Where are our Writers?

Illustration from Mathrubhumi

The latest short story of celebrated Malayalam writer Zachariah raises some vital questions about the role of writers as well as religionists in contemporary India. Titled ‘Devotional Poet’, the story appeared in Mathrubhumi [Jan 30-Feb 05]. The protagonist is a young man who ekes a living by singing devotional songs. But his livelihood is suddenly brought to an end by contemporary religious zealots who ask him, “Aren’t you ashamed to sit and sing songs while our religion is under attack?” His soothing devotion is replaced by a frenzy pretending to be devotion. “Can you hear?” a friend asks the poet. “There is music in the war cry of the religionists. It is the rhyme of maddened devotion.”

Maddened devotion replaces genuine devotion in Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. The devotional poet gets an opportunity to perform in Delhi, “the spiritual academia of Indians now.” Shouldn’t the protagonist learn a new lesson from this great academia? The question is asked by a group of writers including O V Vijayan (now no more), Gopakumar, and Zachariah himself. Zachariah is a character in the story and quite a villainous one too. He perverts the devotional poet by forcing him to drink Old Monk.

Old Monk becomes the Poet’s constant companion after that. There is an intoxication in it that devotion cannot provide in today’s India. Devotion is frenzy today. Writers are intoxicated. Politicians are thugs. Who will redeem India?

Once upon a time writers were intellectual leaders. They brought truths to people. They questioned injustices and wrongs. Today?

They are bought off. By the government. A government which spends Rs2500 crore a year on advertisements has bought off writers. A government which gets writers arrested on sedition charges. A government that kills writers sotto voce. A government whose courts of justice peddle injustice. A government whose universities teach falsehood, whose police are raiders, whose monuments are sham….

Zachariah’s protagonist becomes a fortune teller in the end.

We are all fortune-seekers now. One way or another. Even our writers are, alas!