From: sp2@cec1.wustl.edu (Sundara Pandian)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.tamil
Subject: On obscenity in the Tamil literary world
Date: 26 Sep 1992 19:20:03 -0500
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

   In this letter, I hand  in  Ka.Naa.Su.'s  views  on  the  much
talked  and  debated  obscenity  in  the  Tamil  literary  world.
Ka.Naa.Su. or K.N.Subramaniam is a respected critic  and  one  of
the influential writers of modern Tamil literature.  The excerpts
given in this letter are taken from one of his critical essays in
the  year  1983.  For  better  understanding, I like to say a few
words first on the scenario in the year 1983.
   The Tamil fortnightly Thuglak, a political magazine edited  by
Cho,  ran a series of `critical' articles in the year 1983 criti-
cizing the obscenity in the Tamil magazines , Tamil movie  songs,
Tamil  dramas  etc., This series of articles written by `Dhurvaa-
sar' attracted Tamil public and was much talked and debated among
popular  Tamil  magazines. It was mentioned in Thuglak when asked
by many readers to reveal the real name of the mysterious  critic
Dhurvaasar  that  Dhurvaasar is not any single author but a panel
of writers in the Thuglak office. It  was  when  this  series  of
critical  articles  was  in progress that Manian, the editor of a
popular Tamil magazine  `Idhayam  Pesukiradhu',  wrote  a  strong
letter  in his magazine criticizing Dhurvaasar. This was followed
by an equally strong letter in Thuglak by Cho  replying  Manian's
criticism of the Dhurvaasar's articles. Dhurvaasar criticized the
Tamil writers Sujatha, Saandilyan, Pushpa Thangadurai, Hema Anan-
dathirthan,  Sivasangari  with explicit passages in their stories
and novels to support the criticisms  and  also  the  movie  song
writers  like  Vaali,  Gangai Amaran etc. with mentioning some of
their explicit lyrics.
    It was in this period that Ka.Naa.Su. wrote his views on  the
obscenity talked in the Tamil literary world.
  Ka.Naa.Su. says :
                 " Currently being debated is the fact of obscen-
               ity  in the Indian and particularly Tamil literary
               world. Thuglak fortnightly for  want  of  any  new
               cause,  the  anti Indira Gandhi stance having gone
               stale and getting nowhere, has launched an  attack
               on  obscenity  in Tamil writings, in the films and
               in public life. There is genuinely a case for  the
               application  of  a  moral broomstick on our public
               figures, authors  included,  but  the  motives  of
               Thuglak  and  its  editor  Cho  in  launching this
               tirade are questioned. It is asserted that  it  is
               a bid to make his fortnightly grow more popular by
               Cho. The writers attacked are no doubt  vulnerable
               but  by what standards can these writers be called
               writers at all except of course that  they  write.
               They are a subliterary species. The crying obscen-
               ity is the continuing devaluing of literary  stan-
               dards  and  criteria  in Tamil letters. Any modern
               society creates a large carving for pornography of
               sorts and the authors set their minds on sales and
               success rush to offer pornography services as  and
               when desired. Small blame to them. They claim that
               they only supply what the public wants.  The  non-
               recognition and the nonexistence of any demand for
               really literary material is what is basically  ob-
               scene with our literary world and perhaps not only
               in Tamilnadu which is no worse and no better  than
               any  other  Indian  region ! Obscenity is wherever
               you can find it, in the Ramayana, in Kalidasa,  in
               Shakespeare  and in fact in your everyday life. To
               overcome the carving for  obscenity  you  have  to
               educate  the  young and the adolescent but we have
               very little of that and no application of criteria
               or standards to writing. Futile debate this, about
               obscenity, though it seems to serve a  small  need
               today of a large public to know where they can ob-
               tain the obscenity they need. They need not search
               for  long,  or look up a guide, for most of Indian
               journalism is so much tinged with yellow  that  no
               yellow  journalism  as such exists, or need exist.
               Our fashionable reading from the west tends to  be
               more  and more obscenely informational. And we ape
               them as we ape other Western fashions."

                                                     -  S.Pandian
                                               sp2@cec1.wustl.edu