| Among
the earliest practioners of the short story in Malayalam
are Vengayil Kinhiraman Nayanar (1861-1915), Ambadi
Narayana Poduval (1871-1936), Murkot Kumaran (1874-1941),
K.Sukumaran (1876-1956) and M.R.K.C. or Chenkulath Kunhiraman
Menon (1882-1940). In the place of a native tradition
of story-telling, they developed a new mode by incorporating
the western narrative traditrion. But the stories of
these early decades of the 20th century were quaint
accounts of episodes: their main purpose seems to have
been to provide entertainment to the literate population.
But the short story began to forge ahead in the 1930's.
A new generation of writers were just waiting in the
wings when the Sahitya Parishath was launched in1927
in the place of the old Kavisamajam started in
1892 and the later Bhashaposhini Sabha which had become
defunct. The best link between the older weiters of
the short story and the new generation was E.V.Krishna
Pillai, whose stories are collected in Kelisoudham.
In 1937 the younger writers started a Jivat Sahitya
Samiti which in 1944 grew into the Progressive Literature
Association. Whatever limitations this movement may
have had, the emphasis put on the realities of life
and on the need to relate literature to contemporary
problems had its salutary effect on the short story.
Perhaps without this new awakening, the Malayalam short
story would have remained where it was before. But in
the new circumstances the short story got a boost. Some
of the best talents went into this field.
Karur
Neelakanta Pillai (1898-1974), P.Kesava Dev (1904-1983),
Ponkunnam Varkey (b.1908), Vaikom Muhammed Basheer (1912-1994),
S.K.Pottakkat (1913-1982), Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai
(1914 -1999), P.C.Kutikrishnan (1915-1979), Lalithambika
Antharjanam (1909-1987) and K.Sarasmwathi Amma (1919-1974)
were among the masters of the new short story that began
its brilliant career in the 1930's and achieved great
heights in the next twenty years. Karur was a humanist
to the core and even when he used satire he had his
sympathies in the right quarters in the right proportion.
The moralizing strain is completely muted in his best
stories such as Marappavakal (Wooden Dolls),
Poovampazham (Bananas) and Mothiram (The
Ring). Compared with the stories of E.V.Krishan Pillai
or Bhavathrathan Nambudiripad, the stories of Karur
are finished products. His stories about the episodes
in the life of a school teachers such as he was, are
marked by selective realism and poignant pathos. He
is perhaps the most economical of our short-story writers.
Kesava
Dev began as a politically-oriented writer and his sympathies
lay with the oppressed classes. He is often impatient
about the aesthetic side. His view is that if the writer
takes enough care about what he has to say, then technical
excellence will automatically follow. Nevertheless,
some of his early stories are quite moving because of
their raw, unselfconscious craftsmanship. No one can
write without craft and it is the regard for authenticity
in artistic communication that makes a writer care for
the way communication is achieved. Meenkaran Koran
(Koran, the fisherman) is a story that well reveals
both Dev's thematic obsessions and his technique of
narration. Ponkunnam Varkey is also concerned with socio-political
reality and his early stories are open attacks on the
church. The attempt to bring to light the hidden motivations
for outwardly pious actions is what Varkey is specially
interested in his stories which expose the foibles or
cruelties of the church as an institution. His younger
contemporary, Ponjikkara Raphy continued for a time,
this tirade against the "tyranny" of the Catholic
church. Vaikom Muhammed Basheer, quite unlike Varkey,
works by suggestion. He is also a social critic (here
a critic of the weakness of the Islamic society in Kerala)
but he does not shout or harangue like Dev and Varkey.
He is closer to Karur in this respect. The master artist
in him is fully revealed in stories like Poovanpazham
(Banana), Bhargavi Nilayam and Muchittukalikarante
Makal ( A gambler's daughter). There is humour and
pathos in several of his best stories.
S.K.
Pottekkat is more interested in psychology than in social
reality. His stories like "Stri" (Woman),
"Vadhu" (The Bride) and "Nisagandhi"
(Flower of the night) reveal this. The absence of a
propagandist obsession enables him to use a poetic style.
Some of the stories are laid in places outside Kerala.
His romantic interests are reflected in the titles of
his collection: Indraneelam, Chandrakantham,
Padmaragam (names of precisous stones) Rajamally,
Kanakambaram, Nisagandhi (names of flower plants):
Pulliman, Himavahini, Manimalika, Vanakaumudi (all
words with rich associations):
Thakazhi
Sivasankara Pillai started as a short story writer in
the line of Guy de Maupassant who was probably introduced
to him by A.Balakrishna Pillai. He has an unerring eye
for the telling detail and in his best stories he make
this efect by using a simple unadorned style. Compared
with him Pottekat and Kuttikrishnan may be said to employ
an ornate style a "precious" diction and aim
at special effects. In Thakazhi, the style is not an
end in itself. We do not see it, as a matter of fact;
we see through it. He is capable of clinical analysis
and objective reporting in a neutral style. One of his
popular early stories is "Vellappokkam"
(Floods). His major themes concern the life of the peasants
and the have nots. But it may be said that under the
influence of his French masters, there is an overdose
of "naturalist" writing in the early stories,
roughly in the manner of Zola.
Lalithambika
Antharjanam and K.Saraswathi Amma are among the foremost
women story tellers in Malayalam; they deal with the
pieties of domestic life. Antharjanam's stories are
marked by her innate sympathy for people in distress.
She has also a great deal of variety of themes, as exemplified
by Pancharayoumma (A sweet kiss) on the one hand
and Sathyathinte Swaram (The Voice of Truth)
on the other. The former is personal, subjective, domestic,
delicate, lyrical; the other is tragic, social, public,
harsh, dramatic. The problems of a Nambudiri household
are also taken up at times, as in Kuttasammatham
(Confession). Saraswathi Amma has a less sophisticated
style. Her forthright analysis of man-woman relationship
is not too common even in Western literature. The short
stories of P.C.Kuttikrishnan present the interplay of
the romantic and the realistic. Like Karur and Basheer,
Kuttikrishnan also is capable of using humour as an
undertone. It does not graduate into satire. He also
reveals a unique insight into human nature. The psychology
of the proletariate has seldom been portrayed better
than in some of the early short stories of Ponjikkara
Raphy, just as middle class life is vividly portrayed
in the stories of Vettoor Raman Nair.
The
development of the novel in the second quarter of the
twentieth century is a close parallel to the growth
of the short story as outlined above. Chandu Menon and
C.V.Raman Pillai had estblished two lineages in the
Malayalam novel. For a long while they were without
any real following. They were imitated ad infinitum.
Social and historical novels came out in large numbers.
But there was no creative originality in any of them.
Narayana Kurukkal (1861-1948) wrote Parappuram
(during the 1890's) and Udayabhanu during the
1900's which may be regarded as setting up a new genre,
viz., the political novel. Virutan Sanku (Sanku,
the smart fellow) by Karatt Achutha Menon (1867-1913)
was written in 1913. Rama Varma Appan Thampuran (1876-1942)
was the author of, among numerous other things, the
novel Bhootharayar ( 1923). Ambadi Narayana Poduval's
Keralaputran also deserves mention here. These
were not major achievements. Thus it might be said that
the course of extended prose fiction in Malayalam appeared
to have come to an end.
It
was then that in 1931 a work that was unique in many
ways came out; it was Aphante Makal (Uncle's
Daughter) by Bhavatratan Nambudiripad. Like V.T.Bhattathiripad's
play Adukkalayil Ninnu Arangathekku, produced
about the same time, this novel also had a profound
social relevance. But apart from that, it was a very
readable story in prose, the characters were fully alive
and the social situation, fuly realized in the context
of the novel.
The
fresh awakening of the novel in the thirties was due
to various factors such as the arrival on the scene
of a new generation of writers, the demand for reading
material for the newly literate, the exposure of Malayalam
writers to the new vistas of Russian and French fiction
through the writings of Balakrishna Pillai and a genereal
interest among the people in matters social, political
and cultural, which is also seen in our national life
at the time. The forties and the early fifties were
a busy period for the novelists as the following table
shows:
| 1942
|
Odayil
Ninnu (Out of the Gutter: Kesava Dev) |
| 1944 |
Balyakala
Sakhi (Childhoold friend: Basheer) |
| 1946 |
Nati (Actress : Dev) |
| 1947 |
Nati
(Actress : Dev) |
| 1947 |
Sabdangal
(Voices: Basheer),Thottiyude Makan (Scavenger's
Son: Thakazhy) |
| 1948
|
Vishakanyaka
(Poison Maid: Pottekkat) |
| 1949 |
Randidangazhi
( Two Measures: Thakazhi),Bhrantalayam (Mad House:
Dev) |
| 1950 |
Arkuvendi
(For Whose Sake: Dev) |
| 1951 |
Ntuppuppakkoranendarnnu
(My Grandpa had an Elephant:Basheer) |
| 1955
|
Ummachu (Kuttykrishnan) |
| 1956
|
Chemmeen
(Prawns: Thakazhi) |
| 1957 |
Pathummayude
Adu (Pattumma's Goat: Basheer) |
| 1958
|
Sundarikalum
Sundaranmarum ( Women and Men of Charm: Kuttikrishnan) |
It
is clear from the above list that most of the time the
same people wrote short stories and novels. Thus the
early modern novel is no more than an extended short
story: if the novelist does not appear on the stage
and add his own comments and explanations, the novel
would be still shorter. Thakazhi's early work Patita
Pankajam (Fallen Lotus), Dev's Odayil Ninnu,
Pottekkat's Nadan Premam (Country Love) and Basheer's
Balyakala Sakhi are novels of this kind. Dev's
Nati and Pottekkat's Vishakanyaka have
graduated into what may be called the novel proper.
Thus the modern novel in Malayalam is mostly a post-war-phenomenon.
What is important here is that aspects of life which
had never entered into literature before with sufficient
force or depth, swept into it now, through these novels.
The novel as a genre in the hands of these writers is
purely a western transplantation; none of them has tried
to evolve an indigenous form of prose naration. The
influence of Chekhov, Maupssant, Gorky, Hugo, Tolstoy,
Steinbeck, Knut Hamsun and perhaps Dostoievsky; the
list can be lengthened. But it must however be granted
that these novelists widened the range of our readers'
interests and thus provided a much needed education
in literary sensibility. Pappu, Chanthan, Koran,
Ummachu, Karuthamma, Majid, Suhra, Ouseph: they
were all granted entry into the temple of Saraswathi.
The Pariah and the Nambudiri jostled shoulders in claiming
the compassion and consideration of the reading public.
And what is more, the novel was no more a mere means
of entertainment, a decoration or an outgrowth. It was
like life itself, was life itself as created by the
artist's vision. In the fifties the novel became the
most productive literary form; but sceptics continued
to feel there was not yet any one to chllange Chandu
Menon nor any novel yet to stand comparison with Ramaraja
Bahadur. |