Dr.Sureshkumar:s Interview with BALA

(Taken from the Humans Different a collection of Bala’s Poems Translated into English)
Suresh: I would like to know why you are drawn to writing poetry and not fiction? Is it because this genre helps you to soar higher into the firmament of fantasy?

BALA: Fiction has a wider canvas, but I have all along felt that the realm of poetry is larger.
Suresh: What do you think you respond to when you sit down to write a poem? Is it the tidal wave of memoreis of the waves of contemporary life?

BALA: I retrieve the past in the present and memoriees become meaningul only when they merge with the events in contemporry life. I think I am able to relate my expereience to the larger stpectrum of life. Hence my poems are personal and impersoanal at once.

Suresh: Do you compose your poems in your head spontaneously in the stage of observation and recall them in moments of leisure and perfect them before you pen your pieces?

BALA: Poetry is for me an expression of experience which is shaped by the heat of the moment and the strength of thought. So I don’t think it is my leisure activity.

Suresh: One would like to know if you pass through a kind of cathartic experience in the Aristotelian sense as you write a poem which is based on a personal experience?

BALA: Poetry is not just an emotional release, it is a meaninful interction with people of the same wave length. In Indian tradition all our classical poets have not been self-expressing individuals—instead , intercting, well meaning fellow beings in the cosmos. The subjective element is minimal in Tamil classical poetry. The new opoetry is influenced by its western counterpart. My expreience expressed here in my poems are bound to be similar to yours.

Suresh: A female friend of mine complains that some of Bala’s poems are rather satriical of women in a subtle fshion and that there are too many partriarchial undertones …how do you answer this charge?

BALA: You can find feminist male poets only when they are unnatural, So everyone who uses the present-day language will sound patriarchal to feminists. The element of saire in my poems is not exclusive to the ones cited by you. It is my predominant technique.

Suresh: Do you think you are in the happiest phase of your life now that you have gained recognition as a writer and popularity as a teacher?

BALA: I have never bothered about recognition as a writer. Of course, it has been coming with ese particulaarly from the quarters of writers rather than from ordinary reders. My poetic life and my teaching profession are separate fields. I don’t mix one with the other.

Suresh: What Period of your life would you like to live over again?

BALA: Every phase of my life has been very interesting to me. I have always found myself becoming a controversial person except for a handful of friends.My sustenance has been the challenges in both my creative and academic life.I have been made known for good and bad reasons.

Suresh: Could you tell me what poem you wrote first and what really led you to the poetic pasture?

BALA: My first poem was I think, the one that was published in a special issue of Vanambadi, Commemorating the silver jubliee of indian independence. I don't remember the title. it was a criticial piece on celebrating the birthday of a public personality.what led me to writing poetry was the pure passion for words.I was excited to read the poems of Bharathi and Bharathidasan. During my collegiate days I had a lot of opportunities to listen of the poems of Kannadasan, Mudiyarasan and Meera.

Suresh: Are your juvenile writings preserved?

BALA: I think I did not write much as a boy. I scribbled worthy things only after my graduation.

Suresh: Which of your poems do you think came straight from your heart of hearts suffused with sweet memories?

BALA: I am not a prolific poet. The majority of my poems come straight from my heart. you know I don't belive in embellishments. so I could write with ease without worrying about conscious chiselling of words.

Suresh: Do you think that is it what poets have to say which matters rather than how they say it ?

BALA: It is a theoretical question on form and content. I think if you have a good point to say,you know also how to say it. I have always tried to be different from my fellow-poets in my manner.some find it unusual and mistake my creations for translations from english. I n certain respects my poems are new.

Suresh: Are there poems that you don't finish? Do you think poems need to be written down at one sitting or they pass out of memory as in the case of Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" ?

BALA:My poems have never been completed in one sitting. I begin them and leave them. At the next sitting the poems grab me and complete the poet in me. Coleridge's Poem "Kubla Khan" is pure verbal art. It is very diffcult to be a Coleridgean.

Suresh: Do you feel you have evolved a poetics of your own - something that knits togother all that you write?

BALA: Yes , I do. I cherish my tradition. But at the same time I accept the change of time. My Poetics is different from others as my voice and face are different.

Suresh: Do you give much importance to titles? What's a title suppose to do and what bearing has it on the body of the text?

BALA: My titles are very much part of the text. you can't understand many poems without understanding thier titles. Take for instance, "Contrary Realms" or "Poor women in the News". you find the word "poor"in both the title and the text. Both have different connotations.

Suresh: Academic critics like Dr. S. Ravindranathan feel that the title of your collection, "Innoru Manithargal",mystifies one. Do you see any incongruity in it as you now look back?

BALA: Good linguists like Dr.K.Nachimuthu have appreciated the title poem relating the title of the text. Of course, I enjoy mystifying ordinary readers. A second reading will help them. I think one should not see just grammer in poetry when youought to look at he grammer of life.

Suresh: What do you think of academic critics ? Have you received from them the recognition and the reviewing that you think you deserve?

BALA: To my knowledge,there are not even a handful of academic critics who could speak sensibly on poetry.I am sorry to say this. Some how ,they happen to enjoy fiction. In spite of this, I am known as a poet of importance to many Tamil professors. However,many of them take quotes from my book on modern Tamil poetry when they have an occassion to talk about new poetry.

Suresh: You are active as a critic as well. Doesn't your critical activity retard the progress of your poetic mood?

BALA: I don't think so. Of course, it is true many academics knew me first only as a critic. I find that my poetry belongs to the kind of poetry which could be fermed " Critical Poetry" in a sense. They are satricial and sometimes pungent.

Suresh: What have you to say on the way poetry is taught in schools and colleges?

BALA: I don't know about what is going on in schools. I think many college teachers find themselves terribly inadequate to teach a poem without notes.

Suresh: Some people believe that writers have a social function. You seem to subscribe to it. Don't you think that the poem exists for its own sake as it is the product of its author's aesthetic experience of an event?

BALA: Yes, it is true. Apoem can exist for its own sake. But what is wrong if it could exist for you and me also? My poems are everybody's poems. Language without communicators is just noise. Pure poetry is beautiful like rain on the seas. The poem with the purpose is like the rain on the fields.

Suresh: Tell us somthing about your birth and early education?

BALA: I was born in Sivagangai in my uncle's house when my mother visited him. I had my early primary education in Devakottai. I still remember the headmaster of the school a handsome Brahmin with flowing curls of wavy hair as long as a woman's reaching his hips. Since my father was employed in judicial service, he had his frequent transfers. The family moved to sivagangai and I joined Vivekananda School. Next I attended Raja's High School in Sivangangai. The School had a palatial buliding with fine teachers and boisterous students. I was a small pet boy for my teachers. I always lived picking the friendships of tall and big classmates. So in the company of my friends I was the smallest boy but the greatest in the eyes of my teachers. I picked up prizes and was topper in the 10th and 11th standards to the surprise of my friends and relatives. My father used to tell me he would educate me till the point where I would fail.

Suresh : What were your parents like?

BALA: My mother was a self-taught women who read a lot of magazines-mostly tamil weeklies which published historical fiction. My father was a brilliant man who used to teach English and Maths to some of my poor dull-headed relations. In those days private tuition was always looked down upon. In our family of eleven nobody went in for private tuition.

Suresh: Do you recall your college days and your teachers there?

BALA: I joined R.D.M College in Sivagangai to do my pre-University course. One of my Tamil teachers was Poet meera who was very popular with the students. And one of my English teacher was Prof. N.Dharmarajan, a famous translator of many Russian books. For my graduation I attended Alagappa College, Karaikudi.

Suresh: You have paid a poignant tribute to your mother in the dedication to your first anthology of poems.

BALA: My mother died in an accident near Ramanathapuram. She was travelling in a van which collided with an ambulance. She had died before I got married. She was a brave woman who braved the vicissitudes of life.

Suresh: One would like to know when exactly you felt you had become a writer.

BALA: My entry into the literary world occurred when Mu. Mehta, the famous Tamil Poet, became my room-mate in Rasipuram when I was a college teacher. There we read our poems together and exchanged our views on writers and literary magazines. He was already a poetry performer in "Kavi Arangams".

Suresh: Could you tell us something about your martial life?

BALA: I married one of my cousins in 1975. My marriage life is quite happy, though my wife is not very much excited over my poetic activities.

Suresh: Which of your fellow poets do you rate highly?

BALA: Among the contemporary writers I admire the talents of Meera, Sirpi, Abdul Rahman, Mu. Mehta and tamilanban. I also like the poems of Gnana Koothan, Tharumushshivaramuh. Among the older poets I admire Subramania Bharathi and Bharathidasasn. There are a lot of minor poets who have not received proper critical attention. Recognition has to be given to the creations of writers like Thooran and Tamil Oil.