It was deeply political in its own way, for it was woven around the figure of a Dalit rebel, who, inspired by a character he got to play in a drama, challenges the established civic norms and social hierarchies of that time, among them sporting a meesha (moustache). Set in the first half of the 20th century in Kuttanad, a unique landscape of land, water and wetlands, Meesha was a terrific reimagining of a place, its inhabitants, ecosystem, social relations and even language. The second coming: Tamil writer Perumal Murugan announced the death of the writer in him after a vicious attack on his novel Mathorubagan (One Part Woman) in 2014 And, Vavachan is escaping this world,” he says. In fact, I (a non-Dalit) could not have written in any other way. Hareesh cautions against reading Meesha as a Dalit novel: “Much of Meesha’s social space is the world of upper castes. The Dalit community - the hero of the novel, Vavachan, is a pulaya, a Dalit caste - backed him throughout, despite the odd murmur about savarna writers’ obsession with the oppressive past of the community. A lesson he learnt was - “I didn’t know there were so many savarna communal fellows around us.” At least one neighbour stopped talking to him. There was tension initially, but that was mostly because people were only talking about the controversy. The JCB Prize, hopefully, will trigger a fresh look at the book.ĭid the experience of threats to life change the writer in him? Not really, he says. There have been very few discussions on the aesthetics of the book, though it has sold nearly 50,000 copies. The controversy, he believes, prevented a close and intimate reading of the work. With a dozen or so short stories, he had already carved out a niche in the crowded world of Malayalam fiction. Hareesh, 45, had hoped that his novel, ambitious in its historical and ecological canvas and innovative in narration, would be read and reread in quiet. Meesha is a complex, multilayered work that, in poet K Satchidanandan’s words, seeks to resurrect a language within a language. The controversy helped sales, but it coloured the reception of the novel. A month later, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court dismissed a plea to ban the book on the ground that it had references derogatory to Hindu women. In August, DC Books, a major Malayalam publisher, announced the publication of Meesha. Fortunately, a counter mobilisation was on, with readers, politicians and the state administration backing him. When the abuse extended to his family, Hareesh withdrew the novel. The mob was largely upper-caste Hindus and the Hindu right-wing. Thereafter, it was “a relentless shower of abuse for days,” says the writer. “Pani varunnundu (there’s trouble coming),” he had warned Hareesh. It was a friend who first alerted Hareesh to the tension brewing over Meesha, which the Mathrubhumi Illustrated Weekly had just started serialising. The fine Print: S Hareesh won the JCB Prize for Literature this year and Jallikattu, a film based on one of his short stories, is India’s entry to the Oscars this year
#Murugan tamil literature free
The ban-the-book campaigns in both cases had positive outcomes, with the judiciary expressing unambiguous support for the writers while reaffirming India’s constitutional commitment to free speech. That episode in December 2014 turned Perumal Murugan from being a provincial writer, largely known to serious readers of Tamil literature, to an internationally recognised novelist. Hareesh’s story, of course, recalls the unexpected trajectory another writer’s career took after a right-wing mob in another language and cultural setting forced him to apologise over hurt sentiments.