"Children, come around. Sanjayan is fed up of talking to the elders. I am going to tell the story of the great Elephant Jagannoosan to you," wrote Mannikoth Ramunni Nair aka MR Nair in his pseudo pen name Sanjayan. As a child, I read the story of Jagannoosan thanks to the insistence of my father, an ardent fan of Sanjayan.
My father had a good collection of the writings of MR Nair including Sahithya Nigasham, a book on Malayalam literary criticism, the translation of Othello into Malayalam and the five-volume collection of his satire literature under the name Sanjayan.
A few years ago in Baroda, I asked Prof KG Subrahmanyan whether he needed anything from Kerala as I planned to travel for some work. Mani Da's answer surprised me as he asked for the collection of the writings of Sanjayan. I could not initially comprehend it as I have never seen him read a Malayalam book or even speak in the language. Later I understood that as a foot soldier of the nationalist movement in North Kerala, Sanjayan was a must read for those like Mani Da who were young then.
Sanjayan brings in the realities of British colonialism and hypocrisy of the native elite alike. For example, take Devappa Kukkiliya, a character in his play who portrays Churchill weeping in favour of India "for half an hour" to achieve the mandatory 60 minutes for the theatre competition organised by the British administration.
Or the reporters of Changalam Paranda (the imaginary panchayat where Sanjayan lived) harping about the travel of Konthu Maman, aping the foreign media who preferred to report on the trans-Atlantic voyage of the ship Queen Mary (1936) while ignoring the atrocities of war in Europe.
Sanjayan was a great observer and perpetual social critic. The tender coconut seller at a small railway station between Calicut and Thalassery, oblivious to the chilly wind and rain, is the representation of the life of many Indians in the pre-independent India, who lived a life minding their own business.
Let us come back to the story of Jagannoosan, which even after a century can be retold to the children, "ignoring the elders" - the contemporary context being the Ukraine war. Poor Jagannoosan had joined a group of hunters called Akhila Loka Vetta Sabha (The World Hunter's Association) for protection. The group had members like Ittan, Pittan, Chemman and Panchan in it.
Unfortunately, when Ittan attacked Jagannoosan for his fabulous tusks, the other hunters verbally expressed sympathy and merely made statements disapproving the attack. Sanjayan's reference was apparent to the elders of that period, who had read about the betrayal of the League of Nations to the cause of Ethiopia when it was brutally attacked by Italy in 1935; they could easily identify Italy, Britain, Germany and France as the hunters. The news from Ethiopia soon lost its front-page position in 1935 as is happening to the war in Ukraine now.
As a pure humanist, Sanjayan could not ignore the atrocities of the fascist regimes of Italy and Germany and planned a satirical attack on Mussolini and Hitler, transforming himself into Kuttichattan (mischievous demi-god of Kerala) and putting scorpions and centipedes inside their uniforms. Through his sharp and harsh political satire, Sanjayan was trying to inculcate nationalism among his readers who were in a slumber in the 1930s.
It is interesting to see how an academic like MR Nair, who had his training in prestigious institutions of that time such as Victoria College (Palakkad) and Madras Christian College (Chennai) and achieved the position of the Principal of Malabar Christian College (Calicut) ended up as fierce critic of the British administration and the other political evils of that period.
Sanjayan chose the path of satire for political criticism and national aspiration, because the realities had to be represented in a rhetorical manner rather than stating the facts as they were. When Sanjayan ultimately succumbed to tuberculosis in 1943, he was only 40. His death left a deep scar among the youth of that period, who felt that they lost a guide sceptically laughing at the carnages of colonialism.
Naturally, a question may arise about the remembrance of Sanjayan, whose 120th birthday fell on this June 13. A memorial, interestingly the only one, for Sanjayan is not in Thalassery, his birthplace, but in Annur, a village north of Payyanur town in Kannur district, north Kerala. There is a library established in 1944 named Sanjayan Memorial Library.
The founding members of the library, enthusiastic young nationalists like KP Kunhirama Poduval, were on the way to Kannur to get the receipt book printed for their newly established Deshiya Yuva Jana Samajam (National Youth Organisation) and Deshiya Sahitya Samajam (National Literary Society), which had been actively organising camps and workshops inculcating nationalism among the youth.
"On the way they heard the sad news of the demise of Sanjayan. Right then, those ardent admirers of the writer changed the literary society's name to Sanjayan Sahitya Samajam, under which the library was established in 1944," says CV Vinod Kumar of the Sanjayan Memorial Library. It was one of the earliest libraries there and still remains one of the best in the region. The bust of Sanjayan in front of the library remains the only sculpted representation of the humanist, master of satire and champion of nationalism.
(The writer is head of Department of Art History, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda and can be reached at jpoduval@gmail.com)