmayangngalude Khasakk in 1984, 1005, 2005
- 3] Manushyaambaranthangal (The horizons of human mind 1989) -Metaphysical ideas and thoughts to capture the ecstasy of writing
- 4] Kadha adhunikathakku sesham (2000) - A resourceful critical insight into post- modern Malayalam short story criticism in 2000
- 5]Puthiya kavithayude darsanam (2001)- Philosophical probe into the character and content of contemporary Malayalam Poetry
- 6]Veenapoovu kaavyangngalkku munpe (2002)-A critical analysis of 'Veenapoovu', the acclaimed poem of Kumaranasan[2002]
- 7]Akshara jaalakam. (2003) An anthology of articles published in Kerala kaumudi and Kala kaumudi
- 8]Navadwaitham- vijayante novalukalilude :an inquiry in to the works of o v vijayan [ 2006]
- 9] ente manifesto . philosophy of navadwaitham 2010
- 10 ] maraviyute nirmanam . philosophy of navadwaitham 2011
- 11] pranayagniyumayi kafka [2010] ,critical essays
- 12] chinthakalkkitayile salabham 2009 ,crtitical essays
- 13] basheerinte prayojanam 2010 ,critical essays
- LINKS:blogs:http://www.newsmk-
harikumar.blogspot.com/ - http://www.slent5valley.
blogspot.com/ - http://www.aksharajaalakam.
blogspot.com/ - http://www.mkhari.blogspot.
com/ - http://aksharajaalakam.com/
- http://www.hari-kumarmk.
blogspot.com/ - http://www.indiaweekly.in/
inner.php?t_id=14&page=0 - http://www.goledy.com/search/
www+newsmk-harikumar+blogspot+ com - http://www.linkedin.com/in/
mkharikumar - https://www.blogcatalog.com/
blogs/literary-news-pages.html - http://ricerca.virgilio.it/
ricerca?f=hp&qs=m+k+harikumar - http://www.fuelmyblog.com/
index.jsp?f=25&pageNum=1 - http://www.kaumudiplus.com/
news.php?nid= 7171e95248ff768e1ebee3edde01ea 7a&mcid=26&msid= - http://www.ameinfo.com/105678.
html - http://www.hindu.com/2006/10/
04/stories/2006100416710200. htm - http://www.hindu.com/mp/2007/
02/10/stories/ 2007021002120400.htm - http://bluewhale-
bluemangobooksblogspotcom. blogspot.com/
Monday, April 20, 2009
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
At chithramoola
m k harikumar is collecting sacred water from CHITHRAMOOLA in kutajaadri , kollur, karnataka ,the birth place of Sauparnika.
Friday, April 10, 2009
എം. കെ ഹരികുമാറുമായി അഭിമുഖം ഇന്ത്യാ വീക്കിലി മാഗസിനില്‍
''ചവറുകഥകള്‍ക്ക്‌ വേണ്ടി
വക്കാലത്തുമായി വരാന്‍
നല്ല തൊലിക്കട്ടി വേണം''
എം. കെ ഹരികുമാറുമായി നടത്തിയ അഭിമുഖം
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Sunday, April 5, 2009
അ ഒരു വലിയ മുഖംമൂടി
അ ഒരു വലിയ മുഖംമൂടി
അണിഞ്ഞു.
അ എന്ന അക്ഷരത്തില്‍ തുടങ്ങുന്ന
വാക്കുകളില്‍ മാത്രമാണ്‌ മുഖംമൂടിയുണ്ടായിരുന്നത്‌.
മറ്റുവാക്കുകള്‍ അവയുടെ തുടക്കത്തിലുള്ള
അക്ഷരങ്ങളോട്‌ അഭ്യര്‍ത്ഥിച്ചത്‌ ഞാന്‍ വ്യക്തമായി കേട്ടു:
ഒരു മറ ആവശ്യമാണ്‌ .
ഒരു അക്ഷരവും തനി രൂപത്തില്‍
നില്‍ക്കാന്‍ ഇപ്പോള്‍ ഇഷ്ടപ്പെടുന്നില്ല.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Raoul Eshelman Interviewed by M K Harikumar
Performatist works take authoriality to an extreme -
says Prof. Dr. Raoul Eshelman
Interviewd by m k harikumar
1) In performance level, how performatism differs from magical realism and fantasy
Performatism is about the possibility of experiencing transcendence aesthetically. It does not necessarily involve magical or fantastic themes. When it does, however, these themes are presented using the specific device I call double framing. This works by connecting the total logic of the work (the outer frame) with scenes within the work (inner frames) in such a way that we cannot help but believe something. A classic example is the movie American Beauty. In the outer frame, the dead hero, Lester Burnham, flies over his home town and says that his trivial life is beautiful. He also says that when we, too, are dead, we will come to share his point of view. His unbelievable statement about the beauty of life is however confirmed in several scenes or inner frames in the movie (most notably in the one with the famous plastic bag dancing in the wind). In the end, we have no choice but to believe the hero. The movie has a self-contained logic that we must either accept or reject as a whole.
Magical realism is a genre typical of postmodernism. It involves overlapping levels of reality that leave us undecided about what is real and what is not. A work like One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez works in this way. At the end of the novel we don’t know what to believe and what not to believe. A performatist work, by contrast, forces us to believe in something, to take a specific attitude of belief in spite of our skepticism.
2) How do you relate the total performance of a [fictional] world
to the reality of life?
A performatist work imposes itself as a whole on the reader or viewer. Its aim is to affect that person in a fundamental, total way. However, because the performatist work does this using force, it also provokes resistance on the part of the recipient. The performatist work intervenes in the reality of a person’s life. However, it has an ambivalent effect because that person is aware that something is being imposed on him or her. The performatist work can inspire, but also provoke resistance because it challenges us to believe. In this regard it is similar to the challenge posed to us by religious belief. The difference is that unlike religion, no binding social obligations are attached to performatist art. Our attitude of belief is an aesthetic, and not a practical, experience. This aesthetic experience can nonetheless still affect our real lives in positive ways.3) Is life itself like performatism, and if so, why?When the artistic devices used in performatism come to dominate art and culture almost entirely, then life itself will seem to be like performatism. This is an illusion that occurs in every epoch, though.
The performatist view of life is what philosophers call constructivist. It suggests that we understand reality by creating constructs that for a time may seem to overlap with that reality. In truth, our present constructs can always be replaced by future ones. However, this is not easy to do. The constructs that make up performatism are slowly replacing the ones that make up postmodernism. This process may take many years, and even decades.
4)How much should a writer/artist deviate from old stereotyped repetitions?The idea that a radical break with tradition is a virtue in itself is typical of modernism. Modernism took innovation to the most radical extremes, but also exhausted the formal possibilities for creating new styles.
Postmodernism sees innovation ironically, as a mere variant of something old. It tries to confuse the old and the new as much as possible, to make the difference between them undecidable.
Performatism is like postmodernism in the sense that it does not try to create works of art that pretend to be completely new and original. This is why performatism is not a new style. Its innovation consists in making us assume a posture of belief within a double frame.
5) In perfomatism what is the role of the reader or viewer?Because performatism is imposed on the reader/viewer, it acts upon him or her totally. The reader/viewer has no choice but to accept the work as a whole. However, he or she will as a rule still resist the work’s force. The performatist work motivates the reader/viewer to either believe or not to believe. He or she can either reject or accept the work as a whole. Performatism tries to make the reader take a positive attitude towards wholes of whatever kind.
60 In this contemporary technological world, can a cultural product be an authorless thing, without past or future?In ideal terms, yes. Performatist works of art and literature seek to force themselves on us as wholes and make us believe them. Ideally, we would be affected by the work’s performance and by nothing else. In the real world this can happen only for a very short time. All cultural products eventually become historical. They link up with the past and provide guidance for the future. Their authors appear as the personified agents of history and may even become more important to us than the works themselves.
7)In the present philosophy of literature, does memory have any value?In performatism memory has a value if it refers back to an originary state that we must believe in. The psychoanalyst C.G. Jung’s theory of archetypes is similar to the performatist attitude towards memory. Jung thinks that we all share a common consciousness of archetypes that each person develops in his or her own way. A performatist work might force us to “recall” and believe in a certain archetype or originary situation. In The Life of Pi, for example, the hero recalls an originary situation, in this case a shipwreck in which he alone survived.
Postmodernism also emphasizes memory, but it treats it ironically, as something that never gets what it seeks to recall from the past. For postmodernism, there is always an unbridgeable gap between the way things were in the past and the way we remember them now. In remembering, we fall into a nostalgia that make it impossible to ever recover the past completely; past and present become hopelessly confused.
8) you said that metaphysical orientation is no longer on death and its proxies, but on fictionally framed states of transcendence... what is the essence of this transcendence or what is the aim of transcendence?
For performatism, transcendence has no particular essence or aim that we could establish beforehand. Or, to put this another way, its essence or aim is aesthetic and not religious. Performatist works allow us to become aware of and/or feel the possibility of transcendence within a work of art or literature. The actual content of this feeling of transcendence can range from an intense, almost religious feeling to a strongly felt experience of change. Performatism may make us feel as if we had a religious experience, but it is not the same as religion or a substitute for religion, because our belief is limited to the artistic performance.
9)Is the author returning?The author isn’t returning, but authoriality is. The author in humanist thinking is a stable, reliable source of meaning to which we turn to understand a work of narrative fiction. Authoriality is a startling, discomforting effect within the fictional work. It arises when we are confronted by a narrator who imposes himself on us, who seems to know everything, who gives us little or no choice as to how to interpret the story. Performatist works take authoriality to an extreme. They can do this in two ways. They can confront us with first-person narrators who are omniscient or who are always right, or they can present us with simple or stupid characters who have authorial powers, i.e., turn out to be right in the end. Authoriality does not necessarily restore the feeling that there is a stable, reliable author behind the work. Rather, we have the feeling of being manipulated, of having rightness forced on us artificially by an author who is hidden and unknowable. The author (like a god) remains unknowable and may even appear threatening to us.
100what do you mean by desexualisation in literature?Postmodern literature and culture emphasize boundary transgression. Applied to sex, this means that sexual excess (obscenity) as well as mixing different kinds of sexual orientation (gender) have the most cultural significance. Performatist works of fiction emphasize the opposite. They place frames around people (of whatever sexual orientation) that tend to restrict their sexuality in some way. Such characters in turn tend to act in a chaste, rather than a promiscuous, way. This kind of chastity has a formal, rather than a moral quality, though. It is the result of a single performance within a double frame and not of following a universal moral code.
11) Are signs, semiotics outdated?No. But we need to experience signs in terms of their unity with things. Performatism forces us to do this through double framing. The inner frame creates a unity between a thing and a sign. The outer frame confirms this unity again on a higher level. The work in effect becomes a gigantic sign which we must believe in. Our belief however is aesthetic and not practical; it is restricted to the work itself.
12] Is literature a discovery of one man?If by this is meant that literary creation is first and foremost an individual act, I do not entirely agree. Individual imagination is of the greatest importance to make a work of literature successful and appealing. But individual creation is never entirely original or unique. Even the most brilliant artists and writers share devices, ideas, and styles with others. Concepts like “romanticism,” “postmodernism,” or “performatism” are needed to describe these shared qualities and make sense of them as a whole.
13) You says that language is a massive instrument to service the subject. Is the chain of signifiers an irrelevant distraction?For performatism, discourse and chains of signifiers are outside distractions that must be shut out as much as possible. Only by cutting itself off from the flow of outside signs can the subject attain a feeling of wholeness and oneness. The problem is that a whole person largely cut off from signs cannot communicate well. Performatist plots are often centered around this paradox. In such a case, the performance would involve communicating successfully with someone else using as few signs and as little discourse as possible. In Life of Pi, for example, the hero invents his own signs to communicate with the tiger to keep from being eaten. At the same time, he also invents the beautiful story about inventing signs for the tiger. His beautiful story is almost certainly not true, but because he experienced these things entirely alone, we have no way of discrediting him completely. Performatism seems to say the attitude of believing is more important than the truth content of discourse itself.
14) In [performatist] writing, is there any relevance to subjectivity?
Performatist writing tries to create a free space in which subjectivity can develop. Because we are saturated with outside influences (discourse, signs etc.) this is very difficult. The subject is always dependent on something else that diminishes its subjectivity and tears it apart. A whole subject is however completely isolated. Performatism tries to create minimal conditions under which subjectivity could develop. However this is very difficult and not always assured of success.
R.E. (b. 1956) is presently Visiting Professor of Comparative Literature at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich and Director of the East European Honours Programme there. He received his Ph.D. in Slavic Literature from the University of Konstanz in 1988 and his Habilitation from the University of Hamburg in 1995. His most recent book is Performatism, or the End of Postmodernism (Aurora, Colorado 2007). He is married and has two children.
R eshelman links
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)