Perumal Murugan returns

"Let the author be resurrected to do what he is best at. Write" had been the concluding words of the July 6 verdict of the Madras High Court striking down the persecution of Perumal Murugan. And the acclaimed Tamil novelist, poet and short-story writer has done just that. Sadly, however, his experience may have robbed his pen of some of its uncompromising sharpness and courage.

In the capital on Monday, Murugan made a rare public appearance at the release of his new book, "Oru Kozhaiyin Paadalkal" ("A Coward's Song") a collection of 200 poems that he'd written in the 16 months since December 2014, when the protests over his novel Modhorubagan (translated into English as One Part Woman) reached forced him to leave his native Namakkal town in Tamil Nadu. The protests were led by right-wing religious and caste mobs who took exception to the novel's reference to a temple tradition allowing a childless woman to choose a sexual partner to beget a child.

Murugan, it may be recalled, had then declared heart-breakingly on Facebook - "Author Perumal Murugan is dead", signaling his resolve never to write or publish again, a line invoked many times during the "intolerance" debate that raged through much of last year.

In a public statement read out by Murugan at the launch of his poems, the reclusive author said that although he has "always been averse to spectacle and sensation" he had journeyed especially to the capital to express his gratitude to all those who had stood by him, and raised their voices in support of freedom of expression and against intolerance.

In a moving account of the past year and a half, Murugan said, "Between December 2014 and June 2016 I couldn't so much as a scratch a line in the first three months. As though the fingers of my heart had become numb. I couldn't read a thing. Even when I turned the newspaper my eyes would scan the print but my mind would not absorb a word. I'd flip though the pages like an illiterate person and fold it away. I consoled myself that there were things to do in this world other than reading and writing. And I did my best to turn my attention to them. But it was impossible. It was then that I realized the full meaning of the Tamil phrase 'nadaipinam', 'a walking corpse'."

Poetry, he said, had "saved me. As I started to write, I began to revive a little by little, from my finger nails to my hair."

Murugan's return to as a writer may be reason for optimism, but there's also cause for disquiet – the violent protests against his writing had made him more cautious about what he wrote. He was mulling the reissue of his earlier writings, Murugan revealed, after an extensive process of reviewing them. "A censor is seated inside me now," he said. "He is testing every word that is born within me. His constant caution that a word may be misunderstood so, or it may be interpreted thus, is a real bother."

His writing, Murugan said at the launch, would not be the same after his bitter experience, and neither did he know whether he would ever again write a novel – the genre that he's best known for. "To spell out what would be the nature of that change will require quiet and reflection. I need time to gather my creative energies."