THE CENSOR BOARD WITHIN
Perumal Murugan, the Tamil writer was recently interviewed by Barkha Dutt of NDTV. I had never heard of him as I have never heard of many other famous writers. He was hounded by some Hundutwa forces for his novel Madhurobhagan which was translated into English as One Part Woman. He stopped writing for some years and now has penned some poems.
During the course of the interview he indicated that there is one censor sitting inside him that cautions him to select his words and opinion. He is a great writer and thinker. But he too had to keep his mouth shut for a good time and now he is cautious what to write or say and what not.
Does not it sound familiar? Don’t we have this censor within us that forces us not to say something. Can we name it fear or decency or something else?
The question is here in different words. How often you stopped sort of saying something unpleasant but stopped at the nick of hour because the censor inside stopped you? How often you wanted to cry loudly but the censor inside stopped you? How often you wanted to sing at the top of your voice in a running train or bus or plane but the censor stopped you? How often you wanted to say ‘go to hell’ but the censor stopped you? These are and many other pointers lead to find out who this censor is.
Naming it ‘fear’ seems to be most appropriate. We keep our mouth shut for fear of law or for fear of people more powerful than us like the Government or the police or some high ranking official or some moneyed man who can teach us a lesson for our stupidity. The latest debate about nationality is recent case.
Naming it ‘decency’ also looks fine. We keep our mouth shut for not to annoy some one dear to us or simply for the sake of decency in our behavior. There is no point annoying or hurting the feelings of others so we keep silent or indifferent even though we feel like saying a spade a spade.
What do you say?
