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A writer of many seasons He set his suitcase down in front of the door. Pressed the doorbell and waited. The house was silent. No activity at all — for a moment he had the illusion that there was no one in the house and he was standing before an empty building.... He stepped back and looked up.... The windows upstairs were shut, the curtains drawn. Where could they have gone at this time?
Born in 1929 in Shimla, Nirmal who has recently been made Fellow of the Sahitya Akademi, was the fifth of eight children. From his childhood he was withdrawn and reticent. These qualities were later to become an asset in his unfolding of the human mind in his writings and relating the paradox of human relationships. A writer with a rare craftsmanship, his ability to search out the truth has been amazing right from the innocent world of his first novel — Laal Tin Ka Chhat — to coming to terms with the last wilderness in his recent novel — Antim Aranya. During his student days in Delhi’s St Stephen’s College, he was attracted to Marxist thought like most sensitive persons of his times. However, illusions broke when the revolution in Hungary was brutally crushed by the Soviet Union. An ideology that did not leave room for freedom had no appeal for his creative spirit. Of course, Marxist critics never gave up reading him even though they would vent out their anger at him for turning obscurantist or probing too deeply the Hindu philosophy. It was as though he was a renegade child who had gone adrift and would one day return to the fold. However, sloganeering or even using a loud word was not the Nirmal way and he never did it. Nirmal along with Krishan Baldev Vaid and Mohan Rakesh launched the new story movement in Hindi. In fact, Nirmal is one of the most loved writers of his times. His major works include novels like Raat ka Reporter, Ek Chithdha Sukh, Weh Saat Din and stories like Dedh Inch Upar and Kauve aur Kala Paani. Besides he has penned several books of essays and travelogues. Exposed to western literature and the European way of life early, Nirmal gave a new complexion to fiction in Hindi. A recipient of several honours and awards, surprisingly, he had to share the prestigious Jnanpith award in 1999 with Gurdial Singh, a famous writer of Punjabi fiction. This because the jury could not fit him in a slot that would merit the full award. Nirmal never chose to conform and that remains the strength of his writings. Those who have known the spell his writing can cast love him and not care for the isms he may or may not represent. What after all can be the ism of A Day’s Guest who hesitantly asks his daughter some questions and looks around nervously for the woman he once so loved: "Where is Mama?" he asked. Maybe his voice was so low that the girl did not hear him, but it seemed to him that her head had lifted just a little. "Is Mama upstairs?" he asked again, and the girl stood there just the same way, not responding.... Very slowly, very vaguely the girl moved her head. It could have meant anything…. — N.D.
Kovilan served the Royal Indian Navy from 1943 to 1946 and Corps of Signals from 1948 to 1968. The oeuvre of his literary works centre around lives in the ‘Military barracks’, capturing the struggles, tears, sentiments and pathos of the ordinary soldiers. His famous works like Thottangal, Himalayam, A Minus B, Boardout and Thazvaragal are all set in and around military barracks, inking the author’s own experiences and observations. The Sahitya Akademi honour might have come a trifle too late in the life of 82-year-old Kovilan, but it’s nevertheless an acknowledgement of his prodigious literary talent and output. His cupboard is full of awards, and the latest honour has put him in the company of Malayalam literary giants like Thakazhi Shivashankara Pillai, Vaikkom Mohammad Basheer, S K Pottekkat and poetess Balamani Amma (mother of English writer Kamala Das). Kovilan won the Kendra Sahitya Akademi award for his novel Thottangal in 1972, the Kerala Sahitya Academy Award for his collection of stories Sakunam in 1977, Kendra Sahitya Akademi Award again for his novel Thattakam in 1988, Vayalar Award, Basheer Award and several others. Sahitya Akademi secretary K Sachidanandan, a poet of repute himself, noted that the Fellowship awarded to Kovilan was in recognition of his rich contribution to regional literature, and some of his works like Thottangal and Thattakam could be considered as ‘modern classics’, having a pan-Indian appeal. Kovilan is a rebel with a cause, and his belief in himself, and his refusal to promote himself, perhaps restricted the readership of his writings to his region. Satnam Wah Guruji, the lead story in his impressive collection of short stories A Minus B, is a case in point. This poignant journey of soldiers captures the silent sobs and anguish of the poor souls trapped in an environment they want to escape from, but are unable to, for they have their people waiting in remote villages with hope and expectation. Kovilan speaks the language of the human mind, rising above caste, creed, region, religion and language. The silent tears of fitter Nayak Seva Singh of Punjab, who carries the scars of Partition in his heart before enrolling in the Army "where you are paid and protected for killing people", has been evocatively told by Kovilan. Seva Singh’s fondness for young Niranjan Singh, who calls him ‘taavu’, as he is of the same age as his son back home, and their life together in the dingy barracks with people from different regions, is sensitively captured. Veteran journalist and author Edamaruku observed that Kovilan’s stories dwelt deep into the human psyche using simple prose but complex imagery. This quality in his writings has endeared Kovilan to readers, closing rank and class. Kovilan’s stories are often compared to Karur Neelakhanda Pillai’s writings. Karur, an indigent school master, was the pioneer among Malayalam short story-tellers, who wrote about the struggles and sorrows of the common folks. Kovilan has that innate wisdom to see beyond the obvious, to probe the fears and dilemmas haunting the dark recesses of the human mind with an insight rarely seen among his contemporary writers, barring the glorious exceptions like M.T. Vasudevan Nair, who has been selected for the Padma Bhushan Award this year. He brings forth the sighs and sorrows of the marginal men, who get caught in the whirlpool of the vicissitudes of life, and perish. Kovilan is a great admirer of MT’s works, though the latter is 10 years younger than him. — M.S.U. |
THESE
are the opening lines of A Day’s Guest, a long short story by
fiction writer Nirmal Verma, considered a literary giant of our times
who imbued the world of Hindi letters with a new sensibility. And not
just that he experimented with words and visuals to create a style
inimitably his own. The above passage may come as a surprise to those
not familiar with the writings of Nirmal. There is no attempt to
bedazzle the reader or startle him. He starts telling the tale of a man
coming after many years to meet his estranged wife and daughter. Perhaps
autobiographical, it simply uses the everyday images of the outer world
to probe the deep recesses of the inner world. In the process of giving
physical details, he creates an abstraction uniquely his own.
FEW
outside literary circles and Southern India may have heard the name of
Kandanisseri Vattamparambil Velappan Aiyyappan. It’s quite a
tongue-twisting name, even for native Malayalam speakers. It was thus no
wonder that Aiyyappan chose the eclectic pen name of ‘Kovilan’ for
his literary forays. He had, in any case, no other option but to assume
a name for his ‘byline’ as the British rulers just would not allow
one of their lowly soldiers to become a great literary figure, that too
one with ‘deep roots in the soil’.