Padma Bhushan MT Vasudevan Nair, the Jnanpith-awardee Malayalam literary giant who passed away on Christmas Day 2024 at the age of 91, is an irreplaceable national-level literary figure in many respects. He is equally a maestro in the field of modernist Malayalam cinema, both in screenwriting and filmmaking, with several accolades to his credit.
MT’s (the two initials Malayalees the world over know him by) literary contributions began in earnest with four short story collections published one after another – Raktham Puranda Mantharikal (Blood-stained Grains of Sand, 1952), Veyilum Nillaavum (Sunlight and Moonlight, 1954), Vedanayude Pookkal (Flowers of Pain, 1955) and Ninte Ormakku (In Your Memory,1956) – before his first novel Paathiraavum Pakalvelicchavum (Midnight and Daylight), was serialised in the Mathrubhumi Weekly (of which he was to be an illustrious editor), in 1957 (and published as a book in 1959). Following this, his first masterwork, Naalukettu (The House Built Around a Square Courtyard in the Centre) was published in 1958.
Naalukettu
Naalukettu is the classical structure for housing matrilineal (marumakkatthaayam) joint families, like the ones prevalent in the Nair community until about five decades ago, with fifty or more members residing permanently, ruled over by the eldest brother of the theoretical matriarch of the joint family (the tharavaad), with the latter’s husband having no effective rights over their offspring or the material affairs of his wife’s family. However, as progressive legislation over several decades (which culminated in the Kerala Joint Family System (Abolition) Act, 1975) set in, and the “uncles” lost power, the “nephews” who bore the brunt of arbitrary actions by the former, struck back in various ways.
The central story of Naalukettu is how the little boy Appunni, thrown out of Vadakkeppatt Tharavad by the head, the granduncle, because the latter’s sister, Appunni’s mother, had run off and married the dice player Kondunni Nair (his father). Appunni’s father is murdered by Seydalikkutty, and the young boy swears eternal vendetta against him, but eventually, it is Seydalikkutty who gives him an opening in life, getting him a job in an estate. As the tharavaad is on the verge of collapse following the promulgation of the new regulations, Appunni, now an affluent writer in an estate, returns and buys the tharavaad from the granduncle, and brings back his mother and his deemed stepfather (Appunni had harboured a wrong apprehension about them both, and he realises it was his misunderstanding, later) to the tharavaad to settle down finally.
This was an epoch-making work, laying bare the fault lines of a system that was a remainder from the bygone feudal times, bringing out the salient human drama involved. Most importantly, Nila, or Bharathappuzha, the biggest river of Kerala, on whose banks Kudallur, MT’s native village, is, has been adopted as a character in the novel. This novel fetched MT the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award.
In the meanwhile, MT had befriended NP Muhammad who was already an established writer, and his senior by age. By that time MT had moved to Kozhikode, and their friendship grew very deep. Both collaborated on an “action” novel, which they titled Arabipponnu (1960), about gold and drugs being smuggled into the Kozhikode coast in dhows in the guise of dates, and the ensuing adventures and suspense-filled action.
Memory, nostalgia, and suppressed anger
His next novel, Asuravitthu (literally “Demon-seed” which is also the title of the published English translation, but something like “Demon’s Offspring,” or “Demon’s Scion” would have been more accurate), expands on the theme of Naalukettu.
Asuravitthu, published in 1962, expands on the theme of marumakkatthaayam, the matrilineal structure of a Nair joint family, and scrutinises its dysfunctionality in the changing modern times. Govindankutty, the protagonist, is a jobless young man disillusioned about his future. At this juncture, his rich brother-in-law appoints him as the caretaker of his vast property. He also finds a bride for him. Govindankutty, eager to start a new life, loses his cool when he finds out that his wife is carrying in her womb the baby of one of his cousins. His devastation is final when he realises that his own family has been in the know of things but acquiesced. He rebels against the family and the whole social system, and converts to Islam, as a slap on the face of his people. It was truly a revolutionary piece of writing at that time and served as a shock treatment for the prevalent social ills.
Kaalam (A Span of Time), published in 1969, is yet another significant novel that takes off further on similar themes as that of Naalukettu and Asuravitthu. These are novels which operate on memory and nostalgia, suppressed anger, unrequited love turning into frustration and vengefulness, even a malicious thirst for retribution, expressed in a compressed, taut language. These were unlike anything written until then and caught and shook the imagination of the young generations.
The novel is partly a coming-of-age one, narrating the story of Sethu, the lead character, from the age of 15 to 30. As an adolescent, he has idealistic dreams and visions, but as he progresses through his early youth, ambition swallows him, and he is ready for conquests of all kinds. But soon he realises that as he achieves success materially, he must lose a lot of the wholesome attitudes of his youth, to embrace the crassness of the world.
MT has commented that a lot of his own experiences in the modernising milieu, which were also close to his emotional life then, have prompted the shaping of the character of Sethu. The prototypes of some of the characters were from Kudallur. Bharathappuzha, once again, is an important character in the novel. The river full of water, and sometimes in spate, reduced to a narrow stream meandering among the dunes of the riverbed later in the narration owing to unchecked river sand mining, portends the environmental degradation that was to characterise the region, and Kerala at large, because of “modern development”. The river sees Sethu at first as a child and adolescent full of naivete, warmth, and passion, and later as an adult who is successful in life, but devoid of everything tender and positive. This novel won MT the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1970.
Between Asuravithu and Kaalam, MT wrote his unique novel Manju (Mist, 1964) with a woman protagonist (like in many of his iconic stories), who lives in memory and longing in the faraway mountainous terrain of Nainital, unlike the other three which are largely set in a Valluvanaadan village, in south Malabar. The female protagonist Vimala is a schoolteacher who seeks solitude, away from others, including her own family members, and has only the school watchman for a real companion. She loves to sit alone near the Naini lake for long stretches of time. She is waiting fruitlessly for her friend from her past, Sudhir, and passing the time in the memory of the passionately sweet times they shared. The life of Buddhu, another one awaiting the arrival of his father, runs parallel. A visiting Punjabi man’s presence is woven throughout the narration. In the backdrop of the scenic beauty of Nainital, MT has painted a portrait with different characters and inter-relations, against an alluringly scenic landscape.
In Manju and Kaalam MT’s terse, pithy language turns lyrical and, to a degree, exuberant, in the sweet tones of the speech of Valluvanaad.
The next novel that has raised MT’s creative imagination to epic proportions, is Randaamoozham translated into English as Second Turn. It tells the story of Bhima Senan, the second of the Kauravas, who is the real hero, the architect of their ultimate victory in the Mahabharata War but is practically the taken-for-granted side-hero, compared against the full-of-virtue elder brother Yudhishtira, and the charming archer-prince renowned in the three worlds, his younger brother, Arjuna. It is Bhima’s colossal physical strength and blindly valorous courage that effectively saves the Pandavas from many a tight situation, culminating in the final battle of the maces, in which he shatters the thighs of the invincible Duryodhana, effectively bringing the Eighteen Days’ War to a close.
MT has taken out the mystification and metaphysical presentation from the plot and characters and presented the epic saga as all too human. The “second turn” of the title refers to his conjugal right to approach Panchali (Droupati, the wife shared equally by the five Pandava brothers following their seniority by age; therefore, Bhima would get his chance, only after Yudhishtira.) Droupati’s real sweetheart was Arjuna, but to stay true to the agreement, she had to sleep with all five according to their turns. Even here, Bhima was the second fiddle despite being intensely in love. He was aware that the real hero of his wife’s heart was Arjuna.
MT has stated that he has followed the storyline narrated by the first Vyasa, Krishna Dwaipayana, expanding on the pregnant silences he has left. That is where MT builds up the human elements of the characters of the Mahabharata story.
Randaamoozham stands out for its unique humanisation of the epic, and its sheer scope and breadth, from all the other Mahabharata retellings in all other Indian languages, and the other Malayalam retelling from Droupati’s point of view, the novel Ini Njaan Urangatte (And Now Let Me Sleep) by PK Balakrishnan.
Varanasi
Varanasi (2002) is MT’s last novel. It begins when Sudhakaran arrives at Varanasi, following his inner urge to meet his research supervisor who is living there, and complete his thesis. But upon arrival, he finds that the teacher has died.
Sudhakaran walks around Varanasi’s ghats, carrying the memories of the past, the weight of his karmas bogging him down, making him yearn for a release from them, in the holy soil and waters of Kaashi. He has recently had an open-heart surgery. As he ascended the steps of Manikarnika Ghat, where the cremations of Varanasi mainly took place, and thick black smoke from the burning pyres billowed upwards, he broke stride and slacked while climbing. The memories of two of his beloveds, Soudamini and Geetha, and that of Sumitha and Mridula, the two that abandoned him, haunt him. He has two sons; but he didn’t know where they were anymore. Therefore, he has no hope of getting a ritual cremation when he dies, with his eldest son lighting his pyre. He does the next-best, inevitable thing, taking advantage of his presence in Kaashi: he opts for Aatmapindam – doing the funeral rites for oneself, while still alive. Thus, Sudhakaran enters the ranks of the dead while still alive.
In the meanwhile, there is an event that could have been a high drama, but which turns out to be a damp squib – a supreme irony of fate. Mridula, his onetime sweetheart who forsook him in his youth, passes him by at Dashaashwamedha Ghat, where he went just before returning. She doesn’t recognise him from her past memory of his physical form. But Sudhakaran consoles himself—life is made up of memories and forgetting. He lets go of her without revealing himself.
This novel, in which MT adopts a loose, structureless approach, immensely fascinates and elevates readers, for its rare beauty and mixture of memories and meditations on the impermanence of existence, which is not usually encountered in his earlier works.
The short stories
MT was a master craftsman of the short story. It is imperative that I discuss his iconic stories too here, but space constraints do not permit it. Yet, I will at least list a few of them out here. “Olavum Theeravum” (The Wavelets and the Banks), “Iruttinte Aatmaavu ‘(Soul of Darkness), “Kuttiyedatthy” (Elder Sister Kutty), “Bandhanam”(Bondage), “Pallivaalum Kaalchilampum,” (The Goddess’s Ceremonial Sword and the Anklets) – all of these stories have been made into black and white modernist classic films, the last two by MT himself, Nirmalyam (won President’s Gold Medal) being the film version of the last one, and the others are all named as such in their film versions too.
He has made his novel Manju (Mist) and short story “Varikkuzhi” (The Pit-trap) into films as well.
The other important ones among his stories or novels he wrote screenplays for are: “Murappennu”(The Designated Cousin-bride), “Pakalkkinavu” (Day-dream), Asuravitthu (novel), Paathiraavum Pakalvelichchavum (novel: Midnight and Daylight), “Vitthukal” (Seeds), “Ekaakini,”(from the story “Karutha Chandran,” screenplay by P Raman Nair), “Idavazhiyile Poochcha, Mindaapoochcha,” (Alley Cat, Silent Cat), “Oppol”(The Elder Sister), “Valarthu Mrigangal,” (Domestic Animals), “Cheriya, Cheriya Hookampangal” (Little, Little Earthquakes), “Ennu Swantham Janakikkutty” (Yours, Janakuikkutty), “Vaanaprastham”( as Theertthaadanam [Pilgrimage]), and Manorathangal (an anthology of films based on nine of his short stories, 2024).
“Sherlock” is another of his famous stories.
I have translated “Kaazchcha” (Vision) the last short story he published in 1998, and included it in my anthology, The Greatest Malayalam Stories Ever Told (2023).
