THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: ‘’Hmmm...something like Mohun Bagan, you know,’’ V Sivankutty waxes lyrical, his eyes lighting up at the idea. ‘’It’s my dream. A football club for this city.’’
He settles comfortably into the red plastic chair. Sivankutty, a sitting MLA and a former Mayor, needs no introduction, but how many of his voters in Nemom, who re-elected him, know that the man is plain soccer-crazy? Imagine him as a goalkeeper. Well, he used to be one once upon a time! ‘’We had a club at Cheruvayckal - PSS Club. Later, I played for MG College and SN College, Chempazhanthy. Now I head the District Football Association,’’ he says.
Sivankutty usually comes across as taciturn and withdrawn - a regular tough guy, beard and all - but there really are moments when the guard is down. This is one such occasion. It must have something to do with his recent trip to Kuala Lumpur to meet his son Govind Sivan. ‘’It was fun. And the trip cost only Rs 5,000. A package, you understand. So the plane was bursting with ordinary people like us,’’ he said. Sivankutty had left on the five-day Sabbatical after his hard-fought victory over BJP’s O Rajagopal. Govind studies Mass Communication and Media at the Raffles International College.
Memories of other trips tumble out. The one to an yet undivided Soviet Union is special. ‘’It was rather thrilling...the first trip on a plane, taking a passport, everything. The Aeroflot flight was full of Indian students heading for Moscow for the World Youth Conference,’’ he recalls. At the time, Sivankutty was in his teens, an undergraduate student at SN College, Chempazhanthy. Later as Mayor, he had occasion to tour other countries - China, Japan, France and Italy included. ‘’The roads there are so developed, and tourism...We have the best opportunities in this country for tourism,’’ he muses.
A politician who was ‘caught young’, Sivankutty had risen through the ranks of the SFI to become its national vice-president. Today, at 55, he is one of the best-known leaders of the CPM down south, making his debut in the Kerala Assembly in 2006.
‘‘Me, A K Balan, Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, Suresh Kurup, M A Baby, A Vijayaraghavan, were all in SFI at the same time,’’ he says with a laugh.
His term as Mayor was an eventful period for the Corporation; he took tough decisions on encroachment of public land, shut down a theatre complex and opened the trash processing unit at Vilappilsala among other things.
He says there is a fundamental difference between being a Mayor and an MLA. ‘’A Mayor has executive powers. An MLA has to get the ministers do things.’’ Sivankutty takes some pride in the fact that he has never been beaten in an election, even as a student.
If he had not become a politician? But it’s quite obvious he hasn’t given the question much thought. ‘’Hmm...I would probably have written a PSC test and become a clerk in government service. You have to live, don’t you? Or perhaps, I would’ve taken over my father’s stationery shop. No...I wouldn’t have liked that. My younger brother would have, though,’’ he said.
His father M Vasudevan Pillai was a freedom fighter and a Left sympathiser whose shop served as a post office of sorts for Left leaders. ‘’He was close to M N Govindan Nair. Govindan Nair has mentioned Achan in his biography,’’ says Sivankutty.
Sivankutty also married into an illustrious political family - his wife Parvathy is the daughter of Communist ideologue P Govinda Pillai. ‘’PG and Parvathy are regular bookworms. We must have one of the best libraries here. But I’m afraid I’m not so keen,’’ he chuckles. ‘’I do read though. Especially newspapers and journals and important party works.’’