Thiruvananthapuram: The conversation on the topic ‘Aesthetical revolution: Crisis of expression in the new age writing’ (Soundaryathinte Kalapam: Puthurachanakalile Aavishkara Prathisandhikal’ at Mathrubhumi International Festival of Letters (MBIFL’19) being held at Kanakakkunnu here was noted for the huge participation of audience. Poet and orator Alankode Leelakrishnan, writer and DPI (Director of Public Instruction) K. V. Mohan Kumar and writer and journalist Prabha Varma participated in the conversation.

By quoting and reciting a few popular poems by celebrated poets of Malayalam, Alankode Leelakrishnan pulled the crowd from the very beginning. He said that the sense of aesthetics was restricted in some conventional concepts set by a group of elite poets of a time. The new age writers are revolutionizing poetry by breaking the conventionalities and including the aesthetic ideas of all classes. He also discussed the swift transition of Malayalis from love and compassion during the flood havoc to the enmity and violence during the Sabarimala protests as a difference in perception of aesthetics.

He also said that the secondary experience of writers is denied nowadays focusing on the strict religious confinements. If Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai decided to writer ‘Chemmeen’ at this time, he might have obstructed by saying he belongs to a different community. The renaissance allowed the marginalized classes to rise to the surface. This was made possible by the revolutionary litterateurs, he added. Some of the lyrics written by eminent songwriter Bhaskaran Master was influenced by the Mappila songs penned by Moyinkutty Vaidyar, he observed.

K. V. Mohan Kumar talked about the theoretical aspects of the aesthetical revolution. He said that the crowd at MBIFL is similar to one at the film festival grounds which is a good sign for a literature event. He asserted that how to reflect the aesthetic concepts according to the changes of time. He pointed out that qualitative change in sensibility is important in literature.

He also remembered that when his book ‘Hey Rama’ was published in 2010, it was received without any hues and cries. But when some portions of the same work was reprinted in a magazine later in 2018, it resulted in controversies and some people even staged protest against him. All these denote the drastic changes in the concepts of aesthetics. His latest work ‘Ushnarashi’ also depicts the beauty of darkness instead of highlighting the colourful aspects of life, he said.

Poet Prabha Varma focused on the new age tendency of replacing the originals with duplicates. In some cases, even the duplicates are misunderstood to be the original, he said. He also expressed his disagreement in the modern concept that poetry is simple nowadays because the poets need not search for complex synonyms of words.

Prabha Varma asserted that the using of the right word in the right place at the right time is a matter of talent and not an act to show off vocabulary. The simple language poetry lacks the depth of expression as in the conventional poetry which maintained language rules and metres of lines. The rhythm and depth of meaning they conveyed cannot be seen in the modern poetry which claims to be simple and popular, he said. He reiterated that his personal opinion is that loss of aura of poetry is not completely good for literature.

After a question and answer session, actor and MLA Mukesh handed over memento to Alankode Leelakrishnan, K. V. Mohan Kumar and Prabha Varma. The programme was conducted at the Bamboo Grove at Kanakakkunnu at 12 in the noon. Mathrubhumi International Festival of Letters 2019 is conducted in eight venues here from January 31 to Febuary 3.