December 28, 2011
I am sharing this note because recently I was pained to see that some media fireflies with their self-promotional agendas were using facebook to fan hatred between Tamilians and Malayalees. It is heartening to see Kerala's most popular daily publish columns like the one I have attempted to translate below. I am sure similar sane voices are to be found in the prolific Tamil media as well.
The Translation Of An Excerpt from the Dec 28th volume of Asokan Charuvil's Weekly Column in Malayala Manorama Newspaper
Today's newspaper carried a report from the Valayar border with Tamil Nadu. Palakkad district administration had provided a special welcome to the Ayyappa devotees from Tamil Nadu. There was a photograph of the devotees receiving flowers and sweets. Writers T. D. Ramakrishnan and G.P. Ramachandran were present. Palakkad district collector delivered his speech in Tamil.
My travels through Palakkad during college days used to be with T. V. Kochubava.Our senior friend, K. V. Vincent worked in the Alathoor Taluk office in those days. Malayalam stories at that time resonated with the voice of the wind atop the Palmyra trees.
Palmyras symbolized their modernism.
Sketches of A.S. accompanying the stories by Mundur Krishnankutty and Sethumadhavan.
Stooping ancient mango trees. Slender anemic women with elongated eyes.
It was a time of Khasak reading. The village of Tasrak (on which O.V. Vijayan's Khasak work is based) hadn't been revealed then. I think it is somewhere near here. Among those running home after the village school, I would wonder who is Kunjamina? who is Kunjinooru? I must have heard Tamil for the first time from Allapicha Mullakka of Khasak. Or may be from Ammulu in Malayatoor's 'Verukal'. That language was never unfamiliar when heard.
The old Madras city resurfaces in my memory.
The red coated Central railway station, the main roads where sun rains fire.
Humongous cut-outs of film stars.
Streets fusing the fragrance of jasmine with the odour of horse dung.
I remember going with my parents to drink 'sathukudi' juice from a stall on Mount Road. A man squeezed the juice first. Before he handed the glass to me, the woman in the shop took it for examination. She did not like it. She emptied the whole glass after castigating him with a laconic 'Enneda ithu?". Then she herself prepared a glass of juice for me.
I doubted then: Is she is the 'Rachiyamma' that Urub wrote about?!
In my trips to Tamil Nadu, I have never stopped searching for C.V. Sriraman's 'Varalakshmi'.
The Tamilian has always had a special consideration for the Malayalee. The Malayalee deludes himself that the Tamilian is awestruck by the Malayalee physique and culture.
What culture does the Malayalee have that is not already the Tamilian's?!
Towards us, theirs is an ancient affection, a relationship bonded over generations.
Once, around 10 years before I reached, that city was the capital of half of Kerala. Not only movies, but all major magazines and books for Malayalam were made there.
M. Govindan steered Kerala's thought stream sitting there. K.C.S Panikkar embodied Kerala's soul. Our Namboodiri and Devan returned from there after learning drawing.
As people, how much can a Tamilian and Malayalee stand separate? How much? When Palani Andavan is there and Sabarimala Ayappan is here? How much? Guruvayurappan here and Velankani Lady there? How much? As long as Tamil and Malayalam exist?
I am not writing anything about Mullaperiyar. I lack the scientific expertise. But I understand that what rises above 136 feet is not water but fear. I don't know how children in Idukki manage to sleep at night. Nightmares of drought-stricken farms haunt the Tamilian of Theni.
The leadership in both states are competing in manufacturing psychosis.
It is a revelation of the collapse that the label 'leadership' has undergone in the 60 years after independence.
Those leaders who rose by reading and reflecting and toiling in the sun, those who had marched unwavering towards the prison and the noose, their long line has ended.
New political outfits spawn in the stinking hotbeds of communalism and linguistic fanaticism.
Leaders of today are born splashing their smiling faces on flux boards installed at busy intersections. Their vision never reaches beyond their berth.
G. P. Ramachandran telephoned in the evening. In Valayar yesterday, he said, I saw that god whose appearance is not guaranteed even if you climb Sabarimala.
Faith appears to us usually in the terrible forms of partition, exodus and rivers of blood.
But sometimes we realize that faith can heal.
It can mend the wounds.
It will be good if we can have some faith in the foresight and vision of our political leadership and bureaucracy.
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