From: sp2@cec1.wustl.edu (Sundara Pandian)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.tamil
Subject: An interview with Balakumaran - Part 1
Date: 11 Sep 1992 20:37:52 -0500
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

       An interview with Balakumaran - Part 1
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 Taken from : Suba_mangaLaa 
 Interview conducted by : Gomal Swaminathan
 Translated by : S.Pandian
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  [ Balakumaran has lakhs of readers. He is a star-writer in
commercial magazines. In a period of fifteen years, he has
written fifty one novels, eighty five short-stories and a poem-
collection. His writing style forces the readers to read his     
books at a stretch. I wanted to interview him and for that I
finished four novels by him in just three days. His style is
very lucid and flows like a race-horse. The themes in his books
are often debated and strongly criticized. He has two sides -
he is rejected as an artless commercial writer by critics but
he is respected as a great writer by readers of popular Tamil          
magazines,especially by female readers. He receives a lot of
fan-mails like movie stars. His sharp, explicit and question-
provoking words could be seen in this interview..]

 Gomal : What is your first novel ?
 B.K. : `Mercury pookkaL'. It got the `ilakkiya chindhanai'
         award.

 Gomal : In your early days, what forced you to enter the
         literary world ?
 B.K. : It is due to my life. I didn't start my life with a
        hunger for literature. I was born in a poor Brahmin
        family. I was brought up in a poor atmosphere with
        no more comforts than taking curd rice for breakfast,
        for lunch and for dinner. But my dreams were more.
        But I didn't get what I desired. Moreover, I opine
        that my mother was very smart. But she was very afraid
        of my father. My father had kept her under his control 
        by his shouts. I realized even when I was 12-15 years
        old that he had no reason other than he was a male for
        shouting at my mother to keep her under his control.If
        my mother returns to home after attending a Kamba
        Ramayana discourse, my father would take the broom stick
        to hit her for attending the discourse without getting
        his permisson. It was a very shattering experience for
        me when I was fifteen years old.
           My father was the ultimate in male-dominance. Not
        only my mother , also my two aunts, grandmother and my
        cousin-sisters all were suffered by the male-dominant
        society surrounding them. I feel that I took refuge in
        the literature as I found them very helpless in their
        pathos. So I used to sit in the doorsteps and start
        imagining a very good father for me. I would imagine to
        get a good alliance for my mother. As a result, I started
        writing stories. Also as I could not continue my studies 
        more than S.S.L.C., I had a longing to do something to
        become a big man in my life. My father always used to 
        mock at me that I could atmost become a cook taking         
        contracts for functions. Those words would pierce through
        my heart and emerge from my head. I had a longing to do
        something and to do something and accidently I arrived
        at the `ka_sa_ta_tha_pa_Ra' club. It is N.Muthusamy who
        introduced me there. This is the true story of how I came
        to be a writer.

 Gomal :  How was your `ka_sa_ta_tha_pa_Ra' experience ?
 B.K. :  Initially, I didn't understand anything in that club.
        Only Muthusamy encouraged me. He would tell me, `Don't
        get scared, don't be afraid, don't run away from us'.
        But for Balakumaran, other than the ambitions to learn
        literature from `ka_sa_ta_tha_pa_Ra' and to produce 
        good literature, I also had an ambition to identify
        myself among other writers. I learned a lot from `ka_sa 
        _ta_tha_pa_Ra'. My eyes were opened only there, like a
        puppy opening its eyes. Gnanakkoothan beautifully taught
        me the literature. He is my guru.

 Gomal : You started your literary career in `ka_sa_ta_tha_pa_Ra'.
         How come you started writing commercial novels in the 
         commercial magazines to be acknowledged as a commercial
         writer now ? Because of need for money or do you honestly
         believe that what you write is really literature ?

 B.K. : What did I achieve in `ka_sa_ta_tha_pa_Ra' ? I must have
        atmost written about five or six poems. I did not have the
        capacity then to fully enjoy `ka_sa_ta_tha_pa_Ra'. I learnt
        only partly there. I did not have a big role to play in
        `ka_sa_ta_tha_pa_Ra' or `kaNaiyaazhi'. It was a starting
        and nothing more. What really mattered then was that my 
        name should come out. 
       
 Gomal : For earning.. ?
 B.K. : No. Balakumaran does not write for earning money. It is just
        that his writing sells. So he earns money. 

 Gomal : Isn't it true that you have made a habit of writing for
         the needs of the commercial magazines and the taste of
         the readers of the commercial magazines ?
 B.K. : To be precise, I will say so that you understand. It is not
        a big sin. Isn't it true that Suba_mangaLaa is a commercial
        magazine ? Don't you put a varnish cover for it ?
 Gomal : Suba_mangaLaa doesn't qualify to be a commercial magazine
         by its varnish cover. Now the magazines make use of the
         advances of the printing press. Various magazines right 
         from economical magazines, astrological magazines pay 
         attention to their cover designs. But their contents        
         differ a lot. What I am saying is that there is a middle-
         class working in offices after their high school or college
         studies. Women form a majority of this middle-class. Their
         taste is in one level. One way of writing is just writing
         for this level knowing their taste well but without provoking
         any thoughts through the writing. Can I say that you are also
         writing like this but together with style and craftsmanship ?
 B.K. : Not at all. People like my writing. But at the same time,
        I write what I want to write. I learned how to avoid bad writing
        from `ka_sa_ta_tha_pa_Ra'. [ He says it twice with emphasis.]

 Gomal : From where did you learn good writing ?
 B.K. : From T.Janakiraman. I understood when Sujatha expounded it.

 Gomal : Do you think that you have learnt the literary art from
         T.Janakiraman ?
 B.K. : Not only I learned the literary from him that you are saying
        but also I handled it better than him in a few places in my
        opinion. Because, there are a few places where I don't agree
        with T.Janakiraman also.

 Gomal : When a few critics present collections like `Novels in 70s'
         or `Novels in 80s', they don't quite talk about any of your
         novels. What do you say on that ?
 B.K. : If one doesn't talk about my novels, I can't jump into a quick
        conclusion that my novels must be bad. One big sickness in 
        Tamil literature is a group mentality. They are killing the
        literature. Their habit is to write bad about writers not
        belonging to their group. They are not literarily healthy in
        anyway. I have taken no steps to get their approval. I won't
        fall humbly to critics.
 
 Gomal : No writer falls humbly to critics.
 B.K. : I don't agree with this. I know how they canvass the critics.
        People here know what to do to get Ka.Naa.Su.'s approval.
        I can't accept that Ka.Naa.Su. is a honest critic. Let my
        readers be the judge of my writings. I don't care about
        Ka.Naa.Su.'s weighing scale. Time is there. The question is
        whether Balakumaran stands on that scale. My job is to write
        for social benefits.  
  
 Gomal : What sort of social benefits that your writing relates to ?
 B.K. :   Psychology says that one gets thoughts from social rules
        from where he was affected by his life. It is accepted by 
        scholars also. I was impacted by the sufferiengs of my mother
        and other women in our neighborhood. I realised the big ice bar
        in between men and women in the days I started writing novels.
        I wished to break this ice bar through my writings. Women
        afraid of men, men having a meagre opinion on women. I realized
        that children born of them have no honours and incapable of
        inheriting good politics, good literature and arts, good family
        and good religion and that they are like seeds lacking vigour.
        Till today, my novels address this issue only again and again.

 [ To be continued..]
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 [ Posted by : S.Pandian ( sp2@cec1.wustl.edu ) ]
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Newsgroups: soc.culture.tamil