In our part of the world there is this story of an old lady. She used to take us across the green lakes in her small boat. When the dark clouds set in and we panicked mid-way, she showed us the light and a little blue sky. She showed us the way and gave us poetry to sing on the way. Then one fateful monsoon night when the darkness kept creeping in from the west and the waters were rough, she went alone, alone into the lake, in her small boat. No one has seen her since then.
Courtesy : Malayala Manorama
Professor M N Vijayan died yesterday, and a lot of us wonder what to do with the cloudy sky. We will miss the old man who reminded us “that drinking cola is drinking cola’s politics; that a watchman does not become irrelevant even if robberies don’t happen; that we respect the dead because they stop competing with us”. The writer, thinker, teacher will continue to live on through his language and the slogans he raised on our soil against imperialism and invasion. M N Vijayan will live through us.
Written very very well…… I again say : well said mate!
i didnt care about this man before…but nowadays i look back, i think he might be right in a lot of things he said. some political ideology is changing in me…not sure what though!
chanced upon this blog…interesting stuff…thought u wud like to read it… http://keralamnow.blogspot.com
clash, thanks pal 🙂
Jiby, same here…i started reading him perhaps a year or two before. I admire his clarity of thought. Nice to know we have had people like him. btw saw the blog..i would stick on to just interesting 🙂
It was in 1998 that i first met him at the Calicut University and heard his speach. Before that I had read his first book named “Kavithayum Manassasthravum” (Poetry & Psychology) based on the works of noted malayalam poet Vyloppilly Sreedhara Menon. After that it became my pleasure & craze to hear him and read his works. Now I am in a real pensive mood, unable to realise the reality of the great death!
Vijayan, a Marxist thinker and literary critic, had greatly influenced contemporary Kerala culture as a radical thinker in fact a radical humanist of M N Roy’s genre
He was among the rare breed of teachers who refused to give the students straight answers. He disturbed them with his doomsday prophecies and inspired them, like Socrates, with his original observations..It is truly an unimaginable losse to every intellectual Malayali…
I used to read his writings but, not much. ofcourse i was attracted to his thoughts and presentations, but whilwe he was alive i couldnot understand the real “height” of him. after his demise, now i realise that he is arguably one of the ten best ‘original’ intellectuals the earth has ever produced. he simply god’s gift to us, although we didnt understand well.
Mash, as we call him………… he is there in the thoughts, memories and spirit of many…… we stay and make him alive only when we live a life in which the elements of his MIND is enlivened and activated. he lived in his classrooms and speeches asking us to live our lives at the core of our humane content and this content is the essence of all politics….. live it and prove it that he is always alive to all those sections who destabilize our humanist tradition……
he prooved that death is alsothe part of politics
“kadayi thirnna ottamaram”
Mash,it is two years since you left us. Living in these hyper modern times, it is imperative to know you and your thoughts. I request all those who know him to read and read him again and again to enliven our humanist tradition…
Mash, I am in the edge of a cliff, may fall to any of the sides……….Your spirit is there for me to rely on………I wish I make it…..Again reminded of an old slogan, when I think about you……..Arise, Awake, Stop, Not till the goal is reached!
I see the ‘bubble’ you always mention. Such bubbles are around us everywhere to be burst. I see the metamorphosis of our old ‘poombattas’ into bubbles roaming in our gardens and when they burst…….. It would be too late my comrades………..
He never engaged in silly controversies and I believe he was never think of his image and go behind it, like some other personalities to whom I believe that our people of Kerala gave undeserved consideration. (I do not mention his name here). But Pro. MN Vijayan never go behind for such cheep popularity.
Pro. MN Vijayan’s way of presentation of subjects was novel and most interesting. I never read a book or essays like his style and type. What he narrated, he did it with his heart, not to get appreciation or some benefit.
His life was very simple as his death.
in many ways,he reminds me of another ‘Indian great’ Jiddu Krishnamurthy..