Adieu Kamala Das aka Madhavikutty aka Kamala Surraiyya (1934- 2009)

Picture from The Hindu.

Kamala Das. Bilingual poet and writer. 1934 - 2009



She knew how to shock. Whether it was by writing about sexuality or the nudes she painted or her conversion to Islam. I remember the storm that her 'autobiography' My Days had created in the seventies. She was one among a handful of women writers who knew how to shock society.Take, for instance, these lines written by her when she was still known as Kamala Das:


Gift him all,
Gift him what makes you woman,
The scent of
Long hair, the musk of sweat between
The breasts.
The warm shock of menstrual blood
And all your
Endless female hungers. Oh, yes,
Getting a man to love is easy but living
Without him afterwards may have to be faced.

Or these lines from the poem The Maggots from the book The Descendants:

At sunset, on the river bank, Krishna
Loved her for the last time and left...

That night in her husband's arms, Radha felt
So dead that he asked, What is wrong,
Do you mind my kisses, love? And she said,
No, not at all, but thought, What is
It to the corpse if the maggots nip?

By the time she converted to Islam and had become Kamala Surraiya she had suppressed her sexuality and had begun to believe that only Islam could give protection to women. I wonder what would have happened if she had met Tasleema Nasreen the Bangladeshi writer in exile. I am told that they had actually met once. Her conversion to Islam had shocked many. At the same time there were many who said that such behaviour was expected of her.


She wrote as Madhavikutty in Malayalam. In Kerala she was also known as her mother the writer Balamaniamma's daughter. Balamaniamma was a famous Malayalam writer and poetess. Her maternal uncle Nalapat Narayana Menon was also a well known Malayalam poet and he had encouraged her to write. So did her husband who she had married when she had turned fifteen. There were many who said that her husband at times treated her like a father his daughter or an uncle his niece.


I remember a weekly column she used to write in Karanjia's Blitz during the mid seventies. It could well have been the openness with which she wrote for she was one of the few writers who had a following all over India. There were better writers than her but she was extremely media savvy long before television became widespread throughout India. She had said that she had stopped writing poetry because poets were not paid well in India.

During the eighties there was a rumour that she was nominated for the Nobel Prize in literature. But according to many this was not correct as the names of the nominees are never announced.

I feel that she was at her best when writing about the Kerala she saw in her childhood. Her foray into politics was brief and disastrous. She and Khushwant Singh were not the best of friends. He knew how to irritate her with his choice of words.


Links
Farzana Versey's blog post on her. Click here

Kamala Surraiya on SAWNET. Click here.

Kamala Das at the Emory University Dept of English website. Click here.

Poet Vijay Nambisan's tribute to her in the Literary Review of The Hindu (June 2009). Click here.
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Ammannur Madhava Chakyar (1917 - 2008) and Kudiyattom

Ammannur Madhava Chakyar the 91 year old Kudiyattom dancer is no more. He died on July 1 at his house Ammannur Chakyar Madom, at Irinjalakuda near Thrissur. He was 91. Had it not been for him Kudiyattom would have gradually died a tragic death in select Kerala temples. He brought it out and the world saw this graceful Sanskrit dance form which is a predecessor of Kathakali. He had a string of awards to his name, these included Padma Bhushan, Kalidasa Samman, Kerala Sangeeta Nataka Akademi Award and Kendra Sangeet Nataka Akademi Award. He was selected to receive the UNESCO heritage citation which described Kutdiyattam as a “Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity”.

I had the good fortune of attending a Kudiyattom performance at the Indore Rajwada on March 20 2008. This was part of the Phalgun festival to celebrate Holi. The Jatayu Ravana confrontation after the abduction of Sita was the theme of that day's performance. Some images I clicked that day

















A Short Biography Of Ammannur - Kapila. Kapila maintains a weblog on Kudiyattom. She is a disciple of Ammannur and is the daughter of G Venu who is also a disciple of Ammannur and is an eminent researcher into the dance and theatre forms of Kerala who has also played a major role in the revival of many of these ancient forms.

Link to an article from The Hindu (Friday Mar 18 2005) titled Endowed With Divine Talent. It is about Madhava Chakyar and his disciple and researcher G Venu who were honoured at a function in Chennai. Click here.

Bharat Gopi... Actor par excellence is no more....

Question: Smita Patil, Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah and Amitabh Bachchan are four of the five actors who have had the honour of a retrospective of their films being shown in Paris by the French Government. Who is the fifth?

I won't be surprised if most of us get this wrong. The answer is Malayalam film actor Bharat Gopi. Bharat Gopi expired today, Jan 29, in Thiruvanantapuram of a heart attack. He was 71. He was taken ill five days ago while shooting. My mother told me this when I returned home today evening. She liked Gopi as an actor and knew that I was also a fan of Gopi.

Gopi was at his peak during the eighties. He was famous for his roles in films directed by Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Aravindan, K.G. George and Govind Nihalani among others. A paralytic stroke laid him low for a long time during which he faced a lot of difficulties. He turned to film direction later on.

In her tribute to Gopi written for rediff.com Shobha Warrier mentions how Gopi got noticed in his very first film Swayamvaram directed by Adoor Gopalakrishnan. His frustrated face drew attention to it for the brief span that it was shown on the screen. The Guardian had an article on him titled The Face of Unemployment. Click here to read Goodbye Mr. Bharat Gopi, Shobha Warrier's excellent tribute to Gopi.

Some of his well known films include Kodiyettam (1977) which won him the National Award for acting. This award was known as the Bharat award in those days. It was after this award that he came to be known as Bharat Gopi. He had also acted in Mani Kaul's Satah Se Udta Aadmi and Govind Nihalani's Aghaat.

His book Abhinayam Anubhavam won the National Award for the best book on cinema (1994). His production Padhyam (1991) won him the V Shantaram award for the best film. A very intense person he overcame personal tragedy and put great passion into everything he did. He will be missed.

Links:

Wikipedia article on Bharat Gopi.

Tribute in the Hindustan Times

Laurie Baker- Architect extraordinaire is no more

"I have my own principles, which I am unwilling to abandon. I dislike falsehood and deceit. A building should be truthful."

"I would like to mention what I consider as one of the most foolish architectural lies that anyone can imagine - build a brick building, then plaster it all over and paint bricks on the plaster to make it look like a brick building! How stupid can we be! There are several such prominent buildings in Thiruvananthapuram. "

- Laurie Baker


I happened to read the news of the death of the famous architect Laurie Baker in today's newspaper. Laurie Baker, the architect who was a Quaker in his beliefs, and was also inspired by Mahatma Gandhi made Indians to do a serious re-think about techniques of construction.

He had arrived in India in 1944. A chance meeting with Mahatma Gandhi was a defining moment of his life. He had presented Gandhi with a pair of shoes he had made using scrap and a discarded sole. Gandhi had asked him if he could do something for the housing needs of the poor in India. That had encouraged him to settle in India. He and his wife Elizabeth worked in Faizabad, Pithoragarh and Kerala.

He revolutionised construction techniques especially in Kerala He was against needless plastering, and also against the use of cement. "Do not waste money and resources" was his mantra. He also took into account the resources consumed when cement was manufactured. He had once said, "My next principle is to use locally-available material. If the area makes good bricks, use them. If I want to build in an area full of laterite or stone, I would use it. This is not only economical, but the building would also look as though it belongs; it would not sport an imported look."

Read more about this great man and his methods:

(1) The Wikipedia entry on Laurie Baker.

(2) Of architectural truths and lies by Laurie Baker.

(3) Mud by Laurie Baker (pdf version; recommended you see this version as it has illustrations too as opposed to the html version a link to which is given below.)

(4) Mud by Laurie Baker (28 pages, see as html)

(5) Obituary in The Hindu

(6) Obituary in The Indian Express

(7) Laurie Baker: The man we will never forget by Shobha Warrier in Rediff.com