Grand old man of letters
SREEVARAHOM BALAKRISHNAN
|
S. Guptan Nair was the savant of Malayalam whose lifelong pursuit of excellence made him stand head and shoulders above the rest.
|
At once an essayist, literary critic, linguist and biographer, he has been a long-term professor who made even those `who came to scoff remain to pray.'
S. Guptan Nair
S. Guptan Nair, who passed away recently at the age of 86, was a true savant of Malayalam and a much-revered litterateur. A profound scholar and a teacher of the highest order, he has to his credit numerous volumes that have been widely acclaimed. Significantly the autobiographical `Manasa Smarami' (2005), is the finest of the lot, and hailed as his magnum opus.
There was an obvious streak of versatility in his creative oeuvre. At once an essayist, literary critic, linguist and biographer, he has been a long-term professor who made even those `who came to scoff remain to pray.' He was equally at home with the nuances of Carnatic music as with those of tennis. In fact, his keen ear for music and keener sense of rhythm added to the enchanting quality of his diction, be it in the class room, on the speaker's dais or the writing desk. Simple but lucid and lyrical, his style has always charmed readers, young and old alike.
The golden mean
As a critic, Guptan Nair shunned extremes and preferred the mid-path, the `golden mean' as it is termed in literary parlance. What he aimed at was a balance between diverse views, a sense of proportion and propriety. `While evaluating a work, one should not be bound by the constraints of any political obsession. What is paramount is its efficacy to evoke empathy in the readers rather than confounding him in a medley of emotions.' Steadfast in his conviction that literature should enchant as well as enlighten, he sought a fusion of the old and the new, a precise synthesis of perceptions.
Guptan Nair held that a critic has to be a `rasika', a connoisseur, first and foremost, who should possess a sensitive mind that is receptive to ideas, sans any built-in bias of any sort. That was precisely why he should appreciate both Kalidasa and Kafka with the same degree of felicity. Amid the hue and cry of critical pronouncements, his was a soft voice, sane and sober as ever. Little wonder, his `school' has been likened to a mild breeze as against a storm of wild winds.
While his first book `Aadhunika Sahityam' introduced the intrinsic magnitude of modern literature in simple terms, he followed it up with `Samalochana' and `Krantadarshikal' that dealt with such grandmasters like Dostolevsky, Romain Rolland, Ibsen, Stefan Swieg and Tagore whom he adored the most. Springing as they did from keep thought and study, his discourses explored the splendours of every work with clarity of vision and expression.
In `Srishtiyum Srishtavum' (Creation and the Creator) that fetched him the prestigious Vayalar award, he probed the process of creation with remarkable prowess. There is something mysterious, if not metaphysical, about creation that instigates `inspired utterances' as they call it. Not that it embodies a spontaneous outpouring of the unconscious. Nevertheless, there have been sublime moments when great writers excelled themselves in terms of profundity of revelation.
Essays
He was perhaps more engaging as an essayist rather than as a critic. Spiced with person anecdotes, he transformed the pedestrian into the profound in a syntax that was all grace and poise. His pieces in `Thirayum Chuzhiyum" and `Amrita Smriti' are enchanting specimens of this genre.
Replete with recollections of the past and reflections on the present, `Manasa Smarami' is an evocative document of the author's eventful life and of the times that shaped and fine tuned it. He was intent on piecing together the missed links of his memories so as to weave a sequel to this volume. But that was not to be, and `Manasa Smarami' turned out to be the swan-song of his career.
Guptan Nair was the Grand Old Man of Malayalam letters, who was always young and vibrant at heart, and forthright in his lifelong pursuit of excellence.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Entertainment
Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
Hyderabad
Thiruvananthapuram
