If I say at the beginning that V C Harris was (was? How quick!) an exemplary text, he would be the first one to take issue over it. He would ask me, with his characteristic nonchalance, “Text? Why singular? And what do you mean by exemplary?”
Harris always held the text was a plurality. In fact the text’s singularity is its plurality, so he taught us. A text which erases the traces of its plurality, by repressing its own differences within and its difference from itself, is the myth of autocracy or, more pertinently, fascism. Harris relentlessly deconstructed such ideological constructs and myths.
Harris would also have a problem with the ‘beginning’ in my first sentence. He always doubted the veracity of beginnings. For him, a beginning can never be nailed to a certain pure moment that is present to itself. Harris would have chided me for writing his obituary now, after his death. Harris would say, anything you say about a person in his/her presence or absence is a piece of obituary. We speak of others as if they were dead. I first met Harris at the School of Letters, where I joined as an MPhil student in 1989. It was when the ghost of postmodernity had invaded the literary and cultural debates in Malayalam. The School of Letters, in its infancy, did not have enough books or teachers. Harris would arrive at long intervals with three-hour long lecture sessions for M Phil students. Jacques Derrida was his favourite thinker. I have not come across an academician who understands the complex thoughts of Derrida as Harris does.
While others used to oversimplify and scold deconstruction as ‘mere findings of antithesis’, Harris used it as an explosive mode of reading and exploration in his studies of culture, history and literature. It is unfortunate that his insights in drama and cinema could not get reflected in both the fields.There won’t be many who comprehend the contemporary Indian politics in all its nuances as Harris does. Around 16 years ago, he stayed in my house for some time. While we spent our time in discussion and writing, he had to encounter an unexpected question from my five-year-old daughter.
“Are you a Muslim, Harris uncle?” His answer to her-- “Well, the answer is both yes and no” - came in a very matter of fact tone. She couldn’t obviously understand anything from that enigmatic response. And that didn’t affect Harris. For him, it was her historical necessity and responsibility to slowly learn and comprehend the profundity of that statement. After some time, he looked at me and said, “She has just entered the world of real differences and citizenship. It is going to be tough learning for her.”
Seldom have we opened up emotionally. We have never tried to define the layers of a ‘guru shishya’ relation which was devoid of authority wherein we would address each other by our first names. However, one of the main sources which defines my self is the camaraderie - its politics, the openness of plurality, heated debates, disagreements and hostility – between us. Every student of Harris, everyone who was inspired by him, would endorse this. Hence Harris will forever remain a text that is never read fully; he will continue to exist amongst us as an array of discourses that is renewed incessantly and, thus, he will keep us awake and vigilant. He will forever intervene in our contemporaneity like the Ghost in Hamlet who exhorts, “ Always Remember me!”
(The author is a writer and film director )