UPM PJJ BPTESL 2010/2011 BBL3206 Malaysian Literature In English K.

S MANIAM Introduction

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K.S. Maniam is a prolific writer with an impressive academic background. Before turning to full-time writing, he led a life of teaching. His creative work, mostly short stories, has been published in different anthologies of Southeast Asian literature. His published fiction includes collections of short stories, such as Haunting the Tiger: Contemporary Stories from Malaysia, and plays, such as The Cord or The Sandpit. K.S Maniam was born in 1942 in a small town named Bedong in Kedah Darul Aman. Subramaniam Krishnan or K.S Maniam is from a Hindu Tamil family and a descendant of a grandmother who had migrated from India to Peninsular Malaysia around 1916. K.S Maniam was raised in a hospital compound because his father worked as a laundryman. K.S Maniam also would accompany his parents in rubber-tapping on a nearby plantation, this made he became familiar with the lifestyle of the Tamil estate workers there. Although only for a year, K.S Maniam attended the Tamil school and then insisted on transferring to the Ibrahim English school at Sungai Petani. This was a substantially to alter the course of his life. After completing his schooling in 1960, K.S Maniam stayed for a few months as pupil-teacher and then left for India where he was briefly study medicine. From India, he went to England to further his study on teachers education. In England from 1962 to 1964, he attended the Malayan Teachers College in

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Wolverhampton, residing at Brinsford Lodge. After successfully completing his Certification of Education, K.S Maniam returned to Malaysia and taught in various rural schools in Kedah until 1970. Then he enrolled in Arts/English degree course at University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur. After completing a BA (Hons), he went on to obtain a Masters degree in English Literature. In 1979 he was appointed to a lectureship in English at University of Malaya. He retired from an Associate Professorship in the Department of English at University of Malaya in 1997. Through English-medium education, K.S Maniam escaped the desperate of his small town childhood and now he publicly affirms that the English language given him a centre to life. An intense yet courteous person, now K.S Maniam lives with his wife and children in a modest, two storeyed house in Subang, one of suburbs of Kuala Lumpur.

UPM PJJ BPTESL 2010/2011 BBL3206 Malaysian Literature In English The Return

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K.S Maniams first novel, The Return, was published in 1981. It was reprinted by Skoob Books Ltd in the Skoob Pacifica Series in 1993. The Return, presents an Indian boys journey of self-discovery while growing up in Malaya. The novel can be read as a Bildungsroman which deals with the education and the intellectual formation of an unusual young Indian boy who has to go through all the sorrows and triumphs life has to offer. Apart from the reconstruction of boyhood, the author also presents the traditions, way of life and difficulties faces by the community of Indian immigrants. The sober descriptions of the Indian communitys lifestyle infuse the novel with a textual richness. At a point the reader might think that The Return is just a collection of short stories about Maniams life, arranged in chronological order, with little connection between them. But the vivid descriptions of the immigrants life, the humor in some of the situations and the lyrical characteristics of the text compensate for these imperfections of structure. The book is littered with Tamil words, a fact that gives the text a special and unique flavor. The few lines of incorrect English used to characterize the language of the immigrants, especially the childrens dialogues, give the reader a glimpse of what the community might sound like. The story is written from the point of view of the narrator. The world is seen through the eyes of a single person.

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The author mingles in the narrative themes related to the life and realities of Indian immigrants in a country where, at first, they are looked down upon. The most important of them are: a sense of history, a sense of community, and a sense of character. Themes The sense of history is conveyed almost imperceptibly. Time and place are not mentioned, and the lack of dates (with very few exceptions) makes the reader understand that the author avoiding this and doesnt want to invoke historical or political events from the history of colonial Malaya. But the readers are occasionally aware that the time of the narrative spans over a long period of more than 20 years, from 1940 to 1962. Ravi, the main character, acknowledges the political events that take place in the country, such as the Japanese occupation, the Emergency, and the Independence, but for him they lack social and economic significance. As we read the novel we understand that as time passes by, modernization is an inevitable event. The appearance of the cinema, the radio, the bicycle and the car are some of the changes that will eventually influence the social life of the characters. Most significant of all, is the implementation and extension of colonial education. Some examples are: the addition of new buildings to the school, the movement upwards from one level of schooling to another, the increase in the number of teachers and students, and the social stability that education offers.

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But all these modernizing factors also steps that widen the gap between Ravi himself as part of the poor community of Indian immigrants and Ravi as a member of colonial society. The sense of community is described throughout the novel, from its very beginning until the last line of the final chapter. K.S Maniam evokes the community in a very realistic and sometimes shocking style. It is a community of immigrants who depend on the system of colonial patronage. At first they are doomed to live in poor conditions on the rubber plantation. This community is characterized by anger, violence, conflict and shrewdness. Ravi is a part of that way of life, but gradually, through education and growth of wisdom, he finds a way of getting out of it. In the Indian community there are divisions and separation, while class and status are demarcated by territorial and social boundaries. All these are graphically described in the novel, giving the readers an image of how life was in such harsh and unfair conditions. The moment Ravi decides to stay on at school, is the first sign he gives to the community that he intends to escape the social status to which he has been associated by birth. As soon as he joins secondary school, he befriends his English-speaking backgrounds. Ravis previous friends, the neighbors children, like Gandesh the Indian boy from next door, sense his superiority both at school and at home, and eventually reject him. As soon as Ravi realizes that he can spend his free time reading comics and other books instead of running and playing in the mud, the rejection classmates, who are of different ethnic and social

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becomes reciprocal. The detached way adopted by the author in presenting the pettiness and misery of the Indian immigrant community is another proof that Ravi doesnt consider himself to be a part of it. Main Characters The Return opens with a description of the arrival of the narrators grandmother in Malaya. She has strange appearance, carrying her baggage and being accompanied by her three sons. The grandmother addressed by the honorific Periathai, which means Big Mother. She is hardworking and resourceful woman who starts a new life with her family in a strange unwelcome land. She draws her vitality from Indian cultural wisdom and experience while the link between everything she does and the Indian tradition accompanies her until death. Periathai never gets to own the house and the land where she has lived on for many years, dying disappointed, speechless and without a farewell. Although the novel opens with the description of a remarkable woman, the succeeding chapters focus on another figure, the center of authority in Ravis life: his father, Kannan. Above all the other characters that shape the life and character of the young boy, his father is by far the most influential to Ravi. Kannan is a complex, capable and hardworking character. He is highly influenced by Periathais vision of life and tradition. Their shared desire to own land and build on it comes from the fact that their roots are still in the farming community. Kannan spends the last remaining years of his life in vain,

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obsessively trying to gain ownership of the land on which he has lived and built his house. In the years preceding his fathers death, Ravi became detached from Kannans and Periathais dream of owning land. In just two generations, the dream of the Indian immigrant in Malaysia has disappeared. Ravi, as a representative of the first Malaysian-born generation, sees his community from a different perspective. He does not like the traditional communal lifestyle, and decides to pursue more realistic dreams, such as the adoption of the colonial language, English. It is through the medium of this language that he is finally able to move upwards in his social status. It is a language that influences Maniam himself (in fact the main character of the novel) in such a way, that he writes his works in English, and not Tamil, the language of his ancestors. Ravi gradually moves apart from his family and culture to live in a world influenced by colonial rule. At the moment of his separation he is actually assimilating another culture through education. For Ravi, this culture is more rewarding and satisfying compare to the one in which he has lived. Education provides for him not only knowledge, but also a space to retreat into the world of comics, fairy tales, and eventually novels. Conclusion The Return by K.S. Maniam is a novel that allows the reader the opportunity to be part of a Malaysian experience such as adaptation to the ever-changing modern world, the loss of identity, the loss of family and traditional roots, the role

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of education in life, the opposition between authoritarian and democratic societies, and many more. The novel made me think of my own life and identity and roots. In my thought, all of us have to return at a point of our lives to some place that is dear to our heart. Either it is our native country, our home, love ones or the place where we have grown up, it is a return that will always stay in our minds.

UPM PJJ BPTESL 2010/2011 BBL3206 Malaysian Literature In English References

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Brewster, Anne. (1993) Linguistic Boundaries, in The Return by K.S. Maniam, London: Skoob Pacifica, 1993. Wicks, Peter. (2007). K.S Maniam (1942-). The Literacy Encyclopedia Watson, W.C. (1993) Introduction in The Return by K.S. Maniam, London: Skoob Pacifica K.S Maniam (Subramaniam Krishnan) (July 2007). Retrieved January 2011 from http://dbp.gov.my/lamandbp/main.php?Content=articles&ArticleID=1176&IID K.S Maniam. Retrieved on January 2011 from www.worldlingo.com/ma/enwiki/en/K._S._Maniam K.S Maniam. Retrieved on Febuary 2011 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K._S._Maniam