Malayalam poet K. SATCHIDANANDAN (b. May 28th, 1946) is not only known in India as an influential poet but renowned internationally as a critic, editor, translator, academician, and playwright writing both in Malayalam and English. He was born in Pullut, Thrissur district, Kerala, and served as a professor of English and Editor of Indian Literature (journal of Sahitya Akademi) and nominated as the executive head of the Sahitya Akademi (1996-2006). Author of several books and recipient of several awards poet SATCHIDANANDAN talks exclusively with Kathmandu Tribune about his literary journey and passion for poetry, writing, and translation.
1) Do you consider yourself as a poet, critic, essayist, or a translator? With years of fruitful experience in writing and showered with many awards, how do you assess your achievements? Are you satisfied overall or dissatisfied with your literary career?
I consider myself primarily a poet; all other things I do have their origin in my concerns as a poet. For example, entered criticism at a time when Malayalam poetry was undergoing a major transformation in aesthetic terms and found very few sympathetic interpreters. Gradually I began to write about the new fiction and art to demonstrate how the new sensibility was not confined to poetry alone. Translation too was part of this process of establishing the new sensibility. I began translating poetry seriously for our poetry journal, Keralakavita, that used to be edited by Dr Ayyappa Paniker, a pioneer of the new poetry in my language which is now being edited by me since 2006 when Dr. Paniker passed away. I found myself engaging with social issues in the 1970s when my poetry also gained a visible social dimension. I have never thought of writing as a ‘career’; it is a dimension of my being in the world. So I am not worried at all about the rewards and recognition; they come and go; only the writing remains.
2) You’re credited for the New Poetry movement in Malayalam literature? Can you explain to us what this movement was about? How has it helped you and other contemporary writers to digress from traditional writing?
Well, it was not entirely my creation. Literary history needed that change as poetry was getting stilted, full of romantic clichés. There were a lot of poets who also thought like me. The change had an aesthetic dimension and a social dimension. Originally it was anti-establishment to the point of being nihilistic. But in the 70s some of us began to identify ourselves with the new movements of protest. It was a time of turbulence: the Maoist movement organized the landless peasants and tribal people; there were huge pan-Indian labor protests like the railway strike and the dockworkers’ strike, the women’s movement, and the Dalit (the so-called ‘untouchable’ castes) movement were gaining strength; ecological awareness was on the rise–all these gave new hopes to the society and our poetry stood with the new forces of change. Modern poetry which was so far solipsistic seemed to gain the eyes of history. The new poetry tried to fight the existing clichés, used new kinds of images and metaphors, meters were either given up or reformed free verse and prose became vehicles for poetry, folk traditions were at times invoked, and the rhythms were new too. In the Seventies, poetry became more dramatic, the monologues of the earlier phase turned into dialogues, characters appeared and there was a new energy and urgency. So the change was at three levels: theme, attitude (vision of man), and form.
3) What was your early career like? Was it fuelled by the passion for writing differently or the inclination towards Marxism? How did your doctorate on post-structuralism influence your writings? Were you influenced by the socio-politico structure of Kerala to incorporate in your works?
The passion for writing is indeed primary. I started writing while in school. When I took my writing seriously new poetry was emerging in Malayalam as well as in some other Indian languages. I was deeply influenced in the early days by modernists abroad as well as in India like Jeebanananda Das, G. M. Muktibodh, B S Mardhekar, and Ayyappa Paniker. I grew up to be broadly a leftist sympathizer and that is what changed my poetry in the seventies. The doctoral thesis was written much later as a part of my critical inquiry. It had no direct impact on my poetry, but it did deepen my understanding of the workings of language and of the human mind.
4) You began to write in Malayalam but later opted for translation into English. What made you decide to translate your works into English? Do you think translation has devalued your writing by translating from an original tongue is not only difficult but erroneous at times? Malayalam is considered one of the hardest languages but you’ve succeeded in translating your works wonderfully. How did you manage to become an excellent translator?
I never intended to be a translator: as I said I first began translating from other languages into Malayalam. But later the editors of some journals in English wanted to publish my poems, and I thought I would try. That was the beginning. Then there were more demands, and RD Yuyutsu of Nirala Publishers, Delhi once wrote to me while I was still in Kerala why not consider making a collection of my poems in translation? That was how my first collection in English, Summer Rain got published. That was followed by many more, as now I was in Delhi and was desperate to communicate with a non-Malayali audience. Summer Rain was soon followed by How to Go to the Tao Temple (Har Anand, Delhi), So Many Births (Konark, Delhi), Stammer and Other Poems (Konark), Delhi), Imperfect and Other Poems (Olive, Calicut, Kerala) and While I Write (Harper-Collins India). Soon collections of translations also followed in several Indian languages including Hindi besides French, German, Italian, Irish, and Arabic. Many of them were done from the original, but some were done from my own English versions or Hindi versions done by others. I do not know whether I am a really good translator as I have not yet dared translate several of my poems which are very dear to my Malayali readers as they are deeply rooted in the regional culture, memory, and landscape; maybe someday a better translator will try to bring them into English. Only about one-fourth of my poems have been translated so far into English. Of course, I am aware of the possible pitfalls in this transfer, but I have tried to be faithful to my poems and never departed from the original texts in order to make them sound more ‘English’. A multilingual country like India has no way to know its own literature but through translation.
5) Your inclination towards secular spiritualism and regional cultural identity emphasizes your concern toward your community and region. How successful you’ve become to challenge and maybe change the issues that you questioned and abhorred? What’s your genre of writing? In simple words, how do you define yourself as a poet?
I believe India’s essential tradition is one of secular spirituality–this is particularly reflected in the Bhakti and Sufi poets, from Thirumoolar, Basava, and Kabir to Lalan Fakir, Baba Farid and Bulle Shah who created a people’s religion as an alternative to t priests’ religion. They opposed the caste system, bigotry, and hierarchy of all kinds, spurned power in all its earthly forms, and dreamt of an egalitarian community. It was an oppositional tradition as most of these poets came from the marginalized sections of society. I am also a federalist and believe that each region in India should enjoy relative autonomy and should be able to choose its own path to progress and development. It is wrong to impose a capitalist idea of development on all of them as is being done now. Too much centralization leads to the accumulation of power and consequent greed and corruption that mar democracy. No, I will not say I have succeeded. The religious fundamentalists are posing a great threat to our society and the center is getting more and more powerful as managers of indigenous as well as foreign capital. Only people with conscious action can bring about a change. As a poet, I am concerned with the larger destiny of the people and also with individual destinies: my ultimate theme is the human condition, but animals and plants are very much part of my human world.
6) Is translation an important area of literature? What are the benefits and challenges that you’ve encountered so far? Translated works are often criticized and labeled as being sub-standard to that of the original work as translating from one language to another not only changes the meaning but there are instances when certain words or meanings is almost impossible to translate. How have you overcome these difficulties and be able to retain the original form of a literary work?
Translation indeed has its problems, chiefly the cultural ones. One may have to adopt different strategies to overcome them depending on the nature of the text. It is a form of intimate reading, a creative process where we give birth to a parallel text that carries the nuances and suggestions of the original. As I said earlier I have found it tough to translate poems of a very local nature; poems with universal themes are a bit easier. Again the relationship between the source and target languages matters a lot. I can retain a lot of the original in a Tamil or Kannada version as they are all Dravidian languages like Malayalam; it becomes more difficult in the case of Indo-Aryan languages like Hindi or Bengali as the grammar and syntax differ. And in foreign languages, it is even tougher as there is very little shared culture and ethos. Still, I have tried in my English versions to see that the message and the treatment get a new context where to they can work and generate an aesthetic/ social response. Going by the reactions, the translations seem to have worked in most cases. It is also because I choose to translate only poems I am certain will work in English.
7) You were involved in numerous journals as an editor. How did this involvement affect your writing? Does a literary journal really help one’s writing? What do you think a literary journal’s role and task should be in this changing world? Is it really important in the context of South Asia?
I have edited many little magazines of an avant-garde nature; they were not always only creative literature, but at times dealt with art, aesthetics, and political, social, and literary theory. They were, in a sense, extensions of my own creative expression- like films where the director has a vision executed by several others- actors, musicians, cameramen, etc. The first magazine I edited was Jwala (Flame), a mini-magazine that published mainly experimental writing. Then came others like Utharam (Answer), and Pachakkutira (The Green Horse)–all in Malayalam and Indian Literature in English. Now I am editing a poetry journal, Kerala Kavita (Poetry in Kerala) where the accent is on new-generation writing including blog writing. It publishes poetry as well as articles on poetry and translations of poets from India and abroad. These have more to do with my critical thinking than my poetry per se. Literature plays a central role in the life of South Asians and hence literary journalism is important as a vehicle of thought, experience, and change.
8) Why do you prefer to write in your mother tongue and translate it into English? Is it because of the love for your language or the fear of being interposed amongst the minority English-writing Indian poets? When many Indian poets began to produce quality writings they were mocked as minority writers and their works of lesser quality compared to the writers writing in their mother tongues. It was not just the fame but even the scrutiny and mockery of being a writer in English in India that drove many writers to refrain from writing in the colonial language. What’s your say about it?
I do not find any opposition between writing in English and the mother tongue. I have also done a lot of critical writing in English- I have four books in English on Indian literature. For me it was natural to write in Malayalam as I grew up in Kerala, I was surrounded by it, breathed it, and my memories and dreams are in Malayalam. This may not be the case with everyone, especially the younger generation. Everyone should write in the language he/she is comfortable in. There is a lot of good writing happening in English in India and the language writing has a tradition of several centuries and hence has naturally produced a lot of excellent writing. Translations from the mother tongue into English have picked up in a big way in recent years; they are being read, critiqued, admired, and awarded.
9) Recipient of several awards and also being nominated for the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature, what’s your journey been like? Are you satisfied with your work? Have you finally decided to give up writing or is it something you cannot let go till your last breath?
Awards and recognition, as I said earlier, are professional hazards and, at the most, some ways in which a society relates to a writer. Many writers who won even the Nobel have been completely forgotten while many who won no awards survive even today–so awards are not a dependable norm for the quality of writing–that will be decided by the time that rejects all that does not reflect it honestly and by people who reject everything that does not love and try to understand them. I have no role in it–except trying to write as best as I can. And I have as of now no plans to give up.
10) Who’s a Poet? How can one be a poet? Do poets really contribute to society and the world? What’s your message to those who write and read poetry?
I wish I had clear answers to these questions. To me poetry is something organic; it is a social act, ethical and aesthetic at the same time. It is a way of seeking and articulating truth in subtle and suggestive ways. When we define poetry in a particular way, suddenly a poet appears whose poetry interrogates that definition and still remains poetry. So it keeps changing and innovating itself, which is by its very nature. The same poet also keeps on transforming himself/herself; otherwise, he/she is a dead poet who repeats himself/ herself. Poets do have a social role, but it is very different from the role of, say, a scientist or a politician, as poets see beyond the color spectrum of politics and make prophecies for the future; the significance of the truths they reveal may not be immediately grasped. They make the invisible visible and name the nameless. They upturn the virgin soil. I have no messages to give; I am myself a beginner–just be true to yourself and your time; you cannot do more.
