Throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries, Malayalam cinema’s history credited MK Kamalam as the first woman to have played the role of a protagonist. Kamalam had debuted in Balan (1938), the first Malayalam talkie. But 10 years before Balan released in theatres, Vigathakumaran, a silent film directed by JC Daniel, premiered in Thiruvananthapuram’s Capitol tent; starring PK Rosy — a Dalit woman — in the lead role.
But Rosy’s legacy was cast aside due to her caste identity.
At the premiere in Capitol tent, stones were hurled at the screen by the audiences who couldn’t accept Rosy playing the role of an upper caste Nair woman. The violence followed Rosy home, as dominant caste men attempted to harass her and had set her thatched hut on fire. She was then forced to flee Kerala and seek refuge in neighbouring Tamil Nadu, where she spent the next sixty years of her life, away from the public eye.
This casteist history of Malayalam cinema was compiled by Kunnukuzhy S Mani, over 50 years of his journalistic career, and was published as a book titled PK Rosy Malayala Cinimayude Amma in 2019. Thirunangai Press LLP released this book in Tamil on May 16, in Chennai, titled PK Rosy Malayala Cinimavin Thai, translated by James Mark Peter.
James’ translation work, however, is not merely linguistic, but political. It reclaims agency, affirms solidarity, and preserves Dalit history from dominant caste narratives.
When Thirunangai Press entrusted James, a journalist, with this translation work, he immediately jumped at the opportunity, he tells CE. “I accepted it because I was curious to learn more about PK Rosy’s life. But above that, as a Dalit man myself, I believed that my lived experience would allow me to resonate deeply with the text; equipping me to approach the translation work with utmost authenticity and care,” James says.
He elaborates, “I could empathise deeply because as a child I faced caste discrimination. During my school days in Coimbatore district, students would maintain a certain distance from me. It began in class four and soon, I came to realise that it was because of my caste.”
The decision to have James translate the book was a conscious one, says Grace Banu, a Dalit transwoman and the CEO of Thirunangai Press. “Our team came across his Tamil translation of the Malayalam book Mahatma Ayyankali. At that book launch event, we learnt of James,” she adds.
Despite being a non-native speaker of Malayalam, this book is James’s third Malayalam to Tamil translation work. James says that he learnt to read and speak Malayalam while working in a hotel briefly after graduating college. “I learnt the language by comparing and reading bus boards that would have the destinations written in both Malayalam and English,” he recalls.
Although he is fluent in Malayalam now, he admits to have approached Kunnukuzhy for several clarifications while translating this book. “Both the publishing house and I wanted this book to be a perfect account of the original Malayalam version,” he adds.
Due to rigorous rounds of edits, the initial plan to release the book in April — Dalit history month — was deterred, Grace notes.
In the same way that James was thoughtfully selected, Kunnukuzhy’s book was also carefully chosen to be translated into Tamil by Thirunangai Press. “Kunnukuzhy sir’s book clearly mentions how and who all have distorted PK Rosy’s life and thereby, appropriated dalit history,” Grace explains.
James cites such previous efforts at appropriation as the reason for advocating Kunnukuzhy’s book to be translated into more languages.
“Rosy has been misrepresented as an ‘immoral woman’ who ‘eloped with a lorry driver.’ To resist such distortion of Dalit history, we need to preserve them in as many languages,” he concludes.