Unlike economic advancement, development of local arts and literature is not exactly a priority preoccupation in Singapore. Indeed quasi-official attitudes sometimes take on a certain eccentricity, as when leading trade unionist and parliamentarian Devan Nair recently caused a storm by chiding "arty-crafty reality dodgers." Noting that local poets are read in the republic's schools, he said "I am alarmed, because I know a number of them who ought not to be read at all"
Despite such discouraging words, a handful of local writers and poets have braved their way through to making a name for themselves. Among the best known outside the republic is another unrelated Nair: former marine biologist, Chandran Nair. Primarily a poet, he is a signatory to the Kuala Lumpur Declaration of the ASEAN Writers Association. Recently he talked to ASIAWEEK's Assif Shameen about his own life and work and of the development of literature in Singapore: Shameen's report:

Nair's roots are in the southern Indian state of Kerala, where he was born 35 years ago. It wasn't until after his eighth brithday that the Nair family migrated to Singpore's greener pastures. "I grew up in the rough neighbourhood of Havelock Road" he recalls. Rough, because race relations in the 1950s' Singapore were hardly as smooth as they are now. Havelock Road was a predominantly working-class Chinese area where the Malayam-speaking Nairs were complete strangers. "I found myself as an individual caught between two extremes. My conservative Indian family and the rough new, strange world outside." By the time he was a teenager, some kind of outlet had become essential. He began to write.

Since then, Nair's poems, short stories and essays have appeared in a number of magazines and newspapers in Singapore, Malaysia, Canada and India. He now has two books to his credit, both collections of his selected poems:Once the Horseman and Other Poems and After the Hard Hours this Rain. He also edited Singapore Writing, a collection of contemporary poems and short stories from the republic.

Nair seems reluctant to identify himself with any contemporary Singaporean writers or poets. Indeed, he makes an effort to be different from the run-of-the-mill. "My major concern is not so much the society as a whole but the position of the individual in a society," he says."Unfortunately, all my critics seem to have two opinions of myself and my work: either I am lefty, or I am not Marxist enough. It's funny, because I believe I'm neither a lefty nor have I ever tried to be a Marxist. I write, just because I like writing and not because I subscribe to one political theory or the other".
Does that mean he abhors political theories? "No, not really, I think poets and writers are influenced by their environment more than anyone else. In a different environment I might have been a Marxist or a right winger. Indian society for example, is as distinct from Singapore society as it is from the American. Marxists concepts that may be pretty relevant  in Indian society are irrevelant in other societies."

Still, Chandran Nair's brand of poetry regularly draws fire from one side or the other.  Nirmala Govindasamy, a local critic, who recently wrote that Nair is" clearly not the poet to go for revolutionary ideas" suggests one reason:  his choice of general appeal subjects. Certainly  Nair deliberately restricts his fields of vision.  His themes centre on love and betrayals, friendship and emotions, traditions and heritage, uran-rural conflict.  Nair himself describes his poems as dealing with "man's attempts at coming to terms with himself and those with whom he has to live"

But that doesn't mean Nair tries to commercialise his poems.  In truth he couldn't even if he wanted to.  Despite its place in the school curriculum, poetry of any quality  doesn't sell in Singapore. "You'd be lucky if you could sell more than four or five hundred copies of your collection of poems; that just isn't enough to cover the costs," Nair says ruefully.  "Despite the high literacy rate, people  in Singapore just don't have the habit of reading or buying books."

That remains one of the biggest obstacles to the development of indigenous literature in the republic.  Says Nair: " When you can't even cover your costs and very few people are interested in buying your book there is no incentive.  Writing can be a very expensive hobby in Singapore."

But financial concerns haven't dissuaded Nair from continuing to write.  Now a deputy manager in Singapore's Times Organisation, a large publishing and book-distribution group, he lives with his wife and two daughters. "Although with a job and a family I hardly get any time to write", he says,"I am putting together another collection of my poems."
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Extracted from an article written by Assif Shameen for Asiaweek Literary Supplement, Asiaweek Magazine, may 23, 1980