How severe and instant can cardiac failure be? Mediapersons attending a news conference by eminent left intellectual and writer Prof M N Vijayan here on Wednesday had a stunning first hand experience of the phenomenon when he collapsed and died in front of them.
The event, which, incidentally, was beamed live on several Malayalam TV channels, happened at the Thrissur Press Club around 1:00 pm.
Prof Vijayan was reacting to the court’s dismissal of the defamation charges filed by the Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad (KSSP), a pro-CPM progressive organisation, against a magazine edited by him.
Widely revered as “Kerala’s Socrates”, Prof Vijayan, 77, had left the progressive camp sometime ago and had been quite critical of CPM state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan and certain unhealthy tendencies in the party.
In a flash
At the news meet, Prof Vijayan wanted “KSSP workers supporting the surge of foreign capital’’ to be withdrawn from ministerial offices and the administration. After a while, the former Malayalam professor seemed to be having some discomfort and asked for a glass of water. Soon, he requested that the air-conditioner in the hall be switched off.
He seemed to collect himself again and said the language being used by his magazine was under threat, “rather it is a political attack”.
“It was Bernard Shaw who said that the language that is used should be understood by all,’’ Vijayan said, now smiling. The next moment the smile vanished. The face contorted, eyes rolled upwards and he fell back. It had all happened in a matter of moments.
The shell-shocked gathering including mediapersons and his colleagues held the man and carried him to the Thrissur Amala Hospital where the doctors confirmed him “brought dead’’.
Born in 1930, Vijayan has written extensively on art, literature, politics, philosophy and psychology winning over thousands of admirers for the last three decades. He started as a socialist sympathiser and was part of the progressive movement in Kerala.
Vijayan took his MA from the University of Madras and became a teacher in Madras New College. Since his return to Kerala to take up the teaching profession in the Brennen College, Thalassery, he became a Marxist fellow traveller.
