GHULAM-SARWAR
YOUSOF: AN INTERVIEW
When
did you first start writing?
I believe I started writing
while I was still in secondary school in
Taiping, Perak. I have no evidence of anything I wrote up to the end of Form V
when I was co-editor of the King
Edward VII
School magazine. There
are no titles of actual “works”, not even the vaguest of memories of any true
creative writing. The earliest I recall is one particular essay, entitled “Maps”,
part fact and part fancy, written in Form VI. Of works currently with me, the
first thing that I clearly remember writing is a short poem (rain poem) written
in the early-60’s, during my second year
as an undergraduate at the University
of Malaya. The poem
appears in Perfumed Memories. That marked, in a sense, the beginning of
my “literary” career, if it may be called one.
Let us start with the
question of language. Although you have
so many languages at your fingertips—Edwin Thumboo in his Introduction to your Perfumed Memories mentions six—you do
your creative writing in English. Why is that so?
The
reason is simple enough. It is the language in which I feel most comfortable.
It is also the language I handle best when it comes to writing. I have had all my education in
English, and even majored in English Literature for my first degree, before
going on to do a Doctorate in Asian Theatre. It is the single language in which
I think. I cannot even think as
effectively in any other language. It is therefore only natural for me to use English
for the purpose of creative writing. Through it I can best express myself,
capture the nuances more effectively, so to speak. In a sense as Edwin
Thumboo mentions, often it is the language that
chooses the poet, and not the
other way round. I was chosen by the English language.
Of
course, there is always the theoretical
question of which language or languages a Malaysian writer should use for his
work, and if writing in any other
language apart from Malay can even be
considered Malaysian. My view is that a writer should choose the language he
can handle best, and all writing by Malaysian writers is Malaysian. Fanatics
and politicians have their own views-–often inconsistent and changing—on this
subject, but that is not my problem.
Does that
mean you have not written in any other language?
No “literary” work. I use Bahasa Melayu for other purposes, mostly teaching (that too
for undergraduate courses, prinipally). I have a reasonably good command of
that language although it is something that came rather late in life compared
to English, Urdu, Punjabi and so on. In the early days
before the language was in some ways imposed upon us, I could only handle what
can be called Bazaar Malay.
How
is that so?
English
was the medium of instruction in the
primary and secondary schools during British rule and well after independence--in
fact until the early 70’s when Bahasa
Melayu became official at the primary
school level, and was gradually introduced into the upper levels as well.
During the days when I was a student there was no compelling reason to study Malay, not even as a second
language. Malay was not even regarded as
a significant language, and so there was no need to
take it seriously. In fact I took Urdu as my second language for the
Cambridge School Certificate. It is very likely that I am the only one who ever
did so in Malaysia.
I had to learn proper Bahasa Melayu
after my PhD degree, even sit for the Bahasa Malaysia paper at the S.P.M
level for, by that time, in the late 1970’s, and early 1980’s one had to have a
pass in B.M. for confimation in one’s
job in any university in the country. Eventually, following several years of bilingualism, it
became the medium of instruction. So I went along with
these requirements. I have never really been fond of Malay, although I did
become increasingly comfortable with it over the years.
Is
there any possibility, you think, that you will write in Bahasa Melayu in the
future?
No. It is no use pretending that one can. I think
one ought to know one’s own limits, come to terms with them. I sometimes wish that people would accept their own and others’ limitations,
particularly when it comes to creative writing. Fanaticism in language has and
will continue to affect both the quantity and quality of creative writing
produced in this country. All you have to do is to compare the situation here
with that in Singapore
where creative writing is done, without any restriction, and even with official support, in four languages–English, Malay, Chinese and
Tamil. So the literary scene there is quite vibrant; publishers are willing to
publish such works. Overall there is a considerable output of writing in the
English language, but I must say that not
all of it is good. There are, in fact, very few outstanding Singaporean writers
in English, with at least one or two Malaysians who moved to that island and even
beyond, to Australia
and other countries. Among the earliest was the poet Ee Tiang Hong, and the
painter Lee Joo For, who was a prolific
playwrght, to be followed somewhat later by Shirley Lim and others.
In
this country, too, writing in all these
languages does exist, with some of the early work in Eglish comparabale to that produced in Singapore-
they were afer all part of the same tradition. But in this country the official policy is to
ignore non-Bahasa Melayu writing; give it no support of any kind. Following the
1969 incident, in the early- to mid-1970’s, all of a sudden, Malaysian writers who used the English language were even described as
traitors to the nation. Members of
the Penang Writers’ Circle a group that I founded in Penang in the
nearly 1970’s were described by a well-nown Malay lecturer as being agents of Singapore and the PAP. Interestingly he used the English
language to pass that judgement. Also interestingly he himself never came to be
recognised as a writer of any worth, even in Bahasa Melayu. Its aways easier in
this country to be a critic than a writer. This is particularly the case in
drama and theatre productions.
Overall
with such attitudes towards the English language in particular, all Malaysians
are the losers. I believe we are now beginning to admit this loss with our
feeble, often tentative, even near-pathetic attempts to go back to English and to
creative writing in English. I myself have, on and off, been teaching
literature in English at Universiti Sains Malaysia for the past two years, in
addition to theatre.
What about
your other languages? What is your strength in these?
I
would say that Urdu or what is more popularly known as Hindustani comes next to
English. Hindustani, of course, does not
exist as a language; it has no written text. It is just a popular designation, meaning the language of the northern part of India (Hindustan),
referring to Urdu or Hindi. The language
is in fact Urdu when written in Persian script and Hindi when Devanagari script
is used; this is the script in which Sanskit was written. There are also some differences
in the vocabulary. I keep in
touch with both languages, but mainly with Urdu
through reading poetry and short stories, listening to
ghazals, doing some translation work from Urdu to English, and through watching
films, many of which use good Urdu poetry for their
songs. I had grounding in Urdu and Punjabi, my mother tongue, since childhood;
I studied Urdu for slightly more than a year to prepare for the Cambridge
School Certificate examination, I am thus able handle both spoken and written
Urdu. This is, in fact my real second
language after English.
I
can also handle the script used for Hindi derived, as I mentioned, from Devanagari. Like Latin, Sanskrit is a frozen, virtually
dead language, with limited use, mostly for Hindu ritual purposes, but it did produce
some excellent literature in the early Christian centuries. I studied Sanskrit for a couple of terms as
an undergraduate at the University
of Malaya. I can still work in that language using a
Sanskrit-English dictionary, and many years ago I prepared a new version -- I
hesitate to call it a totally new translation-- of Kalidasa’s play Shakuntala for a Kuala Lumpur production.
The common vocabulary between Sanskrit, Urdu, Punjabi and many other northern Indian languages is
something that facilitates fairly smooth shifts between them. At the
least one can easily pick up common words from various languages.
I
have a limited ability to read the Tamil script and to speak that language, not well but tolerably enough. I acquired
Tamil, without any formal study, from the Indian Muslim salesmen in my father’s textiles business and
the workers in our rubber land. As an
undergraduate I also studied French. I can still read it
slowly, but have not really kept up with
that language.
Through
classes in religious studies, like all Muslims, I picked up the ability to read
but not to fully understand Arabic. To a degree I have remedied this situation
since the early days, so that my vocabulary has improved. Similarly, on and off,
I have been trying to study
Persian. During my year’s fieldwork in
1983-1984, when I was also a visiting Professor at the University of the Philippines in Quezon City I became interested in Tagalog
and began studying it. I tried translating a short play from Tagalog to English
with the help of a dictionary. It wasn’t too difficult. I believe that
with a little effort I can become reasonably proficient in Tagalog.
So, despite my interest in languages and a
fairly wide range of exposure to languages, I write entirely in English. One
must have the time, one must devote the fullest attention to a language, if one
is to first master it and then use it effectively as a medium of creative
writing. It takes years and years.
You do seem
to have a flair for languages.
I
like words, and I think that is very fortunate.
Words are fascinating things, almost living beings. They have shapes,
they have sounds, they have colour, they
almost have identities. I have developed this idea in a poem entitled Words. I spend a good deal of time reading, even
reading dictionaries or thesauruses, not only to trace origins and patterns in
words or to seek alternative words, but also to delve into their souls. Of
course the history of a language and the evolution of words are fascinating things, but so are the sounds
and meanings of words–the manner in which
they unfold, the way in which
they speak to those who are willing to listen to them. I may briefly add here a
reference to silence, for silence can be
tremendously eloquent, a language in itself. One would not understand sound, or even hear it without
silence.
You
have already mentioned in passing your work with the text of Kalidasa’s
Shakuntala. Could you elaborate on this?
I
have always been fascinated with Shakuntala. In my view, it is one of
the three most important plays in the world, the other two being
Shakespeare’s Hamlet and
Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. I have long dreamt of producing a
volume containing all three. Everybody in the world should read these three
plays. A new translation of Shakuntala was
commissioned by a theatre group in Kuala
Lumpur, a
modern translation whose language would not sound Elizabethan, Victorian
or American. The challenges were considerable. The translation-cum-rewriting
was done with an attempt to get as close as possible to the play’s original meaning,
to the flow of language as well as to evoke the rasas. Among other
things what I did was to restore the sloka. With all that the play
became too long for a production and cuts had to be made. It worked quite well in the production. The text of the translation
seems to have gone missing. I am sure it is not totally lost. If it can be
recovered, it would certainly be worth publishing.
Have
you ever worked with any other Sanskrit play?
Yes,
at the University
of Hawaii I was a member
of a small team that prepared the text of Bhasa’s beautiful play, Dream
of Vasavadatta, for a major
production--I believe the first and last Sanskrit play to be produced at that
University. The play was directed by Shanta Gandhi, a visiting director from India. I had
the good fortune to be her Assistant
Director; one of the things that made this
possible was my ability to communicate with the Director in Hindi, which she
preferred to use, as a matter of habit, instead of English. Apart from
this I have been teaching Sanskrit drama, in
translation, naturally, in my
Asian theatre courses.
You mentioned Oedipus Rex. You have also done some
work with that play, haven’t you?
Just an attempt to prepare a version in modern
English, using several existing translations, for the purpose of a production in Penang. I did add some
new elements into the text to make it interesting for the stage, because it was
staged in the round.
What
about translations of poetry? Have you done any translations, and also, I
suppose the next question follows: has any of your work been translated into
other languages?
I
have worked on translations from Urdu to English, but not vice-versa, and I
have translated some of my own poems and my play Halfway Road, Penang into Bahasa Melayu. The Malay version is entitled Jalan Sekerat, Pualu Pinang. Both versions of the play were published
simultaneously in Penang by Teks Publishing. A
well-known Pakistani poet, Javed Shahin, took back
with him several of my poems to translate them into Urdu. I don’t think he ever
completed the translations.
I
have been working, on and off, on translations of certain well-known Urdu ghazals
from the time of Mirza Ghalib, who lived at the end of the Mughal period, to
those by contemporary Indian and Pakistani poets. The bilingual volume--in Urdu
and English—with an essay on the ghazal, should have been finished by
now but there have been delays. I hope to get it published not too far in the
future. This is an exciting project.
I
have also been seriously considering bringing out a selection of Maulana
Jalaluddin Rumi’s verse in English in collaboration
with someone from Iran.
Rumi’s importance as a mystic poet, perhaps the greatest mystic poet of all
time, is now gradually being recognized, particularly in the West, since the
West has now discovered Islam and in particular Sufism. My work will include reworking some existing translations
for greater accuracy of meaning, as well as new tranlasations direcly from
Farsi.
You
yourself have some grounding in Sufism.
If I am not mistaken, Edwin Thumboo mentions this in his Introduction to
Perfumed Memories.
I
have been interested in mysticism as such for a long time, without actually being able to precisely define it. In
recent years Sufism, better more meticulously studied and better understood entered
my consciousness through Islamic poetry, such of that manifested in the Urdu
ghazal. Yes, indeed, Sufism and various other mystical traditions did
find their way, like much else, into my poems in Perfumed Memories, but
not in any profound manner.
I
like to think that since the publication of that volume, I have advanced somewhat
in my studies of Sufism; they have become focused. I have had the good fortune to read many of
the Sufi poets from Spain, Turkey, the Middle East, and Iran as well as from India
and Pakistan. I started work on an Encyclopaedia of Sufi
literature, another massive, perhaps seemingly interminable project such as the
ones I have the habit of getting myself into. Again don’t ask me when this will be completed. I have no idea.
As
a creative writer what kinds of literary
genres have you worked in?
I
have worked mostly in drama and poetry, and there have been a number of short
stories, with ideas for several more that may get written someday.
Would you, for the record indicate those that have been
published up to the present point in time?
The
published works are Halfway
Road, Penang, a play which, as
mentioned earlier, has also been published in a Malay language
translation, and Perfumed Memories, a collection of poems. In
addition some of the poems have appeared
in Edwin Thumboo’s The Second Tongue, a volume entitled The World
of Muslim Imagination edited by Alamgir Hashmi, a
Pakistani poet and
scholar, as well as in various Journals
in different countries.
And of
the unpublished ones, which are the
most important?
I would say The Trial of Hang Tuah the Great, and Suvarna Padma or Golden
Lotus, both plays. In addition there are several shorter plays. Then there is a great deal of poetry, and
also perhaps twenty or so short stories,
some written during the past two or
three years. These are rather unusual when taken in the Malaysian context as they
deal with lesser known communities, less explored issues. Then there are
perhaps a dozen or so essays that may be suitable for publication.
That
represents quite a corpus of work. Why is it that so much of your literary work
has remained unpublished?
A
good question. Possibly the principal
reason is that I was heavily involved in
research and writing about theatre, and
principally the traditional theatre of Southeast Asia. You are perhaps aware
that my Dictionary of Traditional Southeast Asian Theatre, published by
Oxford University Press in 1994, is generally
acknowledged as the most important and most complete work on that particular subject up to the present time. A
great deal of time and energy went into the research for this work, which took me to several, but not
all Southeast Asian countries, due to restrictions. And there were others–my Bibliography of
Traditional Southeast Asian Performing Arts,
Panggung Semar, Angin Wayang, the Biography of Hamzah bin
Awang Amat, Malaysia’s leading wayang kulit Siam puppeteer, which was published
in both English and Bahasa Melayu versions, and a recent book which introduces
the Kelantan Shadow Play.
Several
other manuscripts are awaiting publication, including the performing arts
volume of Encyclopaedia of Malaysia,
which I am editing and a second
collection of essays on Malay Theatre, a companion volume to Panggung Semar, which will be
published by the Centre for the Arts, National
University of Singapore. Even a third volume of this type is now under consideration.
The total output in traditional theatre, in the form of books, academic articles
and audio-visual recordings has thus
been considerable. In view of the fact that I was principally involved in
teaching and researching theatre, somehow my literary work got neglected
So your literary work got pushed to the
side, so to speak? How do you feel about that?
This
has been unfortunate, and I have been acutely conscious of this tilt, perhaps
too strong a tilt, in favour of the
performing arts. To some extent it was inevitable, given the situation over the
past three decades or so. Personally I
feel my work in theatre has been important and also in some ways satisfying,
considering that I have been able to delve into the souls of both the theatre
and Southeast Asian culture itself. Once the remaining volumes are published I
would have completed the mission. As it
is, I am not initiating any new research
projects in theatre. I also feel very strongly that now it is time for me to
return to creative writing. Such a return has been, in my estimation, long
overdue.
Would
you consider your creative writing less important or less satisfying than your
work in theatre studies?
No, I would not. Theatre has given me its own sort of satisfaction. I have always told my students, and I
sincerely feel that this is what I believe deep down inside, that somehow, in
the early seventies, I lost my way into theatre, and that I have ever since been trying to get out
of theatre, without much success. I think the time is now close when I can
close my chapter on theatre studies, in a sense look beyond it. During all those decades, literature has been
much more important to me than the performing arts. You see, basically I am not
a theatre person.
Amazing, how did it
happen? I mean how did you “lose your way” as you put it, into theatre. And what
kept you going in theatre for so long?
As is quite well known, in 1970 I was invited by
the late Tan Sri Hamzah Sendut to set up the Performing Arts Programme in
Universiti Sains Malaysia,
the first programme of its kind in the country.
I went in after much hesitation—I would say
trepidition-- and discomfort, considering that I had no background whatsoever
in theatre apart from involvement in a couple of productions as an
undergraduate at University of Malaya. At that time I was also invoved
in the Literary and Dramatic Association (Lidra) of which I was President for
some time, as well as editor of the association’s journal. I have
always had great admiration for the late
Tan Sri Hamzah Sendut, and for his vision
for Universiti Sains Malaysia.
I must say that I had a small part in that vision which gradually became
reality. Nevertheless when I went in I
was hoping to move, sooner rather than later, into the literature programme.
This did not happen. In 1972, following persuasion as well as pressure, by Tan Sri Hamzah
himself, I went, still very reluctantly, to do
postgraduate studies in the United
States under USM’s Staff Training Scheme. With that, my “professional fate” was, so to speak,
sealed. Ironically, given the way things worked out, I was somehow able
to go direct into the PhD without a Masters degree. Thus I became a theatre
person--a very reluctant one. The one good thing about all this was that I was
very clear in my mind from the very beginning that I would not work on Western
theatre. That was one of the things that made theatre tolerable, even
interesting for me. Yet, year after year
I longed to get out of theatre and go back into literature, but it did not
happen, and a whole lifetime has gone by.
But there
must have been some attraction in theatre
studies to keep you going for so long.
Of
course there were attractions. If I am to summarize them, I would say that firstly, there was the immensely great attraction of
original research and documentation, with the added benefit of travel connected
with such research. When I started in the area, traditional Malay theatre in
particular, and Southeast Asian traditional theatre, as a whole, had been
virtually unexplored, although there were several studies dealing with
individual countries or genres. I believe that I managed to open some new
perspectives into the region’s traditional theatre. Since those days in the mid-70’s and early
80’s, many scholars have done important work in their own indigenous traditions
of performing arts. But as far as the
traditional theatre of the whole region is concerned, I believe my work still
stands out. Whatever I have managed to publish, however, does need some updating and so on,
particularly since the ending of
Communist rule in northern Southeast
Asia has opened up new possibilities for research in Vietnam,
Cambodia and Laos. I could not do field work in those countries
during the 70’s and 80’s.
Secondly,
and more importantly, there was the great discovery,
for me, of the deeper spiritual meanings of theatre. I was captivated by the ritual and healing
aspects of theatre forms such as mak
yong in particular, wayang
kulit and main puteri, just to mention a few Malaysian
examples. So, in a sense, my research hovered between theatre studies and
anthropology. Personally I believe that knowledge cannot be compartmentalized.
One has to look at it holistically. Along with ritual and healing came the
extensive repertoire of stories from a wide range of sources, and the
mythology, south Asian and indigenous to Southeast Asia. Vast new avenues were opening up all the time, and
much of the research was also proving not only important but also urgent, given
the rapidly changing socio-cultural melieu and the imminent transformation,
destruction or demise of the traditional arts, particulaly
in Malaysia.
I had got in at the right time, the circumstances were favourable, and the support,
local and international, was forthcoming. So the research went on under almost
ideal circumstances. I was stuck deep in
theatre, and I must add, disciplines allied to theatre. These included myths,
epics and traditional literature. I
managed to familiarise myself with these. Regrets? Yes and no. But let me add that the
regrets had nothing to do with the discipline of theatre itself. Most
importantly, I would say that I really felt a longing for literature, and
creative writing.
But you did
keep on with your creative writing.
Yes,
naturally I did keep on writing, I had no choice in that matter either, and
also with my reading of the greatest literature the world has produced. It was necessary to write. I
wrote as a means of recreation
and possibly, in the case of the poems,
as a means of catharsis. I do not
deny that, overall, there is some important work, content-wise, including The
Trial of Hang Tuah the Great, first
drafted during my field research in Southern Philippines.
My plays, I think are quite significant in what they say. And because of what
they say they are also considered “sensitive”
in Malaysia.
Are any of
your works currently under preparation for publication?
I
always have had the noble intention of getting a manuscript or two prepared for
publication, but the delays have been interminable, for no reason at all.
Perhaps the feeling that the work--poetry, drama-- is not really ready for publication. But then,
seriously, no work is ever ready for publication. One just has to stop revising
and rewriting at some point and say that it is time to get the work into print,
that is unless one does not want to get his work published at all. There may be
compelling reasons for one to withhold one’s work from publication. I have
sometimes been inclined that way. However since the most private of my work has
already been made public in Perfumed
Memories. I have less hesitation now about getting the rest into
print. I have plans to get most of what I have written into print some day, but have no idea when
that some day will arrive. I really must give a greater push to the process. I
can see a second collection of poems taking shape. And then there might perhaps
be a collection of short stories. Halfway Road, Penang will be reprinted
shortly. The other plays will take a little longer.
Why
so?
I
generally believe that a play should only be published after at least one
performance. This allows for better insights into the play and thus makes
possible certain revisions which may enhance the quality of the work, tighten
it, improve the language, make more precise the stage directions and so on.
Unfortunately the theatre scene in Malaysia being what it is, with all
its constraints, it has not been possible to get The Trial of Hang
Tuah the Great produced. The same is the case with Suvarna Padma.
This play, however, has at least had the benefit of close reading in Hawaii, and thus would
need less revision. I suppose similar
detailed reading and analysis of Hang Tuah would bring it a little
closer to being published.
You
mentioned constraints. What sort of constraints?
I
will mention just one. Censorship; the restrictions guiding subject matter--
what one can write about and what one cannot write about. In the case of drama
one also has to bear in the mind the
possible restrictions on performances.
Several Malaysian productions have run into problems. My own play, Halfway Road,
Penang is one of them. I could not get a
police permit for its first production in Penang.
The kind of thing you raise for discussion in Suvarna Padma.
Yes.
But some
sort of work has already been done with
Hang Tuah, hasn’t it?
Yes,
during rehearsals for a proposed production at Universiti Sains Malaysia, for a production which did not materialise, some revision
and tightening has taken place, but I believe the play needs more work
on it, before it is published. Even then, it would only be a preliminary
publication with options for future revision at some later date, possibly after
a production, if a production does ever materialize. I don’t see it happening
in Malaysia
in the near future.
Your
Perfumed Memories has a large number of poems for a single volume. Was it
deliberately made so substantial?
There
are in fact three separate sections in the collection, and ideally these
sections should have been published as separate volumes. I went along with the
publisher’s suggestion that all the poems appear in a single volume. You see I
was at that time, when all the poems appear in a single volume. You see I was
at that time an unknown and unpublished entity as a poet—to a great extent I
still am--and the commercial risk for any publisher would
have been considerable if the three volumes came out simultaneously. Of course I could have published just one of
the three sections and come up with the remaining two later on, or selected
enough poems to make a smaller first volume and kept the remaining ones
for following volumes. This in fact was
the original suggstion by Graham Brash—to publish a selection of my poems, as
they had not published any poetry before
that. But they decided to publish the whole collection. Frankly I had no inkling that I would write
any further poetry.
I think Perfumed Memories is a good
volume, and I am glad, in retrospect, that things worked out they way they did; that in fact the poems came out in a single
volume. I have been told that there are few first volumes of poetry in Malaysia or Singapore comparable to it. This is
in fact quite surprising considering that I had no intention whatsoever of
publishing the poems or even allowing the world to see them, when they were
first written.
Why so?
Because
they are intensely personal poems, unlike most that Malaysian readers have been
accustomed to. I felt that there was no real reason for them to appear in
print, since in them the poet/persona essentially speaks to himself. Since their publication, however, the appeal
of the universal themes that the poems deal with—nature, love and separation,
death, beauty, loneliness, time and its passage, and so on--has become
increasingly apparent. Beyond that there are the different levels of meaning
and symbolism. I can say that most of the poems need
some effort on the part the reader; they
need to be interpreted. Yet, while they are private, they nevertheless
are meaningful to a broad spectrum of readers since each reader is able to
discern in them something of relevance to him or her. In that way they are
universal.
There
are many persons out there in the world who whisper to themselves in the deep,
inner recesses of their own being, and somehow the language they speak, the
thoughts they express are the language and thoughts found in Perfumed
Memories. The responses I have
received from readers the world over have been altogether unexpected and
overwhelming.
Do
you foresee any further volumes of poetry?
Yes.
I have written perhaps two hundred poems beyond Perfumed
Memories. From time to time I return to them, rework them. At least some of
these poems are, I think, worthy of
publication. Perhaps another volume or two may appear.
Are
there any significant changes in style and content between the early poems and
these later ones?
Yes, there certainly
are. For one thing some of the later poems are less personal, less private
compared to those in Perfumed Memories. I can see too that in some ways mysticism becomes stronger
in them, through my own confidence.
Would
you like to elaborate?
No.
Can you
tell me a little about your short
stories? Are there many of them?
Not
a huge number. You see I have written many, some of which need further work and thus I regard them
as drafts; others have only been partly
completed. I have ideas for yet others. I am sure there will be many more
stories in the months and years to come as these ideas get worked out into
actual stories. Of those I have already
written, I regard perhaps twenty as tolerably good and thus ready for
publication. These may be of some interest to a potential reader. The early
ones I recall with fondness are Tok Dalang, Lottery Ticket and Birthday.
The middle ones include Meditations on a Charpoy, a very long short
story, almost a novella, Khalwat
Officer and Diaries. The more recent ones include Datuk Hang
Tuah, Sujjan Singh, Dewi
Ratnasari and Mak Yong Dancer.
What
would you say are some of the most distinctive qualities of your short stories?
Generally,
they are quite different stylistically, from the average Malaysian short story
which tends to be realistic in character. Most of mine shift away from Realism
into undefined styles. I think the titles do tell you that their principal
characters come from outside the range of normal Malaysian characters. Apart from the Malays, I try to deal with the north
Indian and Pakistani communities, particularly Punjabis, as well as Tamil
Muslims, better known as Mamak. No previous Malaysian writer has featured such
characters.
Again
I draw upon the traditional performing arts for
myths, characters, themes and
images, since I have had a great deal of exposure to wayang kulit and mak
yong. The characters, at times even
real ones, develop into near-mythical beings, and the situations become surreal.
Indeed for me there is but an extremely thin, almost non-existent line that
separates reality and what is usually regarded
as unreal. This feeling of being
“in between” is best seen, as far as far my work goes, in the short stories. It
is not altogether absent in the poems and to some extent also present in the
plays. You see we don’t live in one dimension. We are constantly shifting
between different dimensions of time and space. The problem is to decide which
of these are to be regarded as “real”.
You
have been writing poetry, drama and short stories. Now the obvious gap seems to
be the novel. Have you ever considered writing a novel?
Yes. Several years
back I started working on an idea I had for a possible novel, without any
sense, of course, as to where it would lead. There were the three principal
characters, very strong and clear in my mind, and there were certain
situations, which could not, I believe be turned into a play—except one
structured in monologues, something that has become fashionable recently—but
had possibilities of being structured into a novel. It did not go very far, I do not know if I
will ever get that particular novel completed. It may just end up as a short
story or novella. One never knows. I
believe it will certainly get written in some form, since what it tries to tell
is important. Overall, I feel that whatever has to be
said—the essential thing--can be said in short stories.
Meditations
on a Charpoy, Sujjan Singh and even Tok
Dalang in my opinion have the potential of developing into larger entities.
New material for a potential novel may suddenly show up out of nowhere. The
possibilities are always there. And a change of genre – a shift between a short
story and a novel or even between a short story and a play can take place. I
have written the Hang Tuah story both as a play and as a short story; I don’t
mean the actual story involving that character a told in Sejarah Melayu or Hikyat Hang Tuah, but again with the character as a sort of symbol, especially as he appears
in the play. There is
a short play tentatively entitled The Pretence which I started work on but did not finish. I sometimes think it might work better as a
short story, or even something a little longer. So I don’t really know what
form the final product will take in each case. I think it is best to let the
work choose its own form-- like water fitting
into its own vessel--and not force a genre upon it.
What
about essays? Have you written any
essays?
Yes
and no. I don’t think I have written any “creative” essays as such, based
entirely upon the imagination. Literary and academic essays there have been
many, mostly on theatre, and some on plays, poetry, writers and their work, and
so on. I even have a draft of an essay on Hamlet, the character and his
dilemma—that might be a creative, or even an academic
essay. Some of my academic essays have been published in
collections of seminar papers and so on. Others too will eventually be
published. I am particularly interested in getting together a volume of essays
on modern Indian drama—beginning with the work of Rabindranath Tagore and ending with that of Girish
Karnad and his contemporaries, works of
writers who are still active, and who I have met and talked to. Indian drama is
excellent, and deserves to be better known.
Unfortunately not enough has been published on modern Indian drama. I feel strongly that there is a clear need
for a good study of Tagore’s plays. I have written a couple of papers on these
and even did a production of Sacrifice
at USM, one of the university’s
earliest, before I went to Hawaii.
I understand that you
have been doing other things too, such as what one might call aphorisms,
reminiscences.
“Random
jottings” would perhaps be a better description. They are mood pieces, some containing
something I consider worthwhile, others not. There is not much real wisdom in
them. Yes, there are those too tucked away somewhere in the filing cabinet in
my study.
Will
they be collected together into a single
volume?
I
have no idea. I haven’t really given any further thought to them. And again I
don’t know if they are worth making public.
You
had similar reservations about your poems at one time, if I recall correctly.
Yes,
and perhaps they would have remained forever unpublished if not for the
pressure brought to bear upon me by a close friend. A few had appeared here and
there in literary magazines but the credit for eventually getting them into
print must be given to Edwin Thumboo, more brother than friend. I am still not sure
if the decision to publish them was an entirely wise one. I know that many have
enjoyed the poems, enjoyed them more than superficially, have found in them a
source of comfort or solace, and through them a cleansing of the soul. Some of the poems are certainly therapeutic
in character.
Of
all the genres you have worked in, is there any one you would consider your “favourite”?
One in which you have been most satisfied as a writer?
I
should say I have not given this subject any serious thought. Much depends on
what one intends to say or to achieve with what one writes. Off the cuff I would say poetry has a special position in my
work. Poetry is unique in some
ways, being very different from the other principal genres-- the drama, the
short story and the novel. In poetry there is no story to tell, there are no
events and characters as such—with some exceptions, of course, when it comes to
my own work-- while the other genres have a story to tell, characters to
develop. It is possible in these for the writer to be detached from his
work. Poetry is rooted in the self, in
the poet’s emotions, often highly private emotions. It is an intensely personal
and private medium compared to the other genres. It needs no audience and it
often has none, apart from the writer himself.
His reader (and I deliberately use the singular here) may share with the
poet’s emotions, experiences, and his flights of fancy. If he does, there is a sort of mutual empathy
at work, a private, one-to-one transaction.
One
cannot say this about drama in particular, for by definition drama is a
“public” medium. A play is intended, through performance, for an audience of
greater or lesser size. The short story and the novel have a place somewhere
between poetry and drama in this respect.
I
appreciate the possibility that what I state here need not, perhaps even cannot,
be taken as absolute, given the broad range in styles of creative writing and
in writers’ own perceptions of their roles. Take this merely as a personal
stance, an indication of the manner in which I work.
But
to return to your question, I feel most drawn towards poetry, I find it the
most intense and the most challenging of the various genres. However, given the
other kinds of roles played by the drama and the short story, I regard these
genres as of considerable importance. It
is perhaps because I lack patience that, as a writer, I am not attracted to the
novel. I do read novels—not often, I must add
-- and have great admiration for the works of Russian and French novelists in
particular, as well as for some of the outstanding ones from third world
countries—from India, Japan and Indonesia, for instance.
Yes,
it is clear that while your plays, as you say, tend to have a “public” stance;
your short stories tend to be more introspective. Would this be a correct
assessment of your short stories?
To a certain extent yes. Several
of the stories tend to be introspective, possibly because of the usually single
persona around whom the events revolve. The ‘events” are often recollections,
reflections, meditations. They are seen through the “viewpoint” of this
persona, and thus appear to be “private”.
In some ways they are extensions of my poems—only more detailed, more
elaborate.
I
understand you have received several prizes for your work.
Yes,
there have been several prizes, all local ones—one for a play and several for
short stories.
Would
you like to elaborate?
No.
I don’t see any point.
Thinking
back upon your work-- literary and academic--work which has undoubtedly aroused
admiration and jealousy alike, do you see any of it in
some way achieving permanence?
No.
If I did, that would be a sign of supreme arrogance on my part. We may dream of permanence but, in fact, there
is nothing permanent in existence. Consider that mighty kings and emperors have
come and gone, their kingdoms dissolved into the dust of oblivion. What more
writers and the dreams they dream up? On
the face of the mighty universe we are but specks of nameless dust, tiny drops of water. Worlds upon worlds have
dissolved into the Ocean
of Nothingness. “Nothing remains,”
says the Holy Quran, “Save the Face
of God.”
All
things that exist are mere reflections in the Mirror of a Hundred Hues,
reflections forever changing and passing, forever giving way to other
reflections. Where, then, is the permanence?
This interview has been based upon questions
posed by students. It was first
published in my volume entitled Mirror
of a Hundred Hues.
Edited on August 31 2016
