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Review: The Second Marriage of Kunju Namboodiri & Other Classic Malayalam Stories
This is a collection that includes a variety of early short fiction largely centred on strong social messages on issues like women’s education and the ills of certain social customs
An amusing thread running through most of the stories in this collection is of someone – it could be providence or another individual – fooling someone else, precipitating a realisation or a change in them or their circumstances. There is a wife who ‘fixes’ her husband, a plagiarising writer who brings his editor down a notch, a couple who think not eating will help them save money only to realise that money can’t be made that way. Then, there’s a lawyer who brings about justice while also finishing off a rival’s career for good, a misogynist husband who realises his wife is a better writer than he is, a corrupt cop who is shown the error of his ways by a junior, an uncle who tries to implicate his nephew in a murder, and the titular story where the man who wants to remarry is convinced that he should be grateful to his wife.
In his introduction, Malayalam literary critic MM Basheer, who has curated this volume, writes that the collection maps milestones in the growth of Malayalam literature and that this evolution happened because of the “initiative of contemporary publishers and those lovers of language who could relate to Western literature.” So, you can perhaps be forgiven for reading VA Amma’s A Sleight of Hand (1920) as a reversed Taming of the Shrew. The reference to “Superman” in Instinctive Mischief (Anonymous, 1891) – considered the first “true to character” short story in the language – might startle today’s readers. Interestingly, it appeared almost a decade before the first Kannada short story highlighted in A Teashop In Kamalapura And Other Classic Kannada Stories that’s part of this series.
Unsurprisingly, considering Kerala’s subsequent trajectory, this collection is all about strong social messages – women’s education, remarriage, and the ills of certain social customs, among other issues. MM Basheer has done a commendable job of choosing a variety of stories including Kalyanikutty’s I felt Ashamed (1905) about a girl’s desires, which some might have dismissed as “not serious enough”. It is perhaps the first Malayalam short story by a woman writer.
It has to be said that most of these stories are centred on dominant castes. This is so even when the piece is about subalterns like thieves. Namboodiris and Nairs predominate, which perhaps reveals limitations of access to the written word experienced by other groups in an earlier era. In his note, the translator also mentions the preponderance of men in the legal profession. Also, perhaps the introduction could have pointed out that a story like Thachatte Devaki Nethyaramma’s An Ideal Wife (1919) is problematic given that women are expected to endure their abusive husbands even today.
Though Basheer calls Vengayil Kunhiraman Nayanar’s Dwaraka the “first ever fantasy tale in Malayalam”, I would say that, at best, it has elements of the fantastical. It made me wonder when proper fantasy began being written in the language, considering how far ahead Malayalam cinema is on this account. The psychological story, Conscience and Avarice (1920) by Ambadi Karthyayani Amma is about a thief’s inner turmoil at having killed a person. This, again, going by cinema, is an area that Malayalam storytelling came to excel in.
The last two stories, The Deposit at Manimanjathu and The Lifespan of Aisakutty Umma (both in 1930) by C Kunhirama Menon feature treasures that bring family together. While the latter is a historical fiction set during a siege by Tipu Sultan, the former has the protagonist going on a treasure hunt for ancestral property, rescuing a branch of his family from penury, and eventually marrying one of its members. Marrying the beautiful girl is the best outcome. This is also true for CP Achutha Menon’s My First Fee (1894), where the protagonist fights and wins his first ever case only to be able to ask for his client’s daughter’s hand in marriage.
Venugopal Menon’s translation works well in most places. I especially enjoyed the colour added by “The man has got you by the tuft on your head” in CS Gopala Panicker’s A Brief Missive (1903). But then, Menon goes ahead and uses ‘Mohammedans’ in C Kumhirama Menon’s The Deposit at Manimanjathu (1930) without quite explaining the choice. The titular story also has this line: “But with this action of his, father seems to have contracted tuberculosis.” The father has certainly not contracted tuberculosis. He is just opposing his son’s desire to remarry despite having a loving wife around. All while the father himself has been having fun on the side. As the Hindi saying goes, Sau chuhe khaake billi chali hajj ko. Here, the metaphorical billi has not gone for hajj and the father too is fine, so I scratched my head a bit.
In sum, this volume does a good job of introducing the Indian English reader to Kerala’s short story tradition.
Priyanka Sarkar is a writer and translator.
