As a way of identifying me, they would ask, “Do you mean the Malathi who wears pants?” trying to joke about it. I wanted to spend my time serving people, not on correcting such regressive mindsets. Followers of Periyar and Tamil patriots concurred with those communists. At the age of nineteen, when I joined the People’s War Group 1, the communists were worried that I wore trousers and jeans. Had the political groups here functioned well, had they recognised women’s rights and voice, I would have become a full-time party worker. I am more interested in political activities than in writing. Later, this inclination informed my politics as well, and I think it has been an important influence. I was naturally inclined towards working against structural forms of oppression, both gender oppression as well as oppression that is caste-and religion-based. You are known for the lead you have taken as a feminist poet, resisting and challenging the forces directed against women in contemporary Tamil writing… The following is an excerpt from an interview with poet Malathi Maithri. A unique anthology by K Srilata and Swarnalatha Rangarajan, Lifescapes: Interviews with Contemporary Writers from Tamil Nadu, presents the experiences and views of seventeen contemporary Tamil women writers whose works explore the implications of being female in Tamil Nadu today, in serious and playful ways. Challenging the rigid, polarising binaries of the “inner feminine”, or aham, and the “outer masculine”, or puram, prevalent in classical Sangam literature, the writers in this volume draw attention to the inseparability of issues like gender, body politics, caste hegemony, mythopoesis and environmental justice, in their writing.
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