From Global To Local: Ecological Consciousness In Kallen Pokkudan’s Self-Narratives

Unlike the western autobiographical tradition, self writing practice in India, more locally in Kerala, more specifically among dalits, has not been a complacent activity. To carve a little space for themselves in the global literary firmament means beating the drum from the sidewalk. Linda Anderson remarks: “ The idea that autobiography can become the text of the oppressed articulating through one’s personal experience which may be representative of a particular marginalized group is an important one: autobiography becomes both a way of testifying to oppression and empowering the subject through their cultural inscription and recognition” (104). Besides voicing boldly and breaking all the oppressive shackles around, there is an earnest attempt to affirm an ecologically sensitive mind.

The autobiography of Kallen Pokkudan Ente Jeevitham ( My Life Among Mangrove Forest) crosses over the boundaries of western critical canons and eco-aesthetic theories as there is no homogeneous pattern to be subjected under a critical scrutiny. Any attempt to evaluate an eco-aesthetic sensibility in a collective fashion is conducive only to academic practice which primarily involves theorizing. It may dilute the political content of the oppressive experiences of the subject. In order to make a serious intervention with the local and the unique eco-aesthetic sensibility, one has to heed the experience right from the horses’ mouth! The self-narrative of Kallen Pokkudan is an expression of his Dravidian self over brimming with an ecological consciousness. It subverts the elitist prescription that a person who cannot claim the so-called academic or casteist nobility is not entitled to hold any subject position based on their solely unvarnished experience.

Three major hues- black, red and green turn suggestive of the ideology of a man who has undergone three major phases in the whole span of his eventful life as detailed in his second autobiography Ente Jeevitham (My Life). The grim casteism with its pitch black horridness made Pokkudan a red flag carrying communist. But quite disillusioned with the quixotic notions of equality, he developed a consciousness shaded in green which finds him in tune with the Nature. And it is this phase which made him saw through his life. His eloquent mangrove words are sowed in his own bank of experience, not on an alien soil of theory.

The drowsy village of Ezham on the banks of Pazhayangady river in Kannur district in Kerala, has at five hundred acres, the longest adjoining stretch of mangroves in Kerala. A natural safeguard against flood, erosion, salinization, and natural disasters like Tsunami, this verdant green coastal forest is the reason why there is always a cool breeze sweeping across the village even at the peak of summer. Pokkudan, a farm labourer from Ezham, a drop-out in the second standard, spends decades of his life planting, preserving and uncompromisingly campaigning for the preservation of mangrove vegetations.

Self indulgence and self aggrandizement inherent in human nature keep nature at the receiving end. Since land has come to denote power there has always been a voracious urge to conquer it. Pokkudan makes an attempt to regain the lost rhythm of Nature. Far from the much glorified and romanticized nature description, his words bear the odour of the unvarnished soil, water and air. Pokkudan’s tireless adventurous efforts to rebuild the mangrove vegetation and to make alive the local biocoenosis made his social life turbulent. The ignorance of the public on the wet land conservation and resistance from his own community posed a challenge before him. Although thousands of mangrove saplings planted on the river banks of his village attracted worldwide attention, his own village authorities pulled down that wetland biosynthesis in their aggressive quest for development. The empty notions of development proved an easy explanation for their misdeed. Pokkudan poignantly remembers:The red laterite stones and rocks of the hilly tracts of the village were broken on a large scale using gun powder. A lot of trees especially cashews got destructed. The hill slopes started sliding. Many people lost their houses in that rainy season due to the devastating gush of wind and the subsequent landslide. I rejected the rehabilitation package offered to me and refused to shift to the colony. (Ente Jeevitham 68)

Pokkudan’s intense dissatisfaction and disillusionment with the Communist Party are also laid bare: “The thought got strengthened in me that all our politicians have their own blemishes. The Pulaya community was not able to accommodate a ‘communist pulayan’ at that time. Even today, the communists, I believe, are unable to accommodate the pulayans. I feel myself estranged with both the party and the community” (48).

A strong resistance to the power structure and a tireless alertness over the environment makes this aggressive life a grave lesson of bio-politics. Experience is the source of his bio power. Pokkudan’s pragmatic and realistic solutions to the ecological imbalance arise out of his abundant rustic intimation. He turns very eloquent whenever he speaks about the mangroves and its ensured biodiversity and the ecological equilibrium: The local dalits and agriculturalists depend on these mangroves and wet lands for their sustenance. Both local and migratory birds are seen among the mangroves. Shrimps, green crabs, reptiles, variety of fish, water fowls, tortoises, otters and hog rats find their place in between the roots of these mangroves.

Mangrove vegetation was a natural phenomenon at that time. No one had to plant it deliberately. It grew naturally on the river banks and wet lands. Later when these mangroves and wet lands got destructed on a large scale, I started rebuilding the mangrove roots on the wet land soil. The fact that it can prevent soil erosion and land slide and can ensure biodiversity has been ratified by the environmental scientists.

Pokkudan does not associate himself with any identifiable group, but stands out a single voice shouting in wilderness: “The mangroves I planted were all those wild ones. It’s very nice to look at it. Once while I was collecting the mangrove seeds, I happened to overhear the conversation of two sophisticated boys: “poor thing, he has gone insane”. Yes, I am mad, and I like this madness. I often guess myself a wild mangrove”(77). Thus the self and the mangroves are inextricably linked in the narrative. Pokkudan’s ecological consciousness as revealed through his autobiographical anecdotes does not encourage an academic pursuit of the parameters of eco-criticism. Rather his ecoconsciousness has contributed much to an environmental restoration in an age which is appallingly on the verge of environmental corrosion.