Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | Friday Review | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

TAKE TWO

`Our critiques must be constructive'

Mythili Sivaraman and E. Sivakami on books, politics and women's issues

PHOTO: V. GANESAN

"Fragments of a Life" is Mythili Sivaraman's biography of her grandmother, trying to find her identity in a patriarchal household even as the nation fights for its freedom. It draws strength from her own political activism as vice-president of the All India Democratic Women's Association. With "The Grip of Change,"the English version of two earlier Tamil novels, Dalit writer and IAS officer E. Sivakami has opened her window to a new range of readers. Centre-staging women, she shows Dalit life in the raw — what is done to them, and what they do to themselves. Both books were released this year.

Silhouetted against a cerulean sky on the top floor of The Raintree hotel, Chennai, a swimming pool lapping at their feet, the women are focussed on the crowded world struggling to retain its green scraps below.

Gowri Ramnarayan recorded their talk.

Sivakami: The standard questions I face are about whether I perceive myself as a woman writer.

Mythili: (Smiling) I've been writing for 35 years on political issues but this is my first book and I'm in my late sixties. Am I a creative writer?

Sivakami: I call myself a woman writer to make a political statement.

I've crossed the barrier of being inhibited about my affinity for women's issues.

After all, no one can write better about women than women themselves.

Mythili: Your novel took me back to my 20s.

I'd just returned from studies abroad when the Venmani massacres took place on the day of my brother's wedding reception.

I was miserable, couldn't talk... Soon, with a Sarvodaya couple, I walked, took buses through the terrorised villages.

No one looked on us with suspicion, except a grim police officer who interrogated me as if he thought I was the `famous' Naxalite Ajitha!

That was the beginning of my political involvement.

N. Ram of The Hindu, myself and surprisingly P. Chidambaram, started the Radical Review.

Sivakami: I read your book about upper class women in the past with great curiosity.

They had more education, were less subject to wife beating, but were more oppressed.

The lower classes shared work space and complementary labour — it made for better gender bonding.

Mythili: Upper class men led lives totally outside the women's world.

Sivakami: In your book, I saw the response of ordinary women to the stirring struggles of their times. I can't chronicle my family's roots like that.

My mother is not articulate enough, she knows little about her mother and grandmother.

Mythili: It was tough for me to critique my grandfather. I adored him.

My grandmother was reclusive, undemonstrative.

But, when I grew up, I realised that his world was very small — tennis, cards, poetry and samiyars.

Even in reading, her choice was far more eclectic...

Sivakami: Women writers sound shrill because they record neglect and victimisation.

You've to read deeply to see that they oppose not men-folk, but injustice.

Mythili: I'm glad you wrote good things about your father.

Sivakami: I wrote fiction, not biography, my character is not my father, despite some resemblances to him.

Anger disappears when the situation changes. You think more objectively. Our critiques must be constructive, contribute to change. Mythili, what attracted you to Marxism?

Mythili: You don't need Marx to become a Marxist. It's enough to see injustice around you.

Very few women were around in 1969 when I joined the party.

Never had problems, always had the right to dissent.

Sivakami: Women have representation in all parties but it's mostly playing second fiddle unless propped up by men.

Do women members urge the adoption of action plans to get into decision making?

As district collector in Tuticorin, I didn't find a single woman leader.

Mythili: More and more women have come in at every level from the politburo to district committees. Of all political parties, it's the CPI-M that respects women the most.

Sivakami: I'm not talking about respect but about sharing power.

Mythili: How can you respect if you don't share? It's happening, but not overnight.

Sivakami: Tell me, what do you enjoy doing most?

Mythili: Nobody asked me this before. You?

Sivakami: Travelling, gardening, cooking, reading. Writing is part of me. You?

Mythili: Hmmm... AIDWA began in 1973 with 100 women, many of them illiterate. But the way they spoke out! Their wisdom is unrelated to formal education. Everybody is thrilled if there's a fight over a serious issue. Going through morchas and police action makes us bond with a deep sense of joy. I haven't been able to do much in the past three years due to health reasons. I realise that my morale has gone down so much because I haven't been on the streets....

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail