- I. Josephine Jeyashanthi, Dept. of Tamil Literature, Loyola College
Rev. Fr. Dr. S. Rajanayagam, a multifaceted personality, media expert, media critic, an intellectual giant, has made valuable contribution to Tamil literature, media, culture, and society. This paper discusses the contribution of Rev. Fr. Dr. S. Rajanayagam to Tamil literature, especially in the postmodern genre. His unique way of writing is a challenge to readers, writers, and also critics. His books explore not only the psychological world of adults, but also children.
The term Postmodern literature is used to describe certain tendencies in post-World War II literature. It is both a continuation of the experimentation championed by writers of the modernist period (relying heavily, for example, on fragmentation, paradox, questionable narrators, etc.) and a reaction against Enlightenment ideas implicit in Modernist literature. Postmodern literature, like postmodernism as a whole, is hard to define and there is little agreement on the exact characteristics, scope, and importance of postmodern literature.
The distinction between high and low culture is also attacked with the employment of pastiche, the combination of multiple cultural elements including subjects and genres not previously deemed fit for literature.
Here I’ve taken his novels ‘Kaalamatra Kaalam’, ‘Saamikkannu enum sila manidhargal’, ‘sila mudivugalum, sila thodakkangalum’, and his poetry collection titled ‘Rojaakkal Kaaippadhillai’.
The plots of his novels are not easy to summarize. These are the stories of a visitation from the past and the consequent upheaval in the emotional lives of its characters. Rev. Fr. Dr. S. Rajanayagam’s technique is to thread various narratives together using the present tense to convey the vividness of the memories of his characters. If we analyze his novel ‘Saamikkannu enum sila manidhargal’, we understand that his writings have a rich, many-layered structure which generates as many interpretations and readings as its eponymous character. It is universal in its appeal: the mysterious style and lyrical beauty combine with messages and images that maul the reader’s sensibility and conscience, making it a complex novel that is at times difficult and painful to read, but always rewarding. The novel examines the inner conflicts of individuals which obviously raise controversial questions in reader’s mind, which itself is a success of any writing.
When we analyze ‘Kaalamatra Kaalam’, it is a new kind of writing melding and interlocking different accounts and versions of events, to create a fictional response to the emotional struggles of individuals.
We could see the tone of satire throughout this novel which enhances to enjoy the pleasure of text. It also challenges and questions the sexual politics prevailing in all sections of society including religion, the ‘so-called’ sacred part of human life. We should appreciate the straightforward writing of the author to openly discuss the sex and its need. His unique way of writing and the language do not fall under any already-framed traditional structure.
Hans-Peter Wagner’s comments on the writings of Beckett is also applicable to Dr. Rajanayagam’s writings. He says, "Mostly concerned with what he saw as impossibilities in fiction (identity of characters; reliable consciousness; the reliability of language itself; and the rubrication of literature in genres).” Dr. Rajanayagam's experiments with narrative form and with the disintegration of narration and character in fiction that must be read in light of his own theories and previous works and the attempt to deconstruct literary forms and genres. For example, his novel ‘Sila mudivugalum, sila thodakkangalum’ is developed as a criticism for his own work ‘Saamikkannu enum sila manidhargal’.
Here literary critics may wonder whether ‘Sila mudivugalum, sila thodakkangalum’ is a replica of Sundara Ramasamy’s ‘Virivum Aazhamum Thaedi’, a commentary on his own writings, but ‘Sila mudivugalum, sila thodakkangalum’ is totally a different kind of work. In other words, it is another story rediscovering the previous work ‘Saamikkannu enum sila manidhargal’. The influence of his experiments with metafiction and magical realism (a movement coterminous with postmodernism) is fully realized in this novel.
It's common for postmodernists to treat serious subjects in a playful and humorous way.
Linda Hutcheon claimed postmodern fiction as a whole could be characterized by the ironic quote marks, that much of it can be taken as tongue-in-cheek. This irony, along with black humor and the general concept of "play" (related to Derrida's concept or the ideas advocated by Dr. Rajanayagam in all his writings. But as a narrator, he has emotional detachment from his writings though he himself seems to be a character or even hiding himself in all the characters.
Dr. Rajanayagam attempted to replicate the underprivileged female slave’s voice, her ‘unpseakable thoughts, unspoken’. The result is a new kind of poetry collection titled ‘Rojaakkal Kaaipadhillai’. It is interesting to feminists due to its focus on women.
Even in the religious sphere, women have no dominant role or authority. The dominant gods are male. Their representatives are also male. She is the temptress, in the image of Eve. The submissive, chaste, hardworking, even suffering wife is held up as the ideal. They are used and socially marginalized. Not living as a woman, but espousing virginity, is her only way of gaining a certain respect. The woman is often considered ritually impure, because of her menstruation. ‘Rojaakkal Kaaippadhillai’ seriously discusses these issues where we can see Dr. Rajanayagam as a writer conscious of his intent and its effect. In his sure hands, the reader of ‘Rojaakkal Kaaippadhillai’ enjoys the terrible poems which shaken their mind. The portrayal of women, their sufferings tell us that the aim of his writing these poems is to bear witness to a history that is unrecorded, untaught in mainstream education.
We can compare his writings with American writer, Gabriele Dietrich
A poem by Gabriele Dietrich makes a powerful link between the blood of the Cross, the bleeding women and the Eucharist.
Who are you
to deny life
to the life-givers?
Each one of you
has come from the womb
but none of you
can bear woman …
I am a woman
and my monthly bloodshed
makes me aware
that blood
is meant for life.
It is you
who have invented
those lethal machines
spreading death:
Three kilotonnes of explosives
for every human being
on earth.
…
I am a woman
and my blood
cries out.
We are millions
and strong together.
You better hear us
or you may be doomed
Dr. Rajanayagam’s poems are stronger and more powerful than the above-mentioned poem in usage of language and depth of meaning. Gabriele Dietrich is challenging priests who treat women as impure and polluting factor because of their menstruation.
I am a woman
and the blood
of my sacrifices
cries out to the sky
which you call heaven.
I am sick of you priests
who have never bled
and yet say:
This is my body
given up for you
and my blood
shed for you
drink it.
Whose blood
has been shed
for life
since eternity?
I am sick of you priests…
It is quite interesting to note that when a feminist writer like Gabriele Dietrich curse priests for their insensitive and indifferent attitude towards women, our author Dr. Rajanayagam, being a priest evokes the suffering and bloodshed imposed on women in abortion, rape, birth control, and domestic labor.
It is a general opinion or criticism that only women can understand and express their sufferings, both physical and mental, but Dr. Rajanayagam has proved this concept to be false.
When we read the painful lines of ‘Rojaakkal Kaaippadhillai’, we recall Kate Millet’s quotes from ‘Sexual Politics’:
“No doubt also, the very existence of the inner productive space exposes women early to a specific sense of loneliness, to a fear of being left empty or deprived of treasures, of remaining unfulfilled and of drying up . . . For, as pointed out, clinical observation suggests that in female experience an “inner space” is at the center of despair even as it is the very center of potential fulfillment. Emptiness is the female form of perdition – known at times to men of the inner life . . . but standard experience for all women. To be left, for her, means to be left empty . . . such hurt can be re-experienced in each menstruation; it is a crying to heaven in the mourning over a child; and it becomes a permanent scar in the menopause.”
The ideal Postmodernist writing will somehow rise above the quarrel between realism and irrealism, formalism and 'contentism,' pure and committed literature, coterie fiction and junk fiction. But, we cannot claim Dr. Rajanayagam as an ideal postmodernist because he has reached the next milestone. His books are a source of comment for all kinds of readers, men and women, who read for pleasure and those who study the text for academic ends. One will need to read his writings more than once which will generate new ideas and take the reader to a new platform.
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