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HOW did I get my first introduction to writers like Jean Paul Sartre, Gunter Grass, Franz Kafka, Samuel Beckett, Pablo Neruda and Yasunari Kawabata? I read about them in a weekly column that appeared without fail in Malayalanadu in the early 1970s. Entitled Sahityavarabhalam (Weekly Literary Forecast), it was penned by Prof M. Krishnan Nair. In his column he would review the literary pieces that appeared in contemporary journals the previous week. He had set his own exacting standards and if they did not measure up to them, he would come down heavily on the writers. It did not matter to him whether the writer was an 80-year-old veteran or an adolescent lucky enough to have her maiden story published. Nair had his own rationale: "How old was Emile Bronte when she wrote Wuthering Heights, a classic which penetrates the inner recesses of a woman’s mind?" he would mockingly ask and then answer himself, "Just 18". And if he was in an angry mood, he would even add, "Don’t you know that Lord Buddha and Jesus Christ completed their missions and attained death at the young age of 33?" If anybody wrote in a convoluted, un-understandable language, he would remind him that the highest poetic utterances were always in simple, easy-to-understand language. In the case of William Shakespeare, the expression that conveys the most is in such simple words as, "To be or not to be". He was unsparing in his criticism if a writer wasted newsprint to describe the act of copulation or anything sexual in a crude, pedestrian style. He would remind him how great writers like O.V. Vijayan handled sex. For instance, in Vijayan’s Saga of Khazak, there is an incident when the protagonist of the story spends a night at a sanyasin’s ashram. There is no suggestion of any sex between the two. The next day when he leaves the ashram, it is still dark. When the first rays of the sun fall on him, he is startled to know that he is wearing the sanyasin’s robe. He was equally critical of garrulous writers who expended hundreds of words to describe the most mundane. Look at Ernest Hemingway who describes a man’s poverty in these words, "He spread out an old newspaper on the floor and slept on it". Brevity is of the essence of writing, he would often remind writers who tested readers’ patience. Naturally enough, Nair’s biting criticism antagonised many writers, though they all read with bated breath what he wrote week after week. It was the largest weekly column in the country. He was a voracious reader with an uncanny memory and it was through his writing that many Malayali readers came across the best in African, Latin American, European and East Asian literature. His column used to be on the last pages of the magazine. Thanks to him, for many readers like me, it has become a habit to turn magazine pages backwards. When Malayalanadu folded up, he shifted his column to Kalakaumudi and readers dutifully followed him to the new magazine. After his retirement from Government Sanskrit College, Thiruvananthapuram, he devoted all his time to reading and writing. Nair considered his writing to be in the genre of journalism, rather than literary criticism. And he did not mind such carping comments as "that literary purveyor, that literary astrologer, that destroyer of reputation, that failed critic, that literary hunter". He took them all in his stride. His writing was extraordinarily beautiful as when he described the morning sun or when he dwelt on feminine beauty. He drew sustenance for his column from his reading and his daily life. His column was as much social satire as it was literary criticism. For all his bold writings and speeches, he was a recluse. It was with the ambition of interviewing him that I went to Thiruvananthapuram once. All I could do was to speak to him on telephone and he excused himself from meeting me. But when I wrote a piece on him and translated one of his columns for The Hindustan Times, he sent me a letter which I treasure as a great compliment. About three years ago, I figured again in his column when he ripped me apart for a story, Fire, that I had translated from Malayalam into English for The Little Magazine. The story was about a rape and how the victim marries the rapist to take sweet revenge. Fortunately for the publisher, Pratik Kanjilal, who won this year’s Sahitya Akademi award for best translation, he had many words of praise for the magazine, though he could not fathom the need for excessive use of nudity in the illustrations. When much less talented
people get awards by the dozen, he had to remain content with a few like
the B.D. Goenka award. But few writers have impacted as many writers as
Prof M. Krishnan Nair, who died on February 23 at the age of 84. Even
sadder is that his column died at the young age of 36. |
