malayaalavedi1.blogspot.com

Posted by
Venu K.M
Malayalam - a language spoken by 30-35 million people (about 0.5- 0.6
percent of all living humans!)- certainly needs to be "protected"!
At the same time, it also needs to be unshackled of its narcissistic
fetishism; you will certainly and most naturally like to communicate
with other Malayalees ; but your editor is more likely to decide that
"this kind of stuff(often a translation, or any original text
comprising a particular political theme or an idea rarely discussed in
the mainstream Malayam socio-political and cultural space)will not
suit the taste of our readers".
I am afraid dearth of creativity itself, or language per se is not
the problem rather than the extremely debilitating habit of not
looking around and relocating ourselves vis a vis the rest of humans.
As we prepare to fight against newer forms of onslaughts on our
language, we owe a concurrent commitment to radicalize it by attempts
in democratizing, de-gendering,
de-patriarchalizing , de-casting /de-brahmanizing the language.
For example, we are still able to cling on to cliches like
"agolavalkkaranathinte chathikkuzhikal"as evidenced by the Women's
Commission's advertisement on March 08 suggesting women and girls ways
to defend themselves against "peedanam" : virtually to shun public
places, keep out of the range of hostile mobile phones (as they would
be photographed and ultimately end up as victims of some sex racket)
keeping out of the range of cyber crimes by avoiding chats,etc through
the internet and so on. Surprisingly but quite understandably from the
Malayalee/Kerala background of common sense, it invokes hardly any
idea of resistence by the women either collectively or as ndividuals.
We look as though more than complacent with our language and culture
and apparently don't want to instil dynamism in the language..why else
we continue to buy the drab stories and features of these mainstream
Malayalam newspapers and journals without any questions? Don't we
realize that by employing a feudal,patriarchal and brahmanical
vocabulary ostensibly catering to the peoples' tastes they often
literally "cover" events, rather than speak truth? It is probable that
many of us no longer want to move ahead of the little circles of
professions,peculiar ways of realpolitik-ing , family gatherings,so on and so forth.

SNOW : DILEMMA OF MODERNITY AS ENCOUNTERED BY ORHAN PAMUK

{Part of Discussion on an original Post on March 08 ,2009 by me in a web discussion forum }
Contemporary dilemma of modernity/westernization/universalization
vis a vis third worldly crisis of identity is so beautifully
illustrated in Orhan Pamuk's Snow. How the modernist ambitions of
the sixties in Turkey under Kemal Pasha ended up in grave political
and social crises after two generations of ruthless secularizing
project is the theme of the novel. Snow appears as a motif everywhere
in this wonderful novel, symbolizing suspicion,terror, insecurity,
instability in the minds of people. New generation of Radical
Islamists pledge to end old secularists' slavish adherence to western
norms on the one side, and contemporary ways of the state machinery
in suppressing faith by employing the crudest and treacherous methods
of army, intelligence and and police, on the other. Anything
associated with the West is asked to be seen as malice and ruthlessly
revolted upon. In the novel, Contemporary Turkey is represented not
only as the geographical fault line in this Euro- Asian conflict,
but also is chronologically mapped as the site of disillusionment of a
whole new generation with the pursuit of modernity. Pamuk rather than
being able to take sides, speaks out his dilemma through the
protagonist Ka, a Western educated young poet and journalist who
revisits Istambul in late 90s after years of stay in a European city.
My point here in the discussion, is just making a reference to
Pamuk's experience of engaging with this dichotomy as a creative
writer and particularly point to his implicit suggestion that he is
at a time, both an insider and outsider of both these worlds.This is
also suggestive of how genuinely creative people like to encounter
these dilemmas just as they are existing and without being prejudiced
by the ways people perceive the reality of their existence the
contemporary world everywhere. Posted by
Venu K.M