| Jeyamohan | |
|---|---|
| Born | April 22, 1962 Arumanai, Tamilnadu |
| Occupation | Novelist, short story writer, Literary Critic, essayist |
| Language | Tamil, Malayalam |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Period | 1985–present |
| Genres | Fiction, Non-fiction, |
| Subjects | Indian Philosophy, Literature, History |
| Notable work(s) | Vishnupuram Pin Thodarum Nizhalin Kural Kotravai Kaadu Naveena Thamizhilakkiya Arimugam |
| Spouse(s) | Arunmozhi Nangai |
| Children | Ajithan, Chaitanya |
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www.jeyamohan.in |
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B. Jeyamohan (Tamil: ஜெயமோகன்) or Jayamohan (b.April 4, 1962) is a noted Tamil and Malayalam writer[1] and literary critic from Nagercoil in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
Considered a brilliant entrant to the world of Tamil literature in the 1990s, Jeyamohan has had one of the biggest impacts on the Tamil literary landscape as it emerged out of the post-modern phase. His best-known and critically most acclaimed work is Vishnupuram, a deeply-layered fantasy set as a quest through various schools of Indian philosophy and mythology. His other well-known novels include Rubber, Pin Thodarum Nizhalin Kural, Kanyakumari, Kaadu, Pani Manithan, Eazhaam Ulagam, and Kotravai. His writing is heavily influenced by the works of humanitarian thinkers Leo Tolstoy and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Drawing on the strength of his life experiences and extensive travel around India, Jeyamohan is able to re-examine and interpret the essence of India's rich literary and classical traditions.
Since 1994, Jeyamohan has conducted literary meetups and writers' conclaves in Kutraalam,Ooty, and Thirparappu that have enabled sophisticated discussions and exchanges of ideas between Tamil and Malayalam literary spheres. In 2009, his readership circle set up the Vishnupuram Ilakkiya Vattam to develop the level of serious literary awareness in Tamilnadu, and to shine light on under-recognized pioneers of modern Tamil literature.
Jeyamohan's prolific output includes nine novels, ten volumes of short-stories/plays , thirteen literary criticisms, five biographies of writers, six introductions to Indian and Western literature, three volumes on Hindu and Christian philosophy and numerous other translations and collections. He has also collaborated on screenwriting for one Malayalam and three Tamil movies .
Besides these, Jeyamohan writes extensively on his website, with more than five thousand entries on topics ranging from Indian literature to commentary on contemporary India. Jeyamohan uses his website to continuously engage in a dialogue with his audience and participatively develop ideas and axioms.
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Jeyamohan was born on April 22, 1962 to S.Baguleyan Pillai and B.Visalakshi Amma in Arumanai, Nagercoil,Tamilnadu. Baguleyan Pillai was an accounts clerk in the Arumanai registrar's office. Visalakshi Amma hailed from a family of intellectuals and trade-unionists - Jeyamohan considered her equal to Saraswati in learning and erudition. Jeyamohan's siblings were an elder brother and a younger sister. Baguleyan's family followed him around on his work-related transfers throughout southern Kerala and the Nanjil Kanyakumari district that straddles the border of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Jeyamohan's adolescence was spent in voracious reading and absorbing the richness of the culture around him. His first publication during schooldays was in Ratnabala, a children's magazine, followed by a host of publications in popular weeklies.
After high-school, Jeyamohan was pressured by his father into studying commerce at the Pioneer Kumarasamy College in Nagercoil. It was a period of tremendous inner-conflict and depression, and the suicide of his childhood friend Radhakrishnan finally drove him to leave home on spiritual quests. He sought to become a Sanyasi and travelled through the holy places of India, like Benares,Tiruvannamalai and Palani. Supporting himself through odd-jobs and living the life of an ascetic wanderer, he was constantly on the move internally and externally. Some of his experiences during this time find expression in Eazhaam Ulagam, about humanity at the raw edges of society. By this time, Jeyamohan had joined and left the Hindu nationalist organization, Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh. He took up a temporary job at the Telephones department in Kasargode, and stayed at the trade-union commune where he started to examine Leftist ideals.
His correspondence with senior Tamil writer Sundara Ramasami started during this period, and it developed into a strong bond that lasted till Ramaswamy's death. Sundara Ramaswamy was based in Nagercoil, Tamil Nadu and had blazed the trail of modernism in Tamil literature. His mentorship groomed Jeyamohan into complex literary analysis and developing his own narrative with unflinching integrity. However, the suicides of his mother and father back home made him a nervous wreck. Reading and writing were the only sources of comfort in a life of isolation and depression. Every few months, he traveled all over India constantly seeking new experiences. Encouraged by Malayalam poet Aatroor Ravi Varma, who sensitized him to the delicate balance between art and life, Jeyamohan kept up his dialogue with writers, artists, spiritual thinkers and political philosophers, and was soon starting to get published in literary journals in Tamil and Malayalam.
In 1987, the journal Kollippaavai published his poem Kaidhi ('The Prisoner'). In the same year, Nadhi ('The River) was published in Kanaiyazhi with a critical mention from writer Asokamithran. The journal Nigazh published Bodhi, followed by Padugai ('The Riverbed'). Critics heaped praise on Padugai for its evocative narrative that wove together myths and contemporary visuals. Jeyamohan wrote his first full-fledged novel Rubber in 1988 and then re-edited and published it in 1990. The novel won the Akilan Memorial prize for its path-breaking portrayal of the ecological and sociological impact of rubber cultivation in the South Indian states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Jeyamohan's speech at the awards function was heralded as a defining moment in Tamil literary criticism history, and he further developed those ideas in Novel (1990), an exploration of the art form and its ideologies, and Naveena Thamizhilakkiya Arimugam, a comprehensive introduction to modernist Tamil literature.
Jeyamohan was introduced to Arunmozhi Nangai as a reader, and soon their relationship developed into love, culminating in their marriage in 1991. Son Ajithan was born in 1993 and daughter Chaitanya in 1997. The family's love and support stabilized Jeyamohan, and his writing started reaching newer heights in vision, theme and scope.
Arunmozhi worked in the Department of Posts, and Jeyamohan took up permanent employment with the Department of Telecommunications (later BSNL). The family moved to Dharmapuri, Padmanabhapuram and finally settled down in Nagercoil. During this phase, Jeyamohan commenced work on some of his most complex classical pieces, ideas which had been germinating for almost a decade.
In 1993, Jeyamohan met Guru Nitya Chaitanya Yati which proved to be a turning point in his spiritual journey. The dialogues with the Guru opened new views into the body of Indian thought, which culminated in the magnum opus Vishnupuram in 1997.
Jeyamohan continued his frequent travels throughout India as a common man, in order to sustain the integrity of his narrative and to gain intimate knowledge of the fabric that kept the nation together despite the vastness of its size and differences in culture. He is one of the few authors to have traveled and witnessed first-hand regional conflicts, droughts and political problems that underlay issues like Naxalism in tribal areas. His experiences convinced him of the continuing relevance of Gandhian idealism and non-violence as the sensible alternative to naked capitalism and militant socialism.
The leftist in him had been saddened by the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and a decade long introspection on the nature of power and self-righteousness found expression in Pin Thodarum Nizhalin Kural in 1999. The novel resonates with audiences even today with its incisive analysis of self-appointed destiny makers and the movements that they create.[2]
Post-2000, Jeyamohan broke new ground in transcending genres and exploring the boundaries of creativity. Kaadu (2003) was an exploration of the forest landscape as a metaphor for lust and the vigor of life.[3] Kotravai (2005) is deemed by the writer as his best work till date in terms of structure and depth. Critics have universally praised it for the latitude it allows for reader's imagination and interpretation.[4][5][6][7]
From 1998 to 2004, Jeyamohan and his friends edited a literary journal named Solputhithu. In 2009, his readership circle created the Vishnupuram Ilakkiya Vattam to broadbase the readership for serious literature in Tamilnadu and to reward under-recognized pioneers of Tamil literature. The group regularly conducts meetups in Guru Nitya Chaitanya Yati's ashram in Ooty. In 2010-11, the group felicitated Tamil writers A Madhavan and Nanjil Nadan.[8]. In 2011, the group plans to felicitate Tamil Dalit writer Poomani.
At a time when India was rocked by huge bribery and political scandals,[9] during heated discussions on the nature and purpose of government, Jeyamohan took an opportunity to introspect and re-evaluate his integrity, values and commitment to the position that the humanitarian ideal far surpassed any other ideal as held by scriptures or law. The result was a set of short-stories, titled 'Aram', that explored the high-idealism that is possible in man.[10] The collection hugely resonated with the audience and triggered a wave of appreciation and emotion.[11]
Jeyamohan had been an active participant in Tamil internet discussion groups like Mayyam, Forumhub and Thinnai.com during the early years of the medium in India. As part of the debates, Jeyamohan produced some of his best essays on literary standards and criticism during this period. Recognizing the possibility of losing some of these important works, Jeyamohan's friend and writer Cyril Alex[13] created the author's website for consolidating the author's works. Over the decade, the website has become an important repository of the author's essays. The author follows an innovative publishing model in which he serializes all new content on the website and allows free access, while simultaneously offering hardbacks and paperbacks through publishers. More significantly, the website allows the author to freely engage in discussions with thousands of readers on the axioms that govern his works and thought.[14] In early 2011, the Vishnupuram Ilakkiya Vattam has created an online moderated discussion group for discussing literature, criticism, art and related topics.[15]
Some of Jeyamohan's most notable articles include topics on the Anna Hazare anti-corruption movement, 'Elephant Doctor' V Krishnamurthy, and the Dalit visionary Ayothidasa Pandithar.
Jeyamohan was one of the first Indian ideologues to write about Anna Hazare. In 2009, Jeyamohan had published a set of essays ('Indraya Gandhi') that examined the continuing relevance of Gandhi's methods and ideals in today's India. As a part of the series, he sought to explain how the next generation of Gandhian leaders like Anna Hazare were continuing to inspire the nation towards achieving true democracy and equality. Jeyamohan had personally visited Ralegaon Siddhi to see Hazare's social movements in action, and he also wrote about Hazare's tireless struggle to get the Right to Information Act passed in the Indian parliament.
Throughout 2011, Jeyamohan continued to write about and support Anna Hazare's anti-corruption movement and the Jan Lokpal bill. Rather than focus on the minutiae of the bill itself, Jeyamohan focused readers' attention on the ideology behind Hazare's actions - how he appealed directly to the sense of justice in the common man, his symbolism, and the Gandhian method of achieving the ultimate goal through civil non-violent mass movement without letting up any opportunity to discuss and negotiate with political opponents. Amidst widespread scepticism and slander flamed up by the national and regional media across the political spectrum, Jeyamohan remained rock solid in support of Anna Hazare's movement. By the end of the summer of 2011, Jeyamohan had written close to 60 essays on the topic, many of them in answer to readers who had written in expressing their own doubts and questions. A compendium of translations of the essays can be found in http://thesabarmati.wordpress.com/tag/anna-hazare/
Having grown up in the Kerala-Nanjl Nadu milieu, Jeyamohan constantly explores the deep symbolism and majesty of elephants in the Indian forest landscape. His works like 'Kaadu' and 'Mathagam' feature elephants in central roles, while his biographical and travel essays capture the centrality of nature, ecology and conservation to the Indian way of life. One such true-life story on the conservationist Dr V Krishnamurthy ('Dr K, the Elephant Doctor') sparked huge interest and discussion among readers on the impact of humans on forest life. Told in semi-fictional form as through the eyes of a forest ranger, the story follows Dr K as, despite having a giant reputation in the naturalist circles, he eschews human accolades and seeks a much more rewarding life in the company of animals in the Indian Forest Department's elephant camps. An english translation of the story by Vishvesh Obla is at http://www.albanytamilsangam.org/vishvesh/ED_1.htm.
Despite taking clear stances, Jeyamohan finds himself at the center of many controversies, possibly due to his outspoken nature and conviction to values.
Novels
New Epic
Short Story collections
Plays
Movie Dialogue credits, Tamil[22][23]
Philosophy & Religion
Politics/political science
Culture/History
Memoirs/Biographies
Life/Experience
Travel
Children's literature
General