All you, who hate Karan Johar and the likes....

This one is for you.

This is a translation(by me) of the foreword written by Jayakanthan for his short novel "Not because of kindness" ( Kaunayinaal alla). Jaykanthan is a noted tamil writer, who was given the Jnanpith award for 2002 recently.(2002 award is given in 2005!!!!!!). He is 71 now. He won the Sahitya academy award when he was just 38.He is (was) a prolific writer and has written about 40 novels and 200 short stories.
And to think that Jaykanthan is a self taught man!! He ran away from home the age of 12 and lived with his uncle in Madras , who was a communist party member. He has had no formal education after that and lived in the Jansakthi office.Hence the leftist leanings in him.

I believe Jayakanthan was the one who started writing in the local dialect of the people. Earlier all class of people spoke alike in stories, i.e in proper pure tamil. Jaykanthan wrote the way a labourer or a brahmin would speak just as they would speak in real life .

Most of his stories created controversies for their unorthodox-ity(??) .I would like to point out one particular story he wrote in the 60's - "Agni parikshai" (Trial by fire), if I am right. A young brahmin girl on her way home one night, gets raped. When she reaches home and her mom , an orthodox brahmin widow (orthodox to the extent that she has shaved her head and wears the saffron colour saree) realises what has happened she just asks her to take a bath and forget the incident.And the story ends there.(In Tamil culture, "thalai muzhugidradhu" or pouring water on head symbolises renouncing a particular relation/thing. Here the mom is asking her daughter to renounce or put that accident behind her).This short story was published in Ananda Vikatan*(1) and obviously stirred a hornet's nest in those days.
The story was later made into a movie .But in the movie they make the girl meet the guy who rapes her later and fall in love with him and I believe it was not in the same spirit as the story was. Neither have I read the story nor have I seen the movie. But I have seen that particular scene where the mother asks the daughter to take bath. And this was pointed out to me by my mother, while I was flipping channels .She narrated the story too I believe. I am not sure. I was pretty young then , maybe 13 or 14and it always surprises me that my mom chose to point out this to me at that age.But then thats another blog.

Recently spotted a library , which has a good collection of tamil novels and got some Jayakanthan's books to read. His forewords to his novels and short story collections are as interesting to read as his stories themselves. The ideas expressed below are not new to any of us, but I was just impressed that this was written by Jayakanthan in 1965!!! An age when the likes of Shivaji and MGR ruled the roost,the former because of his ability to deliver pages and pages of dialogue with passion non stop and "acting" abilities and the latter who always played larger than life roles on screen.An age when it was noble to suffer , to sacrifice ...

I have tried to translate the foreword to the best of my abilities. If the piece below is lacking in flavor or spirit, its only because of my limitations as a translator and not anything else.

FOREWORD for "Karunayinaal alla" -by D Jayakanthan.

I am writing this short story with the full knowledge that unlike my others published in Ananda Vikatan*(1), this one would not a have roaring welcome. It has become my nature to stir controversy through whatever I write.I liked it too.But lately I have been wanting to develop a approach to writing non-controversial things and also a taste for them. I have written lots of short stories in an effort to do that. "Not because of kindness" (Karunayinaal alla) is because I wanted to write a short novel too in the same genre.

Exaggerated emotions have always disgusted me. When on the rare occasion this has happened to my own writings, without my realisation and because of the influence of the prevalent atmosphere, I have been disgusted with it too.I am saying this cautiously because some might think that anything emotional is exaggerated.

Before deciding that something has been exaggerated, all angles concerning it should be taken into consideration.
An impact of an incident on one would be more or less, depending on the way one views the incident.This level of impact can be understood only if we are capable of putting ones' own self aside and understand that given the social atmosphere,unique past, this character would behave in this fashion only.

This mental state is essential not only for the writer, but for the reader too.

In our current society's art and literary scene,everything is exaggerated.The amount of exaggeration in the reaction to the death of a soldier in war, which has departed form the stain of sadness to celebrating it as a noble sacrifice, would make one think that people might cry for those who have survived the war.

Recently I happened to read a "special" short story written like a Diwali sweet.A mother is crying for her son who has died in the warfront. The father consoles her by saying "Don't cry.Be happy.." and continues to speak along the lines of glorifying death in war and courage.

The presence of such exaggeration in literature would only result in the growth of a dumb-wit trend.This disgusting exaggeration is present in all departments like cinema, drama and stories to the extent of saturation.What is the reason for such a trend? It is because the socity is afflicted with a mental disease called sadism.

Enjoying torturing a man, deliberately exaggerating tendar emotions,rolling a iron rod on the strings of a Veena,repeatedly showing the dead body of a kid which was playing short while ago,making a respected and strong gentleman cry - what are these, if not sadism?

All the above are non-existant in life.If crying is an art, the above mentioned are basic necessities to such a society.These are not abnormal; they are sub-normal - cruel caricatures of emotions lower than the normal day-to-day ones.

The people whom we meet in daily life are not show-cases. 16 years olds are not the only ones who are in love .Those walking hand-in-hand are not college going young girls and boys , shown in movies. I am not gloating that this truth has been discovered by me.It is a truth known to all , experienced by all, yet not known to the writers and readers of today.Neither is it known to the movie makers and movie goers of today. The fact that everybody knows this truth and that it shows the contradictions in our cultural and social life, is realised by me or maybe some people similar to me.

Such a realisation should help develop a taste.That is why Gouri knows that sadness is present in the lonely state of a human,despite having all comforts in life.And also why Mudaliar knows that complications and frustrations can occur not because of others' hate, but because of their kindness too.

Love is not hormones or physical attraction alone. A dignified emotion in our lives has been disgraced by our stories and our attempts at art.As a result of this, love is disgraced in real life too sometimes, infact many a times nowadays.Even insuch a society I have seen people like Gauri and Mudaliar, whome society has made fun off, fall in love.Physical needs is not the basis of human love. It has other basis and reasons like society, economical conditions and manodharma*(2).

Life has not happened beyond the above said reasons.But the stupidity of considering what is art and stories for reasons other than the above mentioned is being nurtured now. As a result some try to put forward an "intelligent" arguement like "How can we enjoy reading or watching the same things which we experience in our day to day life?" These people want to forget this complicated and difficult life by spending a few hours reading and watching something! Art and literature should supply the necessary intoxication is their arguement.This is not even a complete arguement.Even while supplying this intoxication, they want me to wear the masks of culture and heritage and save these people's face.

Yes, life is complicated and full of difficulties.Those people who think these problems are never ending can commit suicide.It would do them good.That they do not think this way really is proven by the fact that they continue to live and read.Because they are scared, they wage some kind of shadow war to escape from themselves.Anyone hwo is living cannot afford to forget life.Instead they should try and understand life. If one wants to understand something, one cannot ignore it and talk about some other thing to understand it.

"The truth, emotions and sentiments which we experience in daily life, but do not understand- I am trying to talk about only those" - If we are able to cultivate an attitude to write and read with this consciousness ,then we can experience something special even in our ordinary and mundane daily activities.

I thank the magazines, publishers wo have helped me in sharing such experiences.

Glossary:

1) Ananda Vikatan - Tamil weekly magazine.
2) Manodharma - (Mano means "of heart".Didnt know a equivalent word. so i ams just reproducing it).