Madath Thekkepat Vasudevan Nair, or extra familiarly MT, the legendary writer, editor and screenplay author, breathed his final in Kozhikode, the place he had spent the higher a part of his 91 years. MT arrived on the literary scene when the socially inclined fiction of pre-Independence India was waning to make method for a extra private and psychological angst. His tales about aristocratic joint households giving strategy to nuclear ones, nature being consumed by business, male angst at a time of sudden social change, and ladies’s defiance of the institution made him a towering icon not simply in Kerala however within the bigger cultural panorama of India.
He was solely 25 when he gained the Kerala Sahitya Akademi for Naalukettu (1959), the story of an offended younger man who desires to tear down his ancestral home due to how the household handled his rebellious mom. A decade later, MT gained the Kendra Sahitya Akademi prize for ‘Kaalam’ (1969), a narrative a few man who feels all achievement is futile and is in search of a cause to maintain on dwelling, bumbling from lady to job to household seeking a function.
However earlier than that, he’d labored in the direction of a level in chemistry and labored as a arithmetic instructor in a faculty, a vocation that had drawn him for the ample holidays it afforded. A short stint as a authorities block growth workplace later, he discovered his house in literature and cinema — his childhood favourites. His brothers have been prolific writers, and MT started his literary stint by enhancing Mathrubhumi Weekly in 1957. It could be underneath his management that the journal would go on to launch the careers of literary giants comparable to OV Vijayan, Sethu, M Mukundan, Paul Zacharia and Sarah Joseph.
“I knew him for six many years, first as a reader after which as a mentor. In 1967, I had been on a go to to some drought-stricken areas in Bihar. For Malayalis, used to lush vegetation and water throughout, it was a terrifying expertise. I used to be 24 then and really shaken by the struggling I noticed. I wrote one thing however wasn’t certain if it was a narrative or an essay. I didn’t know MT then, however he loomed giant in our literary panorama. I despatched it off to Mathrubhumi, by no means anticipating to listen to again. To my shock, not solely did he get again and assist get that story revealed, he was additionally instrumental in pushing me to jot down my first novel,” stated Sethu, 82.
He added: “He was essentially the most excellent literary editor in any Indian language. From Kakkanadan to Padmarajan, he was instrumental in bringing out round 10 essential writers in the course of the Nineteen Sixties. He was my guru in each sense of the phrase”.
When MT started writing, Vaikom Muhammad Basheer, Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai, Ponkunnam Varkey, Kesavadev, Karur Neelakanta Pillai, SK Pottekkatt, ‘Uroob’ PC Kuttikrishnan and Lalithambika Antharjanam have been the reigning stars of Malayalam literature. MT’s writing would mark a rupture with the outdated order. Zacharia, 79, stated: “He turned the desk on Malayalam literature with Naalukettu (1958), drawing from the (aristocratic) Nair neighborhood he belonged to and which was being pushed to the bottom resulting from many financial issues and frictions. He additionally wrote Randamoozham (1984) which informed the story of Mahabharata from Bhima’s perspective.”
It tells the story of the Pandava brother, stripped of mythology, grounded in realism. “He’s the person who introduced modernity to Malayalam fiction and, whereas there have been different writers contributing to it, he made it come alive. The recognition that Malalayam-to-English translations are having fun with at this time is partly resulting from his main affect,” stated Zacharia.
Karthika VK, writer, Westland Books, who has labored on a lot of MT’s translations with V Abdulla and later, Gita Krishnankutty (who labored on Randamoozham), stated, “His tales… have all been vastly impactful and have influenced the way in which most Malayalis take into consideration house, household, historical past, mythologies outdated and new… There’s a lot I’ve lengthy admired about him: his empathy for human frailty, his dry sense of humour, his deep emotional join with the Malayali mindscape, his no-nonsense insistence on the primacy of free speech and integrity in politics, and likewise his affection and loyalty to long-time collaborators.”
Although he left his hometown of Kudallur after college, it remained the fount of his work’s intimacy with nature. He as soon as wrote: “I used to be born right into a penurious middle-class agricultural household in a sleepy little village… The villagers believed that if one might learn Ezhuthachan’s Adhyatma Ramayanam fluently, with out faltering, then one’s training was full. In case you lead the cattle to the close by river with out their being allowed to take a chew from the plush paddy fields on both aspect of the bunds, grown-ups deemed you match for farm work”.
Other than 9 novels and 19 quick fiction collections, Nair left a mark in screenwriting too, authoring greater than 50 screenplays and directing six movies. “He introduced a contemporary sensibility to (the shape)… Although a Modernist, he caught to a conventional mode of storytelling as a result of he was snug with it,” stated Zacharia. MT’s most up-to-date screenwork contains Manorathangal, a 2024 anthology of his tales which he tailored for the display screen, that includes a few of the largest names in Malayalam cinema like Mahesh Narayanan, Fahadh Faasil, Priyadarshan and Mohanlal.
“He was my mentor, pal and ingesting companion for over 60 years,” stated Zacharia. “He was a very good man, an easygoing man, involved and caring for his pals, although he might seem aloof to individuals he didn’t know very effectively.” Karthika stated, “MT is undoubtedly one of many best writers, ever… There actually can’t and won’t be (one other) like him.”
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