MT Vasudevan Nair (1933-2024): Kerala’s Goethe

Madath Thekkepaattu Vasudevan Nair, popularly known in Kerala as MT, lived a full life before bidding adieu on Christmas Day from age-related health complications, at the age of 91.  Born into a lower-middle-class family in Palakkad in 1933, he began his literary journey at an early age, eventually winning awards and honours and earning a reputation as a highly successful yet serious writer who also became one of the finest screenwriters and storytellers for the Malayalam movie industry.

A recipient of the Padma Bhushan, Jnanpith Award, and scores of awards in literature and films, including the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for the Novel, the prestigious Vayalar and Ezhuthachan awards, besides a plethora of others, he is simply the most successful Malayalam writer whose versatility proved to be a boon as he embraced moviemaking and scriptwriting. He directed, wrote stories, and created screenplays for some of his most memorable films that focused on the socio-political and cultural scenes of Kerala, starting from the 1970s. Exuding the wild passion of Van Gogh in his artistic pursuits, MT was destined to become a rock star persona that rivalled—in the Kerala scheme of things—Andy Warhol’s exuberance, as the late writer expanded the scope of his influence from short stories and novels to films and plays.

Even so, his commercial success in writing and movies didn’t come at the cost of artistic value. In Nirmalyam (1973), an intense portrayal of Kerala Hindu society of the time—which was also MT’s movie debut based on his own story—the protagonist, an oracle played by PJ Antony (who went on to win the next year’s National Award for Best Actor), is shown spitting on the deity of a temple he had managed for long time. MT was 40 then, and he continued to shock his audiences and readers with stark and contrarian narratives of stories they had grown up with.

In the 1989 movie Oru Vadakkan Veeragatha (A Northern Story of Valour), MT wrote the screenplay for what was a diametrically opposite version of the story told orally in the Northern Ballads, making the villain named Chandu the hero. Mammootty played Chandu in the box-office hit, attracting widespread praise from the public and criticism from a section of purists. This wasn’t anything new for MT. His historical fiction, Randamoozham (The Second Turn; 1984), celebrated Bhim as the central character of the Mahabharata. The work retold the epic from Bhim’s point of view, spotlighting his trials, rejections, and emotional upheavals. Efforts to make it into a movie haven’t succeeded so far despite years of planning.

Predominantly, he was also a talent hunter as the editor of the Mathrubhumi literary magazine, helping spawn a legion of new writers in the state, some of whom have become icons in their own right. MT was also an institution builder.

While the long list of beneficiaries of his large-hearted behaviour making it big in the literary and film world is part of Kerala lore, MT made a mark and left an indelible legacy by famously overcoming what most people often thought were his limitations. He was an avid traveller, yet he found peace and tranquillity back home in the rural idyll of his home in north Malabar.

My early memories of MT are from my mother’s vast reading of the writer, whose characters she considered next-door neighbours. For her, MT was the quintessential Malayali who walked into the sun of the day in his spotless white shirt and dhoti through the paddy fields. On Christmas Day this year, he walked through such green paddy fields of our minds into the sunset of fading crimson, never to return.

What remains is a body of work that transcends the confines of his comfort zone and offers a guided tour into human nature, as universal as it is unique depending on circumstances. Notwithstanding the use of place-specific lingo at times, MT made reading novels and short stories more accessible to readers. What was the outcome of his monstrously apt use of words? Sentences trimmed to the bone? Or was it actually an impression he created when he mesmerised his readers with the sound of his words? His readers perhaps never cared whether his sentences were raw-boned or plump, for the mere reason that they were mesmerised by the clarity of his narrative and vision.

To me personally, Naalukettu, his first major novel, which he wrote at age 23, remains my favourite, while many of my peers rave about Manju (Mist), Kaalam, Asuravithu, and so on. Naalukettu stands for the traditional Kerala home of yore, in accordance with Vaastu Shastra. The movies or short movies that pulled a generation of viewers like me under MT’s spell include Oru Vadakkan Veeragatha, Kadavu, Parinayam, etc.

For someone who dropped out of school, later pursued studies in chemistry in college, then taught mathematics in a school before assiduously climbing literary heights and leaving his mark in multiple artistic avenues (with the probable exception of poetry), MT was a colossus whose stories, films, and essays will continue to wield influence in and out of literature and movies, especially in Kerala.

MT balanced the quality of his work with grand commercial success. My brief interactions with MT—first when I was in my early 20s receiving an award from him, and later while listening to his critique of my book on political violence in Kannur, my hometown in northern Kerala—left me with immense respect and admiration for the man and his penchant for not missing the wood for the trees. He had a big-picture view of things—which was why he never once hesitated to heap praise on the younger generation of writers, filmmakers, and artists across all hues, inspiring them to never give up. He seemed possessed by a moral duty to make the world a better place. He worked alongside those he looked up to, and as they say, thanks to his range of experiments with creativity, he had a sway over everyone else—because the whole is greater than the sum of its parts!

MT was also generous and accommodative of multiple viewpoints of fiction writers he decided to promote notwithstanding his ideological affinities. Renowned writer CV Balakrishnan tells Open, “MT was a guru. He was the one who published the likes of OV Vijayan and others in Mathrubhumi although his literary journey had a different trajectory compared with them. He also introduced to [Kerala] writers and readers titans of world literature such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez. In fact, after reading his recommendation about One Hundred Years of Solitude in 1976, I, who was in Kolkata at the time, promptly contacted the local publisher of the book to help me acquire a copy. MT was also someone who upheld the decency and moral fortitude of a writer all his life. From his small village in Kudallur, he toured the world, and wrote about what he saw. He has also written books set in Varanasi, Mumbai and various other places in India. Besides being an editor and a writer, he was also an inveterate reader of books who looked for novelty in other people’s writings.”

As an institution builder, MT played a pivotal role in transforming the Thunchan Memorial Trust and Research Centre in Tirur, Malappuram, into what it is now—a burnished showpiece of Malayali literary and cultural excellence. This centre, which houses a library and museum, was set up in memory of Thunjathu Ezhuthachan, who is regarded as the father of the modern Malayalam language. Sudhir Devdas, a former research head at the Mathrubhumi Group, shares with Open that MT was keen to bring authors of the stature of Ali Sardar Jafri and Kiran Nagarkar to Tirur. Devdas, who assisted MT with this, calls the Thunchan Memorial Trust and Research Centre MT’s “throbbing cultural heirloom to Malayalam”.

MT is gone, but his works, commentaries, and forewarnings continue to serve as cautionary tales and advice, besides being profound endeavours in unlearning and relearning society. They cover a range of emotions, from compassion and nostalgia to rage, greed, and uncertainties. MT dared to call out hypocrisy and spoke truth to power. His sense of timing and propriety were so remarkable that his statements always made an impact. After all, he was to Kerala what Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was to the German language, thanks to the enormous range of his fearless and inventive preoccupations.

deathIn MemoriamJnanpith AwardliteratureMalayalamMT Vasudevan NairPadma BhushanWeb Exclusive