Human Web

 

Original Source: https://www.jeyamohan.in/193158/

Date: 9-Nov-2023

 

"What use are the travels that a writer undertakes? Shouldn't he be writing about the people and the places that he knows quite well? How can the lands, places that he skims about and the passing acquaintances that he makes help him? Wouldn't he be able to write in detail only about those that he knows?". Several years back, a senior Tamil writer asked me this.

This is the reply that I gave him.

Writers are of 2 kinds. The first kind are those who write about things that they know pretty well or about things that they have experienced with a direct narration and with correct details. These are the majority. A few among them have some significance in literature. But they are not artists. Because, literature is a quest undertaken with imagination as the tool. These authors are against imagination and are incapable of understanding imagination. They will be labelled as "biographers of life" and not as "litterateur".

The second kind are the artists. Those who made a tool out of imagination. Literature is not a direct documentary of life. It is a parallel life created on a similar level as the life that has been happening from the times of early humans. Vyasa, Homer, Tolstoy, PudumaiPithan are those that created that world as a whole.

That world is not about how the life went on or goes on here. It entails the dreams and ideals about how the life could've gone on and how it should go on. That is what created everything like the ideals, justice, love, kindness, endearment that we truly believe in. It is also the one that breaks all these by raising suspicions and recreating them again.

For a litterateur, experience is just the starting point for his imagination. Just a raw material. The imagery for the art doesn't happen in the memories. Rather in subconscious. The droplets of experience that kindles an artist's subconscious mind are the ones that become art. Often, they may not be the direct manifestations. They might even be antithetical manifestations. Like the pearl that searches for the raindrop, keeping the subconscious open and wandering in the expanse of experience is the path of artists. Great artists, the world over, were the ones that were constantly wandering around in their lives and lands.

Why to wander? Because we get used to our environment. In that environment, those we need or do not need doesn't meet our eyes. Once we know a little, we try to define the rest with what we know. Therefore, our knowledge till then becomes the hindrance for knowing further. Sundara Ramaswamy terms this as the "Habitual moss". That is the biggest factor in constricting our experience. Litterateurs travel to overcome this.

Think about it. Those who have been with you and whom you are close with - Do you really know about them? Isn't their proximity hindering you from knowing about them? Are you not defining them through your likes and dislikes about them? At a specific moment, when he is seen through another perspective all of a sudden, do you really start knowing about him. Few such instances are what helps you know even about your wife.

But you do not have such prejudgements towards a stranger you meet in your journeys. No likes or dislikes. Nor do you gain anything by knowing about that person. That "Opening Up" instance will happen quite easily with that person. He would yield himself to you quite easily. You can understand him  not via reasoning rather even subconsciously in some detail in just a few minutes. The characters that appeared in world's greatest fictions and have been talked about for several centuries are merely those strangers who were met by the authors of those fictions for just a few moments.

To know about the land where we dwell requires constant meditation. To deliver us anew ourselves everyday is meditation. The meditation that I follow and preach is to discover the land anew every day. But it doesn't happen usually. We approach the situation via our needs and problems. But an entirely new environment creates such a meditative state quite easily. We discover the land in depth. Even if that land appears in a painting or a photograph, the detachment and the resultant knowing happens. Travels are for that purpose only.

Alas, there was no use for these. That writer didn't understand what I said. He started saying, "For me, new places means discomfort.. new people leads to distancing.. We cannot approach new people just like that. They would lie to our queries..". "We need not even have to speak with them", with this I ended my conversation.

I have, in fact, written a lot about the people that I met accidentally. My books like "Nigazhdhal", "Vaazhvilae Oru Murai" and "Sanga Chithirangal" contains such direct experiences of mine, while the book "Mugangalin Daesam" is exclusively about those experiences. I have also written many short stories based on those people. My travels are the reason for my ever-lasting repository.

When being with friends, conversations with strangers doesn't usually happen. Still, need to have faith in accidents. When we were standing in Miami beach, someone pointed towards the Manatees.

While we were running around to spot the the Manatees, a white Caucasian lady pointed to them by shouting out "Manatees".

"We had spotted them already", we replied.

"But why didn't you tell me", she remarked smiling.

We apologized and introduced ourselves. Martha is an environmental teacher. It seems that she had woken up that morning quite depressed, reason being the previous night's news about the attack on Gaza by Israel. Deaths of children had shaken her.

"We humans never learn anything. Even if have faced brutality ourselves, we do not hesitate to brutalize others", she said.

The tremble and the fatigue in her voice appeared to hint of a depression. She tried consoling herself by visiting the beach in the morning. The Manatees' merriment gave her a smile.

"They are very soft.. gentle", she said.

Nature revives us from all our fatigue. There is always a promise left in nature.

In every place, as soon as I introduce myself, people search about me in Wikipedia and smile instantly. But I never introduce myself as a writer. Even if someone else says so, I kind of hesitate. Only when someone introduces themselves after knowing me, will it be natural.

In Austin, when we visited the house of O. Henry, a lady queried us "You know O.Henry, right?".

Though Indians travel to such places out of tourist interests, it is quite rare that they have even a basic introduction towards America's literature, culture and history.

"Yeah we know him well.. This gentleman is a writer", Soundar introduced me.

She explained in quite a detail after that. Austin is the place of O.Henry's calamities. He had to suffer prison time after being accused of partaking in a financial scandal.

"He isn't someone who swindles money. That he isn't capable of handling finance is the truth. He wrote in the name of O.Henry. He was a popular writer in NewYork. But it wasn't worth much. So, he hid the fact that he was O.Henry.", the lady mentioned.

"Today, I too live likewise in Nagercoil..", I said.

This planet is just one huge land. There are many factors which permeates throughout it and make it as one. Wind, water and sunlight are what we are aware of. There is a policy that plants world over combine to form one single expanse. There is also a saying that the birds world over form a single cluster.

There are moments when it seems that a thread created through humans is connecting the world. We were traveling to Vancouver from Portland via Seattle. Prabhu was driving the car. There is a scenic road close to Portland. On the left side, stood steep mountain ranges, through which several waterfalls of varying sizes are flowing. The river thus formed, flows parallel to the road as a wide waterway.

Autumn's colorfulness, chillness, rain-filled clouds, glowing waterfalls, radiant river have all made the journey frozen as a dream in memory. Rather than seeing, it would be more appropriate to say that I was in deep enthrallment. So, I couldn't know or remember anything specific. I had surrendered my subconscious to that land.

On seeing a waterfall, we climbed to get closer to it. There was a narrow trail to reach the top of the waterfall. When we were viewing the waterfall from there, an aged, stout, white Caucasian asked smiling, "Which place?".

"India. TamilNadu in south of India", we said.

"Where in Tamil Nadu?".

"I reside in Nagercoil".

"Aah. I was born there in a place called Villukuri".

The world suddenly became just a tiny bubble. He was the son of a person who had come there as a missionary. He belonged to the American mission. Being born in Villukuri, he grew up in places like Tirumangalam, Thirunagar and Pasumalai. After completing education in America, he worked as a teacher in Kodaikanal for several years. His wife was born in Madurai. While his sons are in Australia, he returned to America. His father's native is Portland. 

"My wife has gone to the top. I cannot climb as I have had a knee replacement surgery", he said. "I have climbed this waterfall many a times during my younger days".

Prabhu introduced me as a writer, but it didn't evoke any interest in him. Prabhu told him that I had written Mahabharath and he didn't know anything about Mahabharath at all. His' was the tiniest world in Tamil Nadu within the tiny world of Missionaries. A palm tree inside a dewdrop.

He told that he likes TamilNadu, especially the weather of Kodaikanal which is soothing. He knows a lot of people out  there but nowadays his contacts with India are less. He mentioned that he was glad to have met Tamilians.

In Miami, Rajinikanth had arranged for a vehicle to roam around. We went around the city. The South American White driver of mixed race origin runs a car rental business. He was recuperating from Covid time losses.  

He was speaking interestingly about Miami's history, geography and its landscape. He enquired about me. When Rajinikanth introduced me as a writer, he was overjoyed and remarked that he had also written a book about Miami.

Rajinikanth, with some skepticism, asked him whether he knows about Mahabharath.

"Yes. The story of Krishna. His friend was Arjuna. They waged a great war. Bhagavad Gita was narrated in that battle ground."

It was exciting. In India, is it a possibility that some guide asks a European tourist whether he/she knows Iliad?

But twenty years back, I booked a room for an American dance artist at a 5-star hotel in Alappuzha, Kerala. He spoke with the young man who was serving him food at his room. The artist was from New Albany, US.

As soon as the artist stated that, the young man mentioned, "New Albany... birth place of Faulkner".

But the artist hadn't known about Faulkner.

 

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vyasa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Tolstoy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pudhumaipithan

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundara_Ramaswamy 

 

https://www.vishnupurampublications.com/product/vaazhvile-oru-murai/

https://www.vishnupurampublications.com/product/sanga_chithirangal/

https://www.amazon.in/Mugangalin-Desam-%E0%AE%AE%E0%AF%81%E0%AE%95%E0%AE%99%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%95%E0%AE%B3%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%A9%E0%AF%8D-Jeyamohan-%E0%AE%9C%E0%AF%86%E0%AE%AF%E0%AE%AE%E0%AF%8B%E0%AE%95%E0%AE%A9%E0%AF%8D/dp/9385118870

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manatee

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O._Henry

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagercoil

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villukuri

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tirumangalam,_Madurai

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirunagar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasumalai

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodaikanal

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahabharata

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagavad_Gita

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iliad

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alappuzha

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Albany,_Indiana

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Faulkner