Not in hiding anymore

Earlier in 2015, this much-admired writer had announced that he is giving up writing after he came under attack from Hindutva supporters, who claimed that his novel  Madhorubhagan (published in 2010) is blasphemous. The book was translated into English as One Part Woman. Following the controversy, he went on to post on Facebook that ‘Perumal Murugan the writer is dead... and to leave him alone’.

However, in July 2016, the Madras High court asked Perumal to continue writing and granted him relief from all the controversies that surrounded the book. Now, the scholar is releasing an anthology of poems in the city — and ahead of its release, talks to DC. Though he wouldn’t budge on revealing what his next  novel would be, Perumal does inform us that he is in the process of reprinting all his books now!

“Mayanathil Nirkum Maram is a compilation of four collections of poems I have been writing since the 90s. I’ve already published four anthologies of poems before. This is more of a reprint,” he starts the conversation.

Elaborating on the content (theme) of the poems, the writer reveals, “I wrote poems during each phase of my life — on love, on the Marxist movement, poems about my personal experiences, poems on kids and so on.”

About the title Mayanathil... he explains, “There was a writer called Gandharvan in Tamil. After his death, I had written a poem as a condolence called Mayanathil Nirkum Maram. So, when I was finalising a title for the collection, I thought of using the same as the title,” he reveals.

Was he a Karl Marx admirer? The Namakkal-based Tamil literature professor shares, “During the 80s, I was inclined towards Marxist ideologies and wrote a lot of poems based on it. You can find a lot of similar poems in my first anthology. The influence of Marxist  and leftist ideologies were strong during the 70s and 80s. The Tamil literary works about Marxism had a great influence on the writers during that period. I was attracted to literature through Marx and start reading his works.”

Though he has written six novels and short stories, Perumal always loved poetry more than any other forms of literature. “I started off writing by penning poems. During my school and college days, I participated in a lot of poetry competitions. Even though I shifted to novels later, I continue to write poems. Poetry is more personal and I cannot live without writing them.”

Being an avid poetry reader, Perumal stresses that he doesn’t have any favourites. “I was not influenced by any poets in any languages though. I love reading poems in Tamil and those translated into Tamil. In the Tamil poetry circle, I like those written by the likes of Sukumaran, Sundara Ramaswamy, Atmanam, and Samayavel. Among the translated works, I like the poems written by the Malayalam poet K. Sachidanandan,” quips Perumal.

As we end the conversation, he expresses a wish for all those budding writers out there — “It would be great if the young generation of poets can write about the current issues without the influence of any other writers from a different generation. They can come up with modern-day poems that are really relevant and can make a difference.”