Antony Arul Valan

#OutlookAnniversaryIssue | Every English teacher would recognise the pleasures, the guilt and the conflict that is the world of teaching literature in a university. We are often carried away by the richness of poetry, be it when we are called upon to lecture about the elevated registers of Shakespeare or when we nurse creative ambitions and write some of our own unreadable verses. We are shocked by our own stasis in class, when eager ears await our interpretive moves while our inner demons, nurtured by what is happening around us, are roused and raging. We are usually remorseful as we make perfunctory remarks on grammatical infelicities when we know pretty well we aren’t engaging with what the student is trying to do in that paper. We walk into class holding inner conflicts, what to do when great art is created by artists who turn out to be terrible people, or what is the purpose of all these fictional worlds we enter and leave at will when the city is suffocating on polluted air, when the country is plunging into sectarian distress and the world is headed into an algorithm that rewards solipsism and narcissism. It is with such a contemporary and textured experience of teaching that R. K. Narayan introduces Krishna in his fourth novel The English Teacher. This is not to say that Krishna thinks about polluted Delhi in that 1945 novel, but that the world he inhabits, the world that Narayan conjures for us and we fondly co-habit with Krishna—Malgudi—does not simply remain a geographical literary canvas on which action occurs, it is a place that impinges on its characters to such an extent that their concerns and lives are so wholly realised and contained within. Antony Arul Valan (@antonyavalan) writes. He is a visiting assistant professor, Department of English at Ashoka University, Sonipat. Second Cover: Sudarshan Shetty, Photo Courtesy: GALLERYSKE (@GALLERY_SKE) Cover: Sudarshan Shetty (@Sudarshan1967) #OutlookMagazine #OutlookAt30 #Elsewheres #ImaginedSpaces

Here is a solidarity statement that I have signed in support of @kirubamunusamy ,I request everyone who understands how important it is that we stand by her at this juncture to sign and share the statement ! docs.google.com/forms/d/1R2K…

I deny the allegations made against me by Ms. Kiruba Munusamy in entirety. A coin has two sides likewise this story also has two sides. "There is only one victim in this issue and it is me rather than the person making the accusations against me". We were acquaintances till 2020 and started to know each other better post her travel to UK for PhD. The entire relationship was strictly platonic, the concocted allegations now being made are made in order to wreck vengeance and finish my political and professional career, since I had refused to succumb to her unreasonable demand to Marry her. Attachment 1 is the letter Written by Ms. Kiruba from United Kingdom in 15th June 2022 where she is pursuing her PhD. If I was indeed an abuser, no person of reasonable intelligence would have written such a letter. Attachment 2 is the proof of payment made to Ms. Kiruba for articles gifted by her on her own accord or at my request for my professional purposes. I had always promised to pay for the articles given to me and in due course I have promptly paid the entire amount as promised by me. I reiterate that I completely deny each and every allegation made against me. I am fully prepared to rebut the charges and disprove each and every one of them in the manner known under law. Aramvellum.

After having undergone a great deal of agony over the past few months & a huge disappointment, I'm writing in public. I've known @RVikraman since 2013 when he participated in an event in which I was a guest. When I left for London in Aug 2020, he voluntarily came to send me off.