C Radhakrishnan, Writer
Five years my senior, MT was in college while I was doing high school. I was enamoured by the very first story he wrote. More important, though we had not met, I loved him because his writing revealed a mind construct that closely reverberated with mine as we were products of the same age, social background, ethos, aspirations and world view.
I had to wait till I reached Calicut as a college student to get an opportunity to see him. A journalist working with the ‘Mathrubhumi,’ my father’s classmate, happened to be my local guardian. MT too was working there. As I went up the stairs MT’s cabin was half way, on the first floor.
Of course I didn’t dare to walk in. Instead, I bent down and looked beneath the half door. All that I could see were a pair of chappals, and his feet, withdrawn from them, free and resting. This became a ritual. On some days these telltale presences were not there. I missed him.
I read whatever he wrote, my admiration developing with every addition. I had to wait for five more years to get to meet him. The opportunity came when I got the first prize in the novel writing competition the Mathrubhumi Weekly had organised for the first time and the last ever. I went there to receive the prize. Dr N V Krishna Warrier, the then editor of the Weekly, introduced me to MT. He said ‘Good!’ and was gone. I was disappointed, but consoled myself that he was probably a man of very few words.
A year later he wrote to me asking to book a tourist cottage at Kodaikanal where I was working. The only other sentence in it was: I want to go into hiding for a couple of weeks. I booked the cottage and made other necessary arrangements for his stay.
But he didn’t come. He didn’t even let me know about the change of programme. He went to Chennai instead. However, I couldn’t blame him for this lapse. He had married a girl against the wishes of her mighty family and was in knee-deep trouble.
A year after that I went to Calicut again. This time I had telephoned him asking for time. Our meeting took about forty minutes but his responses mostly consisted of monosyllables. He talked of world masters of fiction but nothing about himself. Neither did he ask anything about my background.
His final message to me that day was: You have a future. Watch out for the jackals. They are out for our blood. Good luck. He believed he had missed a lot due to the unkindness of his people and society.
He wanted to wreak vengeance by building his room at the very top, growing more equal than anyone, earning pots of money, taking indirect control of political reins, becoming the last word in the most popular entertainment industry and of course reaching the very top of the writing world - in short, evolving as the strongest on all fronts. Of course his creative ability was phenomenal, creature sense special and his cleverness a lot better than most politicians were vested with.
But I doubt if he had ever been happy in his life in the true sense, free of all inhibitions. Always suspicious and alert, one part of him was on guard to avoid being taken for any ride. He could therefore never allow his self completely dissolved in the being of total bliss.
He continued to take kindly to me despite all this. He was my elder brother. MT wrote great works, made exemplary movies, built up institutions like the Thunchan Memorial, managed cultural centres like the Sahitya Academy and interfered in public life at critical points - always maintaining continuity of perspective and integrity of character.
Now that he is no more, I feel sad that he could not enjoy life despite all the very commendable work he did. Death is an inevitability but this was not. Great men suffer, they say. Maybe, but wasn’t some of this avoidable? I can now reveal that we had long discussions on this. I tried to make him recognise the love in his own heart and completely yield to it. But he said ‘Nothing doing! I don’t want to be a fool, you don’t know the world yet!’
Once after a discussion of this sort he asked me not to go to him ever again! I obeyed. The impasse lasted for more than a decade. Then on a fine morning all of a sudden he invited me to Thunchan Memorial again! And there he was: the elder brother of the joint stock family that did not want to confess he liked and fully approved of anyone for fear of spoiling the person concerned and also compromising the steely commanding power he thought he had to protect!
Bye, Big Brother! See you there! We love you!