Rarely does a novel published fifty years ago still hold the reader’s attention. M T Vasudevan Nair’s Naalukettu is such a unique literary phenomenon, with 23 re-prints and translation into 14 Indian languages.

The readers’ enthusiasm generated by thematic excellence and a mesmerising narrative remains undiminished.

Being a sensitive portrayal of the twilight years of the matrilineal joint family system in Malabar, the novel delves deep into the transformation of human relations. The psychological depth of characterisation adds to the perennial charm of Naalukettu.

MT’s canvas is his own village, Kudallur, on the banks of Bharathapuzha witnessing the gradual disintegration of feudal structures represented by the Nair tharavad.

‘Naalukettu’, a quadrangular building with an ‘open to the sky’ central courtyard, used to be the abode of a typical joint family.

His own experiences in a joint family and the neighbourhood deeply moved MT. The matrilineal system often failed to protect weak members with the tyrannical karanavar (head of the joint family) holding all the aces.

Women stoically endured the suffering. The partition of properties sounded the death knell of tharavads. Many were impoverished by the spate of litigations. It is this milieu that provides inexhaustible material for most of MT’s works.

Cast away

Naalukettu is about the trials and tribulations of a young boy, Appunni, who is brought up in penury by his mother after his father’s death and without the protection of the joint family.

The mother becomes an outcast after being thrown out of the tharavad for eloping with a dice player. When Appunni visits the tharavad he is mercilessly turned away by the karanavar. How to avenge the insult becomes his overriding concern. When he grows up he raises enough money to buy the decrepit naalukettu, once a symbol of his aspirations, from the karanavar. But Apunni realises that it is a pyrrhic victory as his enemy is no more worth conquering.

One of his childhood aims was to take revenge on Seydalikutty, the suspected killer of his father Kondunny Nair, the famed pagida player. But he turns out to be a compassionate well-wisher of Apunni eager to bail him out of difficulties.

The boy’s childhood fantasies, village rituals and legends are deftly woven together in the backdrop of the river.

Apunni is a loner and alienated individual who wants to escape his mooring but can’t. He wants to take revenge but can’t. He abandons his mother following rumours about her liaison with a man. 

Moral dilemma

He hates the karanavar but is drawn to his beautiful daughter. He is a precursor of many of MT’s introvert protagonists. Emotional intensity, vicissitudes and the evolution of Appunni’s psyche make the novel compulsive reading.

MT’s colloquial idiom doesn’t easily yield to a translator. As one who is familiar with the original work I find the translation failing to reach the heights of MT’s vibrant prose.

The drawbacks are obvious in the opening paras as well as in the description of serpent thullal which is sheer poetry in the original. Same is the case with some portions of dialogues. This only reflects on the greatness of the original and in no way takes the credit from Gita Krishnankutty’s commendable job.

Not all readers will relish the extensive use of Malayalam words. The glossary and the list of kinship terms will be handy to the reader.

Naalukettu,
M T Vasudevan Nair,
Translated by Gita Krishnankutty,
Oxford University Press, 2008,
PP 208, Rs 395.