Paa.Jeyapirakasam as a creative writer and the purpose of his creations

Paa.Jeyapirakasam made his debut as a writer when he wrote his first short story with the flavor of KARISAL soil (southern part of Tamil Nadu), as though the latter with a motherly affinity demanded the work of him. Based on a boyhood incident during his school days, the story ‘Kutram’ (offence) was published in 1971 in Tamarai literary magazine, which marked the beginning of his career in creative writing. Since then the flow of his pen never ceased to move on, though interrupted by a brief lull.

Most of his writings appeared in TAMARAI (1971-76) and MANA OSAI (1981-1990), Literary monthly magazines, generating critical acclaim among the readers.

His popularity with the literary world is solely due to his creative writing commitment to the revolutionary ideology.

The official status he was holding in the Government had little to do in this regard and he has never allowed his State position to encroach upon his literary arena except for a short period .

Modern age along with urbanization admittedly is inherent with trials and tribulations, pitfalls and failures in the life of rural people, especially in the life of women who still continue to be treated as mere commodities.  These are the people who find themselves in the lifelike characters inhabiting his creation.

The whole gamut of his creative articulations includes a spate of short fictions, poetry, plays, parables, essays, prefaces, reviews, letters and travelogues essentially reflective of his multi dimensional perception of what is called Reality.

His short stories basically breathe life into his characters and reveal the socio-economic realities and transform them into metaphorical mosaic of image, thanks to the diction and language used. Art becomes an aesthetic consumer product in his hands, to be readily consumed and enjoyed.

His stories assume the dignity of an effective vehicle for his vision and thoughts. They epitomize fictionally the places where he lived and what he had so fare experienced, dreamt of and of his ideological expectations.

The setting of his creative world is the rustic life of the country people.  The trend of transforming rusticity into creative art has generated a new wave in his writings.

Paa.Jeyapirakasam is an uncompromising and hardworking person wedded to the working class ideology.  His dialectical outlook forms the basis for his conceptions on art and literature in a society made of antagonistic classes.

He is of firm conviction that art and literature have no different pathways leading to different destinations. The rationale of his conviction is the operating factor in his creative field which unceasingly sustains his moral rage against all kinds of oppression.

We find the men and women of fictions in their respective caste ladder juxtaposed with the sharp – edged challenges of our day to day existence.  The anguish and exasperation of the sexually harassed peasant women suffering under the yoke of land lordism are brought into bold relief by the artistic nerve of the author.

It is an adept portray; a of life undergoing the pains and pangs inflicted upon by the remarks of feudal culture surviving mechanization of agriculture with its class - biased value judgments resulting in class conflicts.

Not necessarily strictly confined to the “KARISAL” (Black soil) a limited social milieu, his canvas expands itself large enough to accommodate the industry oriented unbiased spectrum of modern life. He gives a very powerful expression to the misery of women, subjected to all kinds of harassment both in cities and villages.

Paa.Jeyapirakasam’s short stories are not ‘short’ and most of them are somewhat lengthy ones.  The ‘expanse’ or ‘space’ or ‘sphere’ of his creative activity merits a special mention. The ‘sphere’ enjoys a very commanding position in his fiction.  His characters act mostly outside the home and situation takes place almost in the out of home sphere, but all the while the home remaining the ‘centre of gravity’ of their existence.

Feminism, caste oppression, issues of politics and trade unions are deftly handled in his creative writings. Whenever the evolutionary growth of ideological premises get registered in his works, inevitably politics, workers union, proletariat, semi / proletariat, artisans and capitalists dominate the creative realm of Paa.Jeyapirakasam.

Paa.Jeyapirakasam has also been identified by the poetic excellence of his presentations.

As for his poetry, its verses stand replete with the same literary vigor of his stories.  His poems too have the impact of social realism. But the tone is recognizably different from those his stories.  He writes poems under the pseudonym Suriyadeepan.

In our literary pursuits, questions regarding the aesthetics of Paa.Jeyapirakasam’s creations have become irrelevant for. From the beginning he has been trying innovative attempts in the art of story -telling, which is measured by the literary scale of realism.

His pen sucks the nutrients and reveals the unexposed pages of the people in “THEKKATHY AATHAMAKKAL” (souls of the south ) and “ GRAMIYA KALAIGNARGAL” (rural folk artists ) as veiled fictions in the form of non – fiction.

An artist, while at his work within the confines of his own world, may at times miss to catch in words what he aspired to express in his creations.  But here his plethora of forewords, reviews, and other write – ups come to our help very effectively indeed.