P.Raja is a prolific
author from Pondicherry in India, who has authored
21 books in English and 7 in Tamil. One of his books
A Concise History of Pondicherry is still in the
best seller list. Some of his significant literary
works are From Zero to Infinity, To a Lonely Grey
Hair, To Live in Love, The Blood and other Stories,
Kozhi Grandpa’s Chickens and For Your Ears
Only. On the back cover of his To The Lonely Grey
Hair, Raja has outlined his motive behind creating
literary works: “Primarily I am an entertainer.
The eighteen years of experience I have on my back
as a language teacher has taught me the art of entertaining
others. My secondary purpose is to show you the
world through my eyes, perhaps with a tinge of imagination.
I want to show you something that you have failed
to see. It matters little to me whether you nod
your head with a smile or grit your teeth in contempt.
Either way I have succeeded in evoking a response
from you.”
Currently, he is in the Department of English, Tagore
Arts College, Pondicherry. He has published articles,
short stories, poems, interviews, one-act plays,
reviews, skits and features in more than 300 newspapers
and magazines, both in India and abroad. He is a
recipient of Literary Award (Pondicherry University,
Pondicherry, 1987), Michael Madhusudan Academy Award
(Calcutta, 1991) and Best Poem of the Year Award
(Una Poesia Per La Vita, Italy, 2002). This literary
artist of versatile genius from Pondicherry talks
to Dr. Nilanshu Kumar Agarwal about the nature of
his poetry, themes of his short stories, translation
of literature, other literary voices from his region
and several other issues in a pedantic interview.
In your essay ‘My Poems and I’, you have likened the poetic process to the virginal conception. The same idea is to be found in the poem ‘The Birth of a Poem’, where you have enumerated that a poem is conceived out of “Copulation of an/ incident/ accident/ with the five senses/ of a fertile poet.” You continue with the conception imagery in the above-mentioned essay, “A minimum gestation period is a must for giving birth to a poem. And I don’t opt for either an abortion or Caesarian.” You are suggesting that poetry is the spontaneous reaction to the situations, events and incidents. It emerges as naturally in the human heart as flowers emerge out of buds. The poetic process can never be a forced one. The poet feels a particular emotion, keeps it in his heart for some time and the result is the vomiting/drainage/exit/overflow of that emotion in the form of poetry. My question is-- what factors have fathered poetry in you? The sensitive poetic heart in you has delivered a number of issues. You have 19 in English and 5 in Tamil. The umbilical cord of your creative writing is in your heart and brain. But the question is –who or what has fertilized the eggs? Who is the father? You have a presented the poetic process through a maxim. As per that maxim,
A Fertile Poet+ A Fallow Idea= A Good Poem.
What is the origin of this idea in you? I mean to say what factors are responsible for poetry in you? I suppose, they must be subjective emotions and experiences. Or, is there anything else? Please make a statement.
Lovely questions that speak for your curiosity to know about poets and their creative process. Poets are sensitive people. By poets I mean only genuine poets and no poetasters or those who write for the sake of writing without any urge to put pen to paper. To these genuine poets, all things are grist to their ever grinding mill.
To me every face is a book. I try to read it in my own style. And to me every feeling is a painting. I try to catch the painting in words in my own way, of course.
“Smile and Tears are considered to be the best couple in the Universe. Rarely do they meet, but if they meet that will be the most gorgeous moment forever”. I remember to have read it somewhere. I do not remember who said it. But whoever has said it said it right. I for one wait for such a gorgeous moment which is never rare in my life. It is just positive attitude that makes life sweeter than before. I hope I have answered all your three questions.
Poetry is called a curved
statement. There is always a hidden or metaphorical
meaning behind the obvious and manifest meaning.
Texts are not without concealed or latent subtexts.
In your poetry too, beneath some jovial mood,
there is an undercurrent of deep philosophical
mood. Under the garb of a comic piece, you are
hinting at certain grave philosophical and social
issues. For instance, the poem ‘To The Lonely
Grey Hair’ humorously talks about the hair.
But, its hidden agenda is in a discourse on inevitable
changes in human life. The philosophical strain
is seen in the expression-- “Why then did
you turn unfaithful?/ Who bribed, O hair,/to change
your colour?” Do you like this type of indirect
communication? Or should poetic expression be
direct? Should poetry be simple or symbolic? Out
of the two, which form of poetry is closer to
your heart? Please elaborate your preferences.
Mallarme, the French symbolist poet, was once
told by his admirer thus: “I think I am
able to understand this particular poem more easily
than the ones your have written earlier.”
The poet said: “Show me that poem. I will
put more obscurity into it.” Robert Browning
too in answering a doubt raised by one of his
readers about a poem said: “When I wrote
God and I knew the meaning. Now God only knows.”
I do not belong to this school of poetry. It was
the Tamil poet, Mahakavi Subramania Bharati who
said: “Poetry should be written in such
a manner that it should be understood even by
the man in the street”. I belong to this
school of thought. This is to say that poetry
should be simple and direct with easy to understand
symbols. Yet if critics like you want to read
between the lines, you are most welcome to do
so. And you have every right to.
I hate to write brainteasers. The more your torture
the mind of your readers the less they will read
you. I want to be read and remembered.
Take for example the very same poem you have delved
deep into – ‘The Birth of A Poem’.
Almost every word is a symbol there. Yet the sense
is made clear. And the readers too enjoy reading
such poems. One more example would be my much
anthologized and more appreciated poem ‘Disturbed
Flowers’. I can give you any number of examples
from my three collections of poems – FROM
ZERO TO INFINITY (1987), TO THE LONELY GREY HAIR
(1997), and TO LIVE IN LOVE (2003) and also from
my forthcoming fourth volume THE FIVE HEADED ARROW.
Poems like ‘Toes and foes’, ‘Desires’
immediately come to my mind. The very titles sound
like symbols and the poems too read like riddles.
Yet who will fail to understand what I am talking
about? And this is my style of writing.
Sometimes, your tone is satirical. The
poems like ‘Indian Gods’ and ‘Refresher
Course’ exhibit certain Indian situations
ironically. In the previously mentioned poem,
you are laughing at the over credulous Hindus
for their superstitious nature: ”In India
God’s needs are greater than ours./ Who
can incur the wrath of hungry gods?/ Their very
appearance/ drives a chill down your bones.”
The lines are marked by reformative fervour. At
another place (flap of To The Lonely Grey Hair),
you have declared yourself “an entertainer”.
How will you describe yourself-- a social reformer
or an entertainer? What should be the purpose
of art-- reformative or aesthetic enjoyment? Or
should there be a union of the two in a gem of
a literary writing? Your comments, please.
Can you see dance with no dancer around? How to
bring in social reformation without entertaining
people? Was not RAMAYANA written to tell the world
how man should live and MAHABHARATA how man should
not live? And as you know the very purpose of
street drama is to bring in social change.
There are no takers for any kind of advice from
anybody. And so what has to be said has to be
said in a different way. Entertainment is the
best medium. ‘Refresher Course’ or
‘Seminar’ or ‘Quiz Master’
or any of my poems about God have a tinge of satire
in them. First of all they are entertainers before
they can be classified under the form ‘satire’.
And as you know every satire is a whip to lash
the society only to purify it. This is the very
purpose of art.
The poems in To Live in Love display
your deification of a particular woman. I think
that woman is none but your own poetic creation.
Pygmalion of your heart has created the Galatea
of poems. In my view, your pen has infused life
too in this literary Galatea. That Galatea/ the
perfect woman/ the spirit of poetry is “an
oasis” for you in “life’s vast
desert.” Is my hypothesis (poetry being
the woman of desire in the collection) right?
Or are the poems addressed to someone really present
in a palpable form? In the introductory remark
to the collection, you have smartly evaded the
question. There, you have made a statement that
“the woman of my dreams is mainly an amalgam
of many women.” Have you met such a woman
in your life? Is she possible on the earth? Or
does she love in some utopian heaven? Please make
an emotional statement.
Thank you very much for the accolades you were
kind enough to shower on my love poems. To be
very frank with you, Lord Krishna and I are governed
by the same star, Rohini. And you know what Rohini
is capable of.
I have made it very clear in the Introduction
I wrote for my book of love poems – TO LIVE
IN LOVE, that the poems are not addressed to any
one woman. Yet some of my readers believe that
it is a lie. They ask me one hundred and odd questions
to bale the truth out of me. Some even go to the
extent of identifying a few women. I laugh it
off. I consider their Holmesian ideas as fiction
of diseased minds.
Who can unravel the dark lady of Shakespeare’s
sonnets? Who can ever unravel the lady, ‘the
long short story in my life’, lying embedded
in the depth of my heart? To confess, she is not
my poetic creation. In fact, she pulled out the
genuine poet of love slumbering in me. Please
wait for my next book of poems THE FIVE HEADED
ARROW. You may get some more clues.
What are the major themes of your short-stories?
So far three collections of my short stories –
THE BLOOD AND OTHER STORIES (1991), KOZHI GRANDPA’S
CHICKENS (1997) and MY FATHER’S BICYCLE
(2005) have come out. Many of my short stories
that have seen the light of day through major
newspapers and magazines both in India and abroad
have yet to be gathered between covers.
I am a traditional storyteller. In all these stories
I have tried to portray what I have seen, heard
or experienced. I find pleasure in writing short
stories, though I experience joy in writing poems.
No two stories of mine have the same theme. That
is why I write less than six stories in a year.
And most of my short stories are written for AIR,
Pondicherry and there is time constraint. I should
read out my short story within twelve minutes.
And so they have to be real short short stories.
Later I add or delete wherever necessary and make
it suitable for the print medium.
My short stories have variety in them. No critic
will ever be able to label them. I am very finicky
about not portraying stereotyped characters.
Tell us something about your Encyclopaedia
of Pondicherry.
Years ago Doordarshan Kendra, Delhi assigned me
with the topic ‘Pondicherry: City of Peace’,
to be telecast in their ‘States of India’
series. I did a lot of research before I wrote
the script meant for a twenty minute telecast.
It was only during this period of research I found
that I was hitting at a gold mine. I had enough
material that would bulge into a book. I do not
know what divine force pushed me to write my book
A CONCISE HISTORY OF PONDICHERRY (1987). It proved
to be a mini-classic and is always on the bestseller
list. It is this mini-classic (now in its third
edition) written with tourists in mind that encouraged
me to go ahead with my further research on Pondicherry.
And that paved way for my upcoming ENCYCLOPAEDIA
PONDICHERRIANA.
Major part of the work is over. And this Encyclopaedia
will come out in five volumes: 1. Historical,
2. Political, 3. Cultural, 4. Literary and 5.
Religious Pondicherry. In this project I am assisted
by many of my students. The volumes are co-authored
by Dr. Rita Nath Kershari, a creative writer,
critic and Translator, and above all an illustrious
colleague of mine.
Any other writing project in the near
future?
Projects keep coming to me. And I do not say ‘no’
to any Institute or any Individual. First of all,
I feel honoured when the project chooses me. Secondly,
my wife feels honoured when paycheques choose
her.
My next major project would be LITERATURE OF PONDICHERRY:
AN ANTHOLOGY, starting from the earliest period
to the young writers writing today. It will be
a compendium of Pondicherry writers and their
works.
You are also a translator. Translation
of Bharti Vasanthan’s ‘Thambala’
proves your translation /transcreation capacities.
Sujit Mukherjee in his essay ‘Indo-English
Literature’ has mentioned ‘fidelity
to the original’ as an essential requirement
for a work of translation/transcreation. However,
if one follows the above instruction blindly,
there may be a certain pause to one’s creative
faculty. Imagination is somewhat strained, when
a translator is disallowed to deviate from the
original. Did you find an obstruction to you imagination,
while indulging in the work of translation? Or
can a translated work also be imbued with the
imaginative flights of the translator? What do
you prefer – writing a piece of creative
writing or transcreation of another person’s
creativity? Please illumine.
I translate out of love for a particular writer
or a particular work. This I do only when the
work really touches me. This is why I translated
Veerama Munivar, Subramania Bharati, Prapanjan,
Bharathi Vasandhan, Girija Ramachandran and several
others into English.. When a work touches your
heart, translation of that work becomes very easy.
I should say I choose the work to give it a garb
of different culture.
At times the works choose me and I translate them
for money. These are projects from Institutes
and from individual writers who have faith in
my language and ‘translation capacities’
as you have called it.
I consider ‘translation’ as an exercise
for my healthy creativity. Searching for the right
word or expression, finding an equivalent idiom,
fishing for the sense and above all regularizing
the thought process are excellent exercises for
any creative writer. And one supports the other.
While translating a work, be it from Tamil into
English or vice versa, I feel I help its author
to be known in another language. It is just a
help from one writer to another writer. I too
get such a help from unexpected quarters. Some
of my works are available in Chinese, Korean and
French. A few Bengali and Oriya writers have rendered
my works into their language.
Translation, according to Dr. Johnson, involves
the process of “change into another language,
retaining the sense”. I am a sincere follower
of that Great Cham of Literature. I also see to
it that readability is retained throughout.
And now to your last question… Charity begins
at home. I want to be known as a creative writer
rather than a translator. A translator’s
name does not appear on the top. It only finds
its way at the bottom of the publication.
You are a versatile writer. How has your
teaching career helped you in this creative world
of writing? Please tell something.
Every good teacher should necessarily be a good
reader. My profession as a teacher of English
literature demands a lot of reading. I am a voracious
reader and my reading habit has transformed my
house into my personal library.
Every good writer should necessarily be a good
reader. It is said that if a writer wants to write
for an hour or so, he should read for three hours
at least. And so it is this sort of reading that
helps me writer a lot and speak a lot both in
the classroom and also on the stage.
Which language of poetic/literary communication
do you prefer-- English or Tamil? Please enlighten
the readers about your linguistic preferences
in your literary works.
I had my early education in a missionary school
in Pondicherry. I had the privilege of learning
English under dedicated priests who with a swish
of a cane made us dedicate ourselves to the learning
of that language.
In the beginning of my writing career –
I started writing in 1975—I found the shaping
hands -- K.D.Sethna, M.P.Pandit and Manoj Das,
who wielded their pen in English from the Sri
Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry. All of them were
editing English magazines and they invariably
gave a bog boost to my literary career.
As a professor of English language and Literature,
I prided in writing in English. I want to be read
all over the English speaking world. The publication
of my works in various such countries made my
dream a reality.
To write in Tamil was not anywhere on my mind.
But for my wife, a postgraduate in Tamil literature,
who insisted that I should write in Tamil also,
I would have written in Tamil at all. After I
started writing in Tamil, I realized that the
best way to communicate is only through one’s
mother-tongue. Yet my first love is English.
What are the other contemporary poetic
voices from Pondicherry? What do you say about
the current literary scene in Pondicherry?
Pondicherry may be a speck on the map of India.
Yet you will be surprised to know that fifty five
languages are spoken in this Union Territory.
We have writers in all these languages here. But
coming to English language, Ashram and Auroville
are blessed with excellent writers.
In fact, in the history of Indian English writing,
a whole chapter has to be allotted for the literature
of Pondicherry. In 2003, I edited a volume of
poems from the Women poets of Pondicherry for
Busy Bee Books. It was titled IN CELEBRATION and
I have included the best of poets writing today
in Pondicherry. These poems from the women poets
of Pondicherry belonging to various countries,
states and cultures reflect the multifarious hues
of their inner mindscape conforming the adage
‘unity in diversity’, and that is
the enviable Pondicherry.
Some of the major contemporary poetic voices in
Pondicherry are M.L.Thangappa, K.D.Sethna, Maggi
Lidchi Grassi, B.V.Selvaraj, Maria Netto and Rita
Nath Keshari.
Starting from Sri Aurobindo and his School of
Poetry to the major voices in fiction like Manoj
Das, the literature of Pondicherry is hale and
hearty. No good critic worth his salt can ever
afford to ignore it, as no tourist can ever think
of skipping Pondicherry while traveling in south
India.
As a senior teacher of English Literature,
what are your views about the curriculum of English
Studies in India? The syllabus of English Literature
in most of the Indian Universities is marked by
colonial hangover. The very basis of English studies
in India seems to be Macaulay’s statement--
“a single shelf of a good European library
was worth the whole native literature of India
and Arabia.” The teachers and scholars of
English Literature in India have taken the statement
of Macaulay as something very auspicious. Hence,
we go on studying the irrelevant authors of England.
Some authors are highly insignificant and irrelevant
to Indian psyche. Why should they be prescribed
here in India? Should not our regional authors
in English translation be prescribed in our syllabi?
I feel there is a great need to decolonize English
Studies in India. Your comments, please.
You are very right. I fully agree with your view.
The colonial hangover still continues even after
sixty years of India’s independence. Macaulay’s
views were stupid for they were based on his biased
thoughts. Perhaps he had no opportunity of reading
the ancient Tamil literature in English. Had he
been alive today, he would have changed his views
on the native literatures of India. Thanks to
Sahitya Akademi for its excellent work of publishing
Indian literatures in English translations.
Indian English literature too has become the beloved
of many foreigners. I feel for certain that many
of the textbooks prescribed for English Literature
students should give way to Indian texts giving
importance to literary figures of eminence who
are the real torchbearers. This is possible only
when the old crones of the Academic world pop
off giving rise to like minded academicians like
you and me who are real patriots both in their
body and soul.
The interviewer Dr. Nilanshu Kumar Agarwal
is Senior Lecturer in English at Feroze Gandhi
College, Rae Bareli.
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