By Yeow Kai Chai

The following began as a de rigueur quarterly ritual of getting a literary practitioner to answer a set of more or less standard questions, and this time it was Malaysian writer and spoken-word poet Melizarani T Selva's turn.

I had first heard of her as a member of the curatorial team behind the George Town Literary Festival back in 2018 when it was headed by Festival Director Bernice Chauly, whom I had met at the University of Iowa a few years prior.

Melizarani and I got to know each other properly when we were put in the same panel for Singapore Writers Festival one year. I was immediately struck by her ebullience, warmth and presence. I remember she was reading poems from her first book, Taboo, an interrogation of the Malaysian Indian identity, and it was clear each word came deep from her heart.

It was not a surprise to find out she had done a myriad things. She performed at ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival and TEDxGateway. Aside from writing creative non-fiction stories for Penguin Random House and Teesta Review, she co-published an anthology of 100 poems by 61 poets from Malaysia titled When I Say Spoken, You Say Word!. Her debut play Kudumbam was staged as part of the 24-Hour Playwriting Competition 2021 winners showcase by T:>Works Singapore. She co-edited The Second Link - A Malaysia-Singapore Literary Anthology, and penned a new play, [Kathi]: How to Dispose a Body in 60 Minutes.

For this latest venture, she had taken the Proust Questionnaire and turned the concept on its head, making it a zany dialogue between two friends, with all sorts of detours, changes in register, corrections intact. Enjoy.

Proust Questionnaire: 17 questions with Melizarani T Selva

Hellooooo Kai Chai! How are youuuu? Answering 17 questions to the void seems odd, so I'm gonna imagine you and me in conversation over nasi lemak in JB. Even though the nasi lemak in JB is not as correct as the ones in KL. Haha wow okay before I incite any wars, let's go!

1. What are you reading right now?
I am halfway through Tania de Rozario's essay collection dinner on monster island and thoroughly enjoying it. Also mixing things up with another essay collection Bending Genre (thanks Lawrence Ypil for the recommendation) which I must say has been truly inspiring. And as if that is not enough, I've been diving deep into Charles Yu's body of work. Can't say I loved Interior Chinatown as a TV show but the novel as a delightful cocktail of textual influences. Highly recommend Yeoman and Problems for Self Study (thanks Joses Ho).  I truly admire multidisciplinary writers who flirt with form, and when I like a writer, I make it a point to consume everything they've ever written. I enjoy studying their trajectory, how their vocabulary and ideation has evolved from their first poem to their last play, especially if they are  a writer who "accidentally specialises" in writing about one thing over and over again. So, right now, it is Yu season.

2. If you were a famous literary character in a novel, play or poem, what would you be and why?
Wah! Who ah? Lemme think. My first thought was Elizabeth Bennet from Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice' solely because I remember her daughterhood being very similar to mine. All she wanted to do was read books while everyone else was fussing about marrying men. Her fiercely affectionate relationship with her father, who reinforces her independence, mirrors the relationship I have with my father. Elizabeth was articulate and unafraid to wield language and opinions. Her father encouraged her singularity and was a true 'girl dad'.

Growing up with cousins and countrymen who were quickly frustrated by my supposedly "sombong" urge to correct their English, I remember finding comfort in witty retorts of Elizabeth Bennet. She says:

"There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises with every attempt to intimidate me."

and I remember how they were phrased like a war-cry and how delicious it was to read it aloud. I was 14 years old when Gurinder Chadha made a desi Bollywood version with Aishwarya Rai and Anupam Kher as the Bennet father-daughter duo. Seeing a brown Lizzie Bennet/Lalita Bakshi saying to the American Mr Darcy "I thought we got rid of imperialists like you." most definitely inspired my desire for ferocity, in both life and literature to continue.

3. What is the greatest misconception about you?
That I cannot speak Tamil.

4. Name one living writer and one dead writer you most identify with, and tell us why.
Eula Biss. May she live long and write more.
Oh Eula! The way she weaves the braided essay. The way she artfully holds darkness and absurd comedy side by side. The way she crafts her punchlines with the precision of a poet. The depth of her curiosity is mirrored by her research and it is stunning to see the layers she puts on display. She reminds me how to retain the presence of our difficult personal and political histories in all that we write, without guilt or shame. She reminds me that it can be done.

Maya Angelou. May she rest easy now and evermore.
Maya mothered me. 'Letter to my Daughter' held me together during my motherless teenhood. Her furious and failed romances taught me about love. Her stories of navigating violence, racism, injustice, and homeland were my earliest lessons of how to move through the world with graceful rage.

5. Do you believe in writer's block? If so, how do you overcome it?
No. "Believe" is such a difficult word, especially in the context. I pledge no faith in this. I think I trip over myself sometimes. I think I sustain injuries that take a while to heal and inevitably cause delays. In these hours of standstill, I scrub every surface in my house until I can write my way out of it.

6. What qualities do you most admire in a writer?
I absolutely admire writers who do not take themselves too seriously, across any and all genres. The ones who can go from poem to screenplay to novel and then essay, without compromising their singularity and heart to meet the supposed formula of the form. You can tell from the way they write that they're unafraid to try. They honour the story that wants to be told, first and foremost.

7. What is one trait you most deplore in writing or writers?
ok so I cannot tahan "time travel" as a plot device, theme, genre…just no.

In my furiously unpopular opinion, everything after 'Back to the Future' and 'X-Files' has been used and abused to attempt dodging the inconvenient reality of uninteresting writing. Sorry no thanks, next! 

8. Can you recite your favourite line from a literary work or a piece of advice from a writer?
"If you are writing, bro, it is a good day in the future." - Ryan Coogler.

Good writing invokes a visceral response. The body will cry, laugh or choke, and nothing can be done to hold back. I recently felt that way in the cinema after watching a particular "baptism" scene in Coogler's 'Sinners'. My God, how I cried. Then I went home and consumed every interview with Coogler, until I stumbled upon an interview he did with Jordan Peele, in which he says the above line. I like this advice a lot. It reminds me that the future can be less bleak if I push my pen across the page today.

"do you want to be happy or do you want to write?" - line from the poem 'Self Portrait' by Jeet Thayil.

Honestly, this is not advice or a favourite line, but it is a recurring question that serves as a call to the page. I have grown out of thinking that happiness and literary productivity are mutually exclusive. I no longer entertain the dangerous notion that one must be a brooding sad boi to make good poems. Nah! No need! But this line reminds me. But I do think the search for happiness and a damn good line is endless. The way I interpret it, there is a cost to everything we write. Something is gained and something is most certainly lost. We all live storied lives and for me, all I hope in this lifetime, is to choose to write it down.

9. Complete this sentence: Few people know this, but I...
I cannot speak Tamil fluently.  

10. At the movies, if you have to pick a comedy, a tragedy or an action thriller to watch, which would you go for?
Yo! Kai Chai! What is this cruel and binary question lah! How to pick one? ok fine I try.

dark comedy > action thriller
BUT if there is a Tamil shooty shooty bang bang masala blockbuster, I am likely to sit through that for a nonsensical good time.

11. What is your favourite word, and what is your least favourite one?
Current favourite word: Consistent.

Least favourite word: Submittable

12. Write a short-short story in three sentences that include the following three items: quadriceps, kulfi, cassette.
Iqbal suffocates under the weight of his wife's quadriceps. Gasping for air until failure, he spends his dying seconds regretting the mango kulfi wrapper that escaped his hurried attempt to bleach all evidence of the neighbour's wife's skin against his. The imam's voice on the cassette player continues from 28 minutes before, no longer shrouding screams of pleasure, calling praise upon one Saviour, pleading for one man to flip to Side B.

13. What object is indispensable to you when you write?
Airplane mode.

14. What is the best time of the day for writing?
5am to 9am, before the house wakes up.

15. If you have a last supper, which three literary figures, real or fictional, would you invite to the soiree, and why?
1. Jerry Pinto
2. Lesley Nneka Arimah
3. 揽佬SKAI ISYOURGOD (yes rapper bois are literary figures too)  

16. Considering we are neighbours with a shared history, there's scant cultural exchange between Singapore and Malaysia. As someone who is at home in both, why do you think that is so, and what can be done to facilitate more dialogue?
Ooooh okay I have shifted my perspective on this! Come I share with you.

I love that this question focuses on dialogue. We need to read each other, yes, but we also need to be in conversation. And for God's sake I don't mean a panel. Enough lah pls. We need to be put into spaces and opportunities to craft work together. Working on The Second Link: An Anthology of Malaysian & Singaporean Writing alongside Daryl Lim, Hamid Roslan and William Tham affirmed this for me. Look, we can endlessly complain about one country having more literary infrastructures in place over the other, but the truth is, we are not thinking about ways to invite each other to the table. And if the table cannot accommodate, we're not considering the possibility of doing away with the table altogether.

It is a disservice to label and limit ourselves according to language, genre and form. Some of the best Malaysian poets have yet to publish their full length collections. Some of the best Singaporean writers are writing in languages and mediums that cannot truly be contained on the page. All of it counts. All of them should sit together for the chance to play together.

Recently, I watched Wild Rice's production of Tunggu Sekejap: The P.Ramlee Suite which truly moved me to think about dialogue between our nations. In the show, interspersed between the glorious orchestra composition and cinematic snippets, Singaporean composer Julian Wong has a dialogue with "P.Ramlee"  played by actor Fadhli Ramlee. They talk, tease and duet about choices P.Ramlee made in craft and life, with heart wrenching honesty of what it means to make art between our two countries. This is what I mean by facilitating new opportunities for writers on both sides to witness each other and exchange stories. Hopefully, we do this sooner and not posthumously.

Simply put, it is because we do not have the opportunity to read each other as much as we'd like to. It is an economic issue. It is an infrastructure issue. It is a tastemaker/gatekeeper issue. All of the above.
Singaporean writers are fortunate to be published/produced because there are plenty of local publishers who are able and willing to take a chance on them. (note to reader: if you are Singaporean and thinking "eh where got?" don't complain!)
In Malaysia, not so much, unless you write in Malay. (note to reader: if you are Malaysian and thinking "eh where got?" don't lie!)

17. What would you write on your own tombstone?
Dei…I'm Hindu lah…we don't do tombstones all…we prefer to be ashes…returned to the sea. ok fine, for you, Kai Chai, I will etch something into a proverbial stone.

"Thanks. I regret nothing."

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ok yay habis! Come we go makan for real?

_____