‘Fearful of writing about gods and humans’

In an interview, the celebrated author talks about his new book and why he wanted to continue farming. 

“It might seem that farmers are suffering from poverty; but as far as I have seen and understood, agriculture is not a profession — it is a way of life. It is something you live and breathe every day. I have always felt that it is a very fulfilling life and there is never a sense of something missing in the village. I was yearning for nothing,” said 52-year-old Perumal. He was thrust into the limelight after his novel Madhurobhagan came under attack from Hindutva supporters and was declared blasphemous in January 2015. 

In 2016, Tamil Nadu recorded its lowest annual rainfall in 140 years and the resultant droughtlike situation is what forms the backdrop of Poonachi, Or the Story of a Black Goat. It is his first novel after the controversy. 

To be able to tell a story where animals take centrestage is not easy and rarely do fiction writers take up this challenge. But here is Murugan, a man of farms and villages, telling the story of a pitch-black goat with both conviction and purpose. 

“I am fearful of writing about humans; even more fearful of writing about gods,” he says in the preface to the novel. And since it is problematic to write about cows or pigs, he explores the rather ‘problem-free, harmless and, above all, energetic’ universe of goats. 

His desire to continue living the agrarian way of life is very much influenced by his childhood and his memories of a carefree existence, though marred by difficult phases. He was the first in his extended family to pursue education above the middle school. His father ran a soda bottle shop and they had just a small plot of agricultural land to sustain the family. 

“I would walk for five kilometres to school every day. It was a period of fun and happiness. We were about 15 boys and girls going to school together. We would play on the way, study and come back playing in the same manner. So more than my time at school, I remember going and coming back every day,” he said. And what they would often do was ‘sort of interact with animals’ on the way. It seemed as if they understood the language of the animals. 

When he was in Class 7, the small plot of land that sustained the family was taken away by the Housing Board, creating a fresh financial crisis. 

“My family was thinking of pulling me out of school, so we could have an extra pair of hands in the soda shop. They said that if he failed, we would pull him out,” he recalled. But the young man, living in a family struggling to make ends meet, would go on to complete his PhD in Tamil literature.