Writing verse, capturing beauty
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SURESH KOHLI speaks to Jnanpith Award winning Malayalam writer and filmmaker M.T. Vasudevan Nair, who has shifted back to his first love, writing.
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Photo: H. Vibhu.
M.T. Vasudevan Nair...A versatile artist.
ONE HAD to leave shoes out, as if entering the precincts of a holy Hindu temple. But the message gets across as one enters the spotless interiors, furnished with sparse, comfortable furniture.
No big portraits of the man crowd the walls. The only visible reminder of his achievements against the bare white walls is the nicely tucked away Jnanpith Award trophy, which M.T. Vasudevan Nair received for his novel "Iruttinde Atmavu" (`The Other Turn') in 1996. His output has been amazing. Nine significant novels, over 200 short stories, a 100-odd essays, 45 screenplays, of which he himself directed five national award winning films.
Though suffering from osteoporosis, for which he has been receiving Ayurvedic treatment (he had barely returned from a course), the 72-year-old Malayalam writer living in Kozhikode does not seem visibly bothered by the debilitating effects of the age-related problem. He still walks tall and straight, "thanks to this treatment, otherwise my knees have been giving me a lot of trouble."
Images from memory
No, he hasn't yet portrayed a character who might be suffering from the ailment in any of his novels or short stories. Or even in films, though he does not dismiss the seeming presence of lived and observed reality from his works. The vignettes tucked away in the memory zone from days in his native village often find telling pictures in his fictional works.
Not many turn up at his threshold for writing or directorial assignments.
The last such experience was a short film on the legendary Thakhazi Shivashankar Pillai that he made for the Sahitya Akademi.
"No. I have stopped receiving offers for screenplays or direction. I guess my kind of cinema does not find favour either with the financiers or audiences. Everyone here knows the kind of fare I will churn out, so they don't bother me any more. But I have no complaints. I am happy doing what I am doing. I love writing. Besides, arthritis can sometimes be too painful and that is a major restrictive, restraining factor in filmmaking."
Telling expression
Vasudevan Nair is also one of the most widely translated Malayalam writers in whose works not only life on the Kerala backwaters but in front of it as well finds telling expression.
A leprosy patient and a parrot find equal space in his eminently readable prose, which does not seem to lose much in translation. And that bears testimony to his narrative skills.
His new collection of short stories in English translation by the late V. Abdulla, "Kuttiedathi and Other Stories" (Orient Longman), shows Vasudevan Nair at, perhaps, his best and most poignant in the delineation of the human predicament, and the helplessness of the individual when confronted by elements of agony, grief and the resultant introspection.
Vasudevan Nair, more than any other contemporary Malayalam writer, has been singled out for his preciseness, and economy of expression while dealing with either his characters, or the atmosphere in which they interact. Especially in his shorter fiction, which in any case forms the main corpus of his work. And since the book has vintage Vasudevan Nair, perhaps 10 best chosen from between 1962 to 2000, he, one is certain, wouldn't mind being judged for what he is worth. There can be no hesitation in endorsing Ayyappa Paniker's judgment that these are "some of the best examples of lyrical narratives in Malayalam."
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