Others abide our question. Thou are free.” And ranging over languages from Klingon to Malayalam, still selling like something on a bestseller list. Mathew Arnold did not know half of it when he spoke that line about Shakespeare. The complete works of Shakespeare were translated into Malayalam a couple of years ago. Dr K Ayyappa Paniker served as the editor for the series and introduced the series with a detailed introduction. The translations were done by many scholars. One would not have thought that Shakespeare in Malayalam would have many readers in this little Kerala. But the books have gone into the second edition. The Malayali reads on — books from his own language, books from any other language, prose, verse, drama, what have you!
Another old book that has been reprinted by DC Books is Keralasimham by Sardar
K M Panikker. Kerala Varma Pazhassi Raja’s life and death continue to inspire artists still. A fresh movie is expected in a couple of months and this fictionalised treatment of his life has been brought out in a fresh edition. The book was a disappointment, though. For a historian and a Kathakali
aficionado, the author manages to get a lot of facts wrong.
He even attributes the four weighty ‘Kottayam stories’ in the classical dance-drama to Pazhassi Raja who might have had the leisure, in a lifetime immersed in the politics of his land and time, a major portion of it spent fighting the British in the hills of Wayanad, to write a few stanzas of poetry perhaps, but definitely not lengthy attakathas.
The season of awards appears to have come to an end, with bureaucrat-writer N S Madhavan’s wonderful collection of short stories Higuita being chosen for the Muttathu Varkey Award.
I had mentioned in an earlier column that it was Lalithambika Antarjanam’s birth centenary. An insightful article by K Satchidanandan in the Mathrubhumi Weekly brought back to memory some wonderful stories by her, and her own magical skill of converting ‘blood into breast milk’. She shows how one can be impassioned without being strident. Her women are strong even when they become victims. You respect them even when you feel for their plight.
Another tribute in the same issue of the periodical, written by C R Parameswaran, was to someone in a very different field — Vaidyabhooshanam K Raghavan Thirumulpad. Now in his nineties, Sri Thirumulpad is a physician with a difference — one who finds his medicines in the wild plants and treats the needy around him. Long before holistic medicine became a fad, this physician has been practising this. It’s a life that serves as a philosophy, according to the writer. He calls Sri Thirumulpad ‘My philosopher’.
A story by Susmesh Chandroth, Maranavidyalayam or ‘School of/for Death’ frightens one by its topicality. Kerala, after all, is the suicide capital of India and with the obsessive preoccupation with grades and marks in school, a lot of these deaths are teenage suicides. Here, low marks in one subject, with helpful teachers intervening, leads to the death of a bright student. What frightens one is the realisation of how easily this could happen.
Two poems linger weeks after reading them. One was Mampazhapatha (Mango Path) by Mohanakrishnan Kalady. It has the rhythm of folk songs. What makes it different from the usual nostalgic trips that the mango season brings out in middle-aged writers is that this mango falls in the middle of a four-lane road and is picked up, smelled, tasted, squeezed and eaten by the series of vehicles that rush through the road. He says: “ Nashtamayorishtakalam kittiyathupole/Vatturuttum kuttiyayi karu basu lori.”
(Like one who had regained the pleasant days of childhood, the car, the bus and the lorry became a child who played with a rolling wheel).
The other poem, a small one, is by Rafiq Ahmed and appeared in the monthly, Bhashaposhini. If one wants to know what a small stream flowing over hot rocks looks and feels like here is Rafiq:
Avide mellichu nerthorozhukkundu/ Thelimayarnu kanneeru pol amma than/ Viralukal thalamudiyil neengunna pol/ Pathiye nidrayail ninnumunarchathan/ Padavilekku namethunna mathiri.
(There is a slender stream there like clear tears, like a mother’s hands moving through the hair, like reaching the steps of awakening from sleep).
