[Reader-list] O.V. Vijayan obituary

[Vivek Narayanan]

This obit is overdue... Vijayan was a most unusual and visionary 
creature, a pioneer of "magic realism" in Malayalam. But, his fictional 
works in English give the sense of being not quite adequate to their 
originals: he did much of the translation himself, and in the English 
there are no portmanteau words, very little syntactical play, and not 
many shifts in dialect or register. Those of us who do not read 
Malayalam need new, much more ambitious translations of these; but even 
then the work is quite distinctive.

The first chapter of the translation of his Dharmapuranam ("The Saga of 
Dharmapuri"), which I read over ten years ago, is still, for me, one of 
the greatest and most memorable passages of literature I have ever read. 
It takes us to the scene of an important Dharmapurian ritual: the 
all-powerful President's daily potty-- presided upon by multiple TV 
cameras, French and other foreign journalists, Russian 
anthropologists/encyclopaedia writers, etc. A disturbing and very funny 
parable of power.

V.

***
O.V. Vijayan, the quintessential modernist

By C. Gouridasan Nair


HYDERABAD, MARCH 30. O.V. Vijayan, who died here this morning, is one of 
the few writers in Malayalam to lift himself to the rarefied realm of 
literary icons. That he did so with his iconoclasm might well be an 
irony. But then, irony has been part of his writing. Indeed, it was a 
brilliant strategem he used in many of his works with telling effect. 
And, maybe also in his life. His book Khasakinte Ithihaasam made a 
legend out of him, a legend that would live in millions of minds both 
within and outside Malayalam. He was a literary genius with prophetic 
vision.

Oottupulackal Velukkutty Vijayan burst into the Malayalam literary scene 
of the late 1960s, writing in a language of his own. It was an 
intoxicatingly new idiom that held generations of writers who followed 
him in thrall. It was so intoxicating that he himself could not break 
free from it in his later writings.

The language of Khasakkinte... transcended the familiar boundaries of 
literary articulation and even the sensory boundaries of sights, smells 
and pain. Critics returned to him again and again with whips of all 
ideological make but, by then, with a single work Vijayan had created 
for himself a space in the Indian literary world that few could encroach 
upon.

The mystic charm of Khasakkinte... has been such that Thasrak, the 
village in interior Palakkad where he located the destiny of Ravi, its 
protagonist, has become a centre of literary pilgrimage. Reams and reams 
have been written about Vijayan's `Khasak' and its people. They were a 
bunch of rustic people who hardly noticed the man who had reached 
Thasrak to be with his elder sister for a brief while or knew that their 
village was being made the locale of a literary classic.

Through a window

Vijayan looked at the world from a window, one that was framed by his 
intensely personal perspective of men, women and matters. Just as he 
used to look out of the windows of the several police camps where he and 
his two sisters moved with their father, an officer in the Malabar 
Special Police (MSP), and his mother. Born premature in the seventh 
month at his ancestral home in Vilayanchathannur in Palakkad district on 
July 2, 1930, Vijayan was sickly from childhood and spent most of his 
time confined to his room. Often, what connected him with the world 
outside was the window.

As a writer he continued to be intense, but as a commentator he 
maintained an essential detachment, like someone gazing at the world 
through the window. The two states of mind found their intense unity at 
one point, when Soviet tanks rolled into Hungary, snuffing out the 
`Prague Spring'.

One of Vijayan's major concerns in his later writing has been about 
individuals who become victims of the systems they create.

Education

His first taste of formal schooling was at the age of 12. He joined the 
Raja's High School, Kottakkal, in Class 6. He graduated from the 
Government Victoria College, Palakkad and took his Master's from 
Presidency College, Madras. His career began with a short stint as tutor 
at the Malabar Christian College, Calicut, and later at the Government 
Victoria College there. He gave up the teaching job to join Shanker's 
Weekly, Delhi, in 1958 as a cartoonist and writer of political satire. 
He moved to Patriot after five years as staff cartoonist. Later, he was 
staff cartoonist with The Hindu and The Statesman. His cartoons also 
appeared in Far Eastern Economic Review and The New York Times.

Merger

Philosophy and politics merged in his cartoons, just as revolution and 
spirituality coalesced in his writings. His concern about the future of 
humankind, the bold mix of sexuality and politics in his stories and 
novels, his use of faeces as an imagery to question the banality of 
politics, and his deep anxiety about the cosmic order, were unique 
characteristics of a writer who was much more than the sum of his parts. 
Sex, satire and a deep sorrow marked much of his writing, each being a 
commentary on the Indian situation. In his inimitable style, Vijayan 
commented on the Indian situation and the geopolitical skulduggery. Each 
piece of his was an eye-opener for those who avidly followed his writing 
and cartooning career. His searing comment on Indira Gandhi's Emergency 
rule and about her return to power in 1980 would remain high points in 
the history of Indian cartooning.

Vijayan left Delhi and moved to Hyderabad some years ago after living 
for a brief while in Kottayam. Suffering from Parkinson's disease, he 
has not been writing much for the last few years. He is survived by his 
wife, Dr. Theresa, and son, Madhu.

Vijayan's major works include the novels Khasakinte Ithihasam (The 
Legend of Khasak, 1969), Dharmapuranam (The Saga of Dharmapuri, 1985), 
Gurusagaram (Eternity of Grace, 1987), Madhuram Gayathi (1990), 
Pravachakante Vazhi (The Way of the Prophet, 1992) and Thalamurakal 
(Generations, 1997). His collections of stories include Vijayante 
Kathakal (1978), Oru Neenda Rathriyude Ormakkayi (1979), Asanthi (1985), 
Balabodhini (1985), Kadaltheerathu (1988), Kattu Paranja Katha (1989). 
His collections of articles include Ghoshayathrayil Thaniye (1987), 
Sandehiyude Samvadam (1988), Kurippukal (1988), Vargasamaram (1988), 
Swathwam (1988), Ithihasathinte Ithihasam (1989), Haindavanum 
Athihaindavanum (1998). A collection of his satirical works is Ente 
Charithranweshvana Pareekshakal (1987); A collection of his cartoons is 
Ithiri Nerambokku Ithiri Darshanam (1999).

The following works are translations into English: After The Hanging and 
Other Stories, The Saga Of Dharmapuri, The Legends of Khasak, Infinity 
of Grace and O.V. Vijayan: Selected Stories.

Vijayan was conferred the Padmabhushan, the Ezhuthachchan Puraskaram, 
the Odakkuzhal Award , the Kerala Sahitya Akademi and Central Akademi 
Awards, the Vayalar Award and the Muttathu Varkey Award.

***

It's Dusk In Khasak
Malayalam literature's most potent vat, Vijayan's lines brewed a heady, visionary broth
N.S. MADHAVAN

O.V. Vijayan wrote fiction in Malayalam, but drew cartoons mostly in English. I asked him once if he was ever tempted to write in English like some Marathi writers. Usually tentative, Vijayan was firm in his reply: "For me, fiction can only be written in Malayalam, however underexposed the language is." This was at his house on Delhi's Satya Marg. Vijayan was sitting with Pooh on his lap. The Siamese cat, the only pet he is known to have kept, was looking more philosophical than her master. But secretly I felt that a tamed zebra would have been a more suitable companion for him. Ink on paper, whether to draw or write, Vijayan at his best choreographed mesmerising moments in black and white.

When did Vijayan first break into the Malayalee mind? My guess is it was with a cartoon and not one of his stories. In 1966 (he hadn't come out with a novel yet), India was experiencing a food shortage, and the historically cereal-deficient Kerala suffered most. Malayalees, overly dependent on ration shops for their daily diet, were numbed when they heard the government had reduced the fortnightly ration to six ounces of rice per adult. Meanwhile, in faraway Soviet Union and the US, they were competing to launch artificial satellites. A couple of days later, readers in Kerala woke up to a cartoon by Vijayan in Malayalam daily Mathrubhumi: a man perched on a satellite in outer space, peeping through a telescope at the earth, tells his friend: "On that planet, there exists a form of life that lives on six ounces of rice."

It was one of the earliest intimations of Vijayan's genius. He wasn't entirely unknown even then, being part of a group of very gifted Malayalam writers, all of whom happened to be living in Delhi in the sixties. Together, they fashioned what was later reckoned to be the Golden Age of Malayalam fiction. They used to meet at the Kerala Club in Connaught Place to read aloud from their work and listen to some probing criticism.

In 1968, Mathrubhumi Weekly began serialising Vijayan's first novel, Khasakinte Itihaasam. The novel challenged the reading habits of the day and it wasn't until the fourth or fifth instalment before its strangeness gave way to awe, and readers realised that they were witnessing a classic in the making. Around the same time, a not-so-successful Colombian novelist, with four novels to his name, was trying his luck for the fifth time. The Legends of Khasak impacted Malayalam fiction in the same way did Spanish literature, and later the world at large. Vijayan had set a benchmark for Malayalam writers.

Khasak was a novel of its time, zeitgeisty, yet imbued with writing qualities that transcend decades. It's an imagined village in north Kerala where the protagonist, Ravi, arrives to start a school. During his brief stay, Ravi experiences all the intense passions of life: sex, politics, religion. The novel wove a magical web around readers. A story goes that a young collegiate, with dishevelled hair and angst-ridden eyes, once went to a railway station asking for a ticket to Khasak. Nothing could persuade him that there was no such place—he insisted he belonged to that place. Khasak had become the imagined homeland for many in Kerala.

In his second novel, Dharmapuranam, Vijayan broke the Khasak mould, and went on to write an allegorical—and at times scatological—tale of a decadent despot. In all, he wrote six novels, nine collections of stories, a book of cartoons, and a few collections of essays. He was unique in his inclusive outlook. His power to fuse, his ability to build bridges over vast chasms—like a village ration shop and the Soviet cosmodrome—and his gift of divining patterns in apparent chaos were the signatures he left on Malayalam literature.In writing, these qualities showed in an amazing ability to invent portmanteau words and syntactical brilliance.

Vijayan was also one of the first Malayalam writers with an international outlook. Auschwitz, typhoons in Hong Kong, the assassination of Soviet dissidents like Hungarian Imre Nagi were as much subject matter as life in little towns like Irinjalakuda or Chengannur.

In another avatar and in another language, Vijayan drew cartoons. In English. He started his career as a teacher of English in a college in Calicut, but later, in 1958, the late Shankar invited him to join his weekly as a columnist. Though he left Shankar's Weekly to join dailies like The Patriot and The Hindu, Vijayan kept in touch with Shankar's till it closed down during the Emergency. Vijayan didn't draw cartoons in English in the same period. But the iconic cartoon on the Emergency in Malayalam is by Vijayan. It showed a train running with compartments which looked like police lock-ups. The caption: "Oh, here comes the train that runs on time."

Vijayan drew stand-alone cartoons that did not compete with or complement news analyses or edits. He avoided flavours of the day, was ardent in his pursuit of history. Coincidentally, he stopped drawing—he was with The Statesmen then—when the Soviet Union collapsed. Though he picked up the Soviets for special treatment, he was never a Cold War creature. Those cartoons were, I suspect, Vijayan's way of teasing the Left orthodoxy back home. Nor did Uncle Sam escape unscathed. He was fairly even-handed in declaring plague on both houses. Vijayan stopped cartooning when the physical rigours of the craft got to him. He continued writing—dictating, rather—fiction in Malayalam.

In the beginning of his career, Vijayan's writing brimmed with energy, biting humour. Khasak presented for the first time characters with rich internal lives. As he grew older, his writing became more contemplative. Now that his writing is done, it's clear: he started an epoch in Malayalam. 

(N.S. Madhavan is an award-winning Malayalam writer)