The lean man in a cheap cream shirt and pants, looking skyward, seemed to personify frustrated hopes and unfulfilled dreams. When we caught up with K Manian Pillai, he was waiting an agent who arranges junior artistes for tele-serials. “I will get 200 rupees for a day’s shooting,” says Pillai, now a small-time
actor. On no-shoot days, he’d work as a cleaner in a minibus that plies locally.
The 58-year-old Pillai jolted Kerala society with Thaskaran (the Thief), an autobiography he penned with the help of writer-journalist G R Indugopan. The 584-page work essays his life as a criminal — all of it sprinkled with tales of laughter and tears. Its brisk sales ensured an early second edition. It was a hot Sunday noon when we reached Pillai’s one-room shack at Valiyathura, a coastal hamlet near Thiruvananthapuram. It took us a fortnight to locate him as he had lost his cellphone. “My pocket was picked in train,” he shrugs. “I was a bit too drunk…” Pillai lives with his nephew and family in the shack with a kitchen. A bit too crammed? “No, no. This life is peaceful.”
origin and metamorphosis It’s the same old story. Circumstances led Manian Pillai to stealing: early death of his father, and five sisters around. He quit school in class eight. “By 18, I began small-scale theft. For sustenance…I felt no guilt.” He fooled the police often, but was caught many times. “I was beaten up badly,” he says with a cough that echoes a traumatic past.
During breaks, Pillai played Casanova. When his sexcapades led to impregnating Mehrunnissa, one of the neighbourhood girls, Pillai ran away — only to return later and marry her. A family man with a son, he craved for a peaceful life. And for that he needed money. The way out: theft. A house at nearby Varkala was to host a wedding. In 1977. “It was my first major theft: 96 sovereigns of gold and Rs 12,000. We then fled Kollam.” A week later, a young Muslim trader called Salim Pasha reaches Nanchancode near Mysore — with his wife Mehrunnisa and a baby. He resumes life, selling Kerala pudding. The business flourished — he ran a mess, then bought a petrol pump, textile shop and headed a couple of wholesale agencies. Pasha became a local hero. In 1983, ahead of assembly polls, he got a party ticket for candidacy. Just as he was to file his nomination, a Kerala police team nabbed him. He was jailed (for six years), and all his assets in Karnataka were attached.
Once out of jail, Pillai lapsed backed to his old tricks. Again a marriage house — near Thriuvanathapuram — came in handy. Pillai did a Pasha again — at Thevaramkurichi near Tamil Nadu’s Trichy. This time he was a furniture merchant. Plus, an active DMK worker. But he was caught again — in 1988. And jailed, for six years, near Thrissur. There he learnt about the death of his wife. He did get to see Mehrunnisa’s body, but back in jail after that, Pillai was a changed man.
brother manian pillai The man who stepped out of Viyyur jail in 1994 was completely transformed. He wanted to look after his only son. Some Samaritan cops arranged a job for him at a canteen, where he worked for seven years. Even so, repentance would churn up. A search for solace led him the Pentecostal way. Pillai joined the Bible College off Kollam, and became a brother after a two-year course. But, a major bike accident landed him on bed for several months. “But, I still pray in the Pentecostal way.”
an autobiography His meeting with scribe Indugopan three years ago gave shape to his penning an autobiography. Initially a weekly column in a Malayalam weekly — it became an instant hit. As it began to expose police brutalities, Pillai was dramatically arrested in end-2006. Another two months in jail, and the court let him off after castigating the police.
“I’m ashamed of my past. If I had been an ordinary man, my son would have studied further and got a good job,” Pillai says. The youngster now works abroad as a tailor. Pillai’s present dream is to become a small-scale entrepreneur. “I will start a small hotel, or buy an autorickshaw,” he says. The royalty from the book sales props his dream. Meanwhile, DC Books is getting proposals to translate the book into English, Hindi, Tamil and Kannada. “It may even become a movie one day,” says Indugopan.
— b.sreejan@gmail.com