It’s f***ing funny

KOZHIKODE: Why do women become prostitutes?
Because there are men
-Vaikom Mohammad Basheer
In his book, Shabdangal (voices) Basheer is like a man possessed, battling his own demons and, like Dostoyevsky, he peeks into that dark recess of man’s inner nature with devastating effect. Basheer was fortunate that he wrote the novel in an era when authors in Kerala did not care to be politically correct.
Today, if Basheer were alive he would have been ripped apart in social media by hyperbolic feminist writers, and the author would have been panned for his male chauvinistic utterances, overlooking the literary value of his works.
Basheer’ s brutal rawness seems to have inspired students of Guruvayurappan college who went ahead and punned the title of Basheer’s classic short story ‘Viswavikhyathamaya Mookku’ for their college magazine. The title and the illustrations of the magazine, ‘Viswavikhyatha Theri’, is indeed eye-catching but the students in their zeal seemed to have barked up the wrong tree. The ‘Theri’ editors seem to have been carried away by the recent Kanhaiya wave, seeing imaginary casteist connotations where it is simply home-grown abuses, excavating their dead roots, sensationalizing and slamming the abuses at the same time.
Fringe elements like ABVP, at the other end of the spectrum, have also jumped into the fray and demanded a blanket ban on the magazine, which according to them highlights obscenity. The magazine has received unprecedented support in the social media with feminist writers and a section of academics coming out in support of this ‘avant garde effort’ and a prominent publisher even deciding to bring out the magazine as book to cash in on the controversy.
But, linguists and literary critics point out the hollowness of the whole premise that abuses are being directed at a particular community. They say though it is a fact that abuses like pulayaadi mon or chetta would have come from historical hatred for lower castes, over the years these words have lost their original meaning and have become generic abuse. “An abuse is an abuse. Using it against anyone shows the person’s upbringing and perceived dominance over others. Excavating its roots and slamming it as a racist slur is not only devious but taking words out of context from contemporary social reality,’’ says literary critic P K Rajasekharan.
He says this is a classic case of intentional misreading and it will lead to a politics of hate and segregation on the basis of caste and religion. “I pity the students who were immature enough to bring out a magazine with misleading information, but it is sad that a section of the academic community is supporting the content of this magazine,’’ he points out.
To begin with, the meaning of every word changes with times. For instance, the abuse kuthichi which seems to be derived from the usage kuthu aaduka was a derogative term used against dancers, during a time when dancing in the public was considered a sacrilege and was seen as a slavish performance for the royalty. Today this abuse is used as a substitute for prostitutes, but it would be ridiculous for contemporary dancers to take umbrage against it. Interestingly, kuthichi, got a fillip when a prominent CPM leader used that word against Saritha Nair during the height of the solar scam.
Similarly, the word chetta was used against a person who lived in a small plot of land — chetta kudil — but today that abuse has evolved and chetta is used against any person who is narrow-minded and petty. “The problem here is that our memory remains static, while language is always mobile and changing. We associate words with a bygone era, but in each era words and grammar change to reflect that contemporary reality,’’ says linguist Scaria Zacharia, who is Gundert Chair at University of Tubingen in Germany.
Even within communities, abuses change according to times. The swear word ashrikaram (not pure) was a brahmanical slur but today a mother would call her kid ashrikaram when the kid does not listen to her, not once thinking of its etymological roots. Also, words that are held with pride by some communities are used as soft abuses by communities from other states. The word pandi is a classic example, a derogative term used for Tamil manual labourers who work in Kerala. For Tamilians, pandi reminds them of the great Pandya dynasty. But the average Malayali uses it as a casual adjective when saying, pandi lorry, pandi pazham and pandi patti — to refer to inferior quality of goods or the reckless behaviour of inter-state truck drivers. “When we use the word pandi, we do not think we are taking revenge on the historical defeat that the Pandyas inflicted on the Chera king who ruled Kerala. It is just a reflection of how migrants are seen everywhere, be it in Mumbai or Delhi where they are still called Madrasis,’’ says Gopakumar, assistant professor, department of history, University College.
In Kerala’s composite Dravidian culture, abuses are even used creatively by devotees to reach out to a fiery goddess. At Kodungallur temple, oracles chant abusive songs offering, for instance, 'a penis as big as the temple mast’ to the goddess as a symbolic gesture to bring in fertility to the barren land and change the destructive bhava of the devi into a more compassionate being. “During kavu theendal ritual, abuses are showered on Bhadrakali. But to take abuses out of context and then say it is a slur will only bring in more segregation on caste lines,’’ says K R Babu, folklore expert and former executive officer of Folklore Akademi.
Theri, as writer C J Thomas once said, is the weapon of the loser. When a person loses logic and sanity in an argument, he uses it as a poor tool to debase himself further.