M.T. Vasudevan Nair: voice of the lone swimmer | The writer was ‘obsessed’ with the theme of the wronged individual

Years ago, I made a call to writer M.T. Vasudevan Nair, as I had done on a few occasions earlier too, to seek his views on the adaptation of literary works for the screen.

It surprised me when he said, “I’m sorry, I’m not competent to talk about films.”

After a pause, he reasoned: “I’m a writer first and foremost, not a filmmaker.”

This was from someone who had won the National Award for his directorial debut, Nirmalyam in 1973 — based on a 1950s story of his, ‘Pallivalum Kalchilambum’ — and made, commendably, six more films, including a documentary on writer Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai. He had established himself as a screenwriter of note well before that, lending an earthy literary quality to screenplays in Malayalam — a trail followed by several successive scenarists.

And here he was, proclaiming that he wasn’t qualified to comment about screen adaptations of literary works. There was a rare intellectual honesty about the statement, as I came to know later, when I read an interview where he admitted that he found some of his films inferior to his own stories or the novels they drew from. “Cinema is part technology, part creativity. Writing is far superior,” he affirmed. In another interview, he said he often felt that some of his film scripts would’ve been a lot better as stories or novels.

Focus on the young male reader

Come to think of it, he was probably signalling that his films, particularly the screenplays written by him, were detours from his mainstream literary activity that began in his early 20s.

Kerala in the 1950s and 60s was witnessing a unique structural transformation of society, and the young individual — specifically, the young upper caste man — haplessly caught in the morass of a fast-disintegrating feudal system caught M.T.’s attention. His early protagonists were all lonely, confused and full of self-doubt — something that the youth of the day easily identified with. From Appunni (Nalukettu) to Govindankutty (Asuravithu) and Sethu (Kaalam), they struck a chord with the young male reader, their quotidian crises immediately becoming his.

By M.T.’s own admission, he was rather ‘obsessed’ with the theme of the wronged individual, one unjustly stifled by society, in this case a society characterised by decadence. Exposure to world literature and the deep influence of writers such as Ernest Hemingway, Albert Camus, William Faulkner and Henrik Ibsen were evident even in his early works. Pathiravum Pakalvelichavum (1957), his first novel, carries a reference to Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, with a character explaining why the lone individual swimming against the current is the strongest.

While his works paved the way for modernism in Malayalam literature, it was greatly aided by a society familiar with the trends and mores of world literature. Thakazhi, S.K. Pottekkatt, Uroob and Vaikom Mohammed Basheer were tall names in those days when M.T. ploughed a lonely furrow. In his introduction to Basheer’s Anuragathinte Dinangal (The Days of Intimacy) — it was M.T. who changed the original title, The Diary of a Lover — M.T. fondly recalls his long association with Basheer, who he would call guru, and other literary greats in Kozhikode and how it enriched his life and works. A particular memory is that of a story by Basheer about a pickpocket who, in a rare display of humanism, comes to his victim’s rescue.

Universal humanity

Interestingly, when M.T. talks about his strong bond with the filmmaker Ramu Kariat, whom he affectionately calls a ‘savage of my ilk’, and with the writer N.P. Mohammed, with whom he wrote the novel Arabiponnu (1960), the thrust is on their human side. It would not be wrong to say that ‘universal humanism’, which marked the Nehruvian era, also entered M.T.’s consciousness.

The question “Moideen, are you human?”, by Moideen’s mother Fathima in Pathiravum Pakalvelichavum, seems to have imbued his works over the years with existential angst and dilemma. Like the man in his story Neelakkunnukal (Blue Hills), who is torn between the material indulgence of the modernising world and the serene calm of rural life. Shades of the same permeate the eponymous Randamoozham (Second Turn) on the plight of the ‘humanised’ Bheema, an aboriginal, in a brilliant exposition of the ‘pauses and silences’ left by the poet Vyasa in the Mahabharata.

M.T. endeared himself to readers like me by speaking for the loner, the ‘superfluous hero’ according to critics, and the marginalised and the vilified. It was not their fault, but they were all sinned against, he kept telling us in his stories and films.

A few years ago, I walked into his house, Sithara, in Kozhikode looking for an autographed book for a library being set up by a friend at the college where he teaches. “Do you have any specific book in mind?” M.T. asked me. “Your collection of stories, sir,” I told him. “And I want you to sign it,” I added.

“All of them bear my signature,” he mumbled, before handing me a signed copy.

anandan.s@thehindu.co.in