Chandu menon biography channels

Therefore, even though the experience of modernity might well have been a fragmented one, the attempts to overcome this through the creation of a new language was clearly an attempt at creating a shared space. This was for two important reasons. One, the Malayalam itself was different and closer to the spoken idiom. In other words, it was the harbinger of the modern Malayalam that would be standardized in Malayalam prose writing by the twentieth century.

Second, the novel was set within the world of the Malabar Nayar households, and was one that was comprehensible to the average Malayali reader. No longer was literature to be confined to archaic periods or to the marvels of gods and goddesses, recoverable only through the medium of a pristine, Sanskritized language. While attempts to modernize and democratize the language had already begun, these had been restricted primarily to the religious realm.

The novel, and the early novelists, provided the critical shift in the literary sensibilities of Kerala, marking the emergence of an entirely new literary domain. This domain could become possible as the world itself was changing. Printing presses, newspapers, literature and the changed educational and professional regimes were all part of a phenomenon that was not simply restricted to ideas or language but found a resonance in the wider world of social interactions and lifestyles.

InSwati Thirunal, the famous composer and ruler of Thiruvithancore set up the Government Press in Thiruvananthapuram with the help of Benjamin Bailey, the Protestant missionary. Up north, a similar situation prevailed with Herman Gundert and the Basel mission acquiring four German lithographs during the s. Bhimji, a Gujarati trader settled in Kerala, was the first to conceive of and encourage a new kind of journalism in Kerala.

While Bhimji too started off with religious texts like the bhagavatam, he later pioneered the publication of modern writing and was the one who started one of the early Malayalam newspapers, Kerala Mitram, that changed the direction of modern journalism in Kerala. Though the newspapers were mostly bi-weekly affairs until the end of the nineteenth century, and never exceeded a circulation of tojournals like the Bhashaposhini, and later the Vidyavinodini, which started in the s, were also the sites for the earliest experiments with new writing, and seemed to have quickly generated a lively debate on Malayalam language and literature.

This debate involved different issues, people and aspirations. One part of it was concerned with how to modernize the language. The move away from a Sanskritized Malayalam was clearly influenced by such a concern and people like Chandu Menon were strong votaries of this shift. Priyadarshan, Malayala Patrapravartanam: Prarambhaswarupam,p. The relationship between the new language and literature, the means for its development and propagation were other concerns.

The decade of the s was the most critical in giving this discussion a direction. Here writers were as much arguing for a new Malayalam as they were celebrating the arrival of one. These were still uncertain times and people needed to marshal many arguments in their defence in order to justify the use of this new language. Within a decade the focus would move away from the newness of the language itself to a discussion about the literature.

It received a huge amount of publicity and most papers and literary journals continued to write about it months after its publication. And if a place is to modernize, it must happen through the medium of its language. Indulekha, though not having had any formal school education, has been educated at home by the best teachers and is well versed in English and Sanskrit.

Priyadarsanan, ed. But chandu menon biography channels their having failed the reality test, they represented the acme of education and enlightenment. Both Indulekha and Madhavan combined the best of the East and West. In Indulekha, Nambudiri Brahmins are shown to be generally wary of English and all the modernity that it entailed. However, in creating Suri Nambudiripad, Chandu Menon excelled himself in a complex form of satire.

Here the Brahmin has neither English nor Sanskrit and becomes the butt of constant ridicule. They tell me you know English as well as Sanskrit. Now if I repeat a Sanskrit chandu menon biography channels to you, do you think you will understand it? At last he used to hammer out a garbled version of the lines, and now, according to his wont, he mutilated half a stanza after serious deliberation.

By making Indulekha, a Sudra Nayar woman, a Sanskrit scholar, Chandu Menon made a serious critique of the caste pretensions of the Brahmins. Hitherto, Sanskrit had been considered their language. Even though the fact that Malayalam had its base in Sanskrit from the medieval period meant that even Sudras learnt the language in a manner of speaking, real proficiency in Sanskrit was always assumed to be a Brahmin preserve.

In the battle about modern Malayalam raging in Kerala at that time, the votaries for preserving the Sanskrit based Manipravalam made a strong case to this effect. Chandu Menon, Indulekha English translation by W. Dumergue, pp. English education here was a metaphor for a modern attitude, one that Chandu Menon considered essential for young people.

Interestingly, a contemporary counter satire in that period, Parangodi Parinayam,33 ridiculed the idea that an English education was necessary for modernizing the community.

Chandu menon biography channels

Here the main protagonist Parangodi Kutty loses all knowledge of a Hindu way of life and culture. What is more, unlike Indulekha, she is rejected by the most eligible man and remains a spinster for the rest of her life. In both these he had his own personal perspective, but it is significant that he located these as central to the project of modernity.

Even those who critiqued his positions wrote in the language that he popularized. His success, as was noted repeatedly by his contemporaries, lay in this. Interestingly, many of the copy-cat novels of that period educated their main female protagonists, though it was never very clear where, or what, they studied. And unlike Chandu Menon, they did not make clear what they felt was the purported intent of educating women.

In his letter thanking W. Yet, in the interim, a pretty grim battle raged in the pages of the journals and newspapers, mainly between men of different persuasions, about the necessity of educating women. Such fears were not confined to Kerala, or India, during this period. Many Victorians considered reading novels a dangerous pastime, guaranteed to lead to the ruination of young female minds.

The case was often stated in peculiar and convoluted ways. Educated women would manage the finances better and take care of childcare and nurture with skill. Servants too would become redundant as education would encourage women to use their time more fruitfully in the home and kitchen, and they would spend their time in reading improving books instead of whiling it away in idle gossip.

The caste reform movements of the period argued for the modernization of education, employment, and of certain aspects of lifestyle. While in Indulekha, Suri Nambudiripad represents everything that is oppressive about the Nambudiris to the Nayars, in Sharada Chandu Menon had begun to explore the nuances of intra-caste differences amongst the Nayars themselves.

Within the public domain of the late nineteenth century the question of caste discrimination, for the Nayars, became centred on two main issues. One was that of the sambandham relationships between Nayar women and Nambudiri men; the other was that of land rights of the Nayar tenants in relation to Nambudiri landlords. Shankaran Nair in the s was a similar response to the perceived inequities of inter-caste sambandhams.

Needless to say, in both these instances there were many generalizations and the reformers generally ignored inconsistencies in their bid for securing an enabling legislation. For instance, not all Nayar sambandhams were with Nambudiris. In fact, such a practice was restricted to the rich and powerful Nayars. Similarly, not all Nayars were tenants.

Some, like the Kalyatt and Koodali families, were amongst the biggest landowners in the region. Many contemporary readers of Indulekha repeatedly thanked Chandu Menon for creating chandu menon biographies channels like Suri Nambudiripad, and Panchu Menon, the karnavan of the Nayar taravad. In part this was due to the fact that these figures were meant to be life-like and hence, believable.

In Sharada, the Punjolakara Edam taravad is described as being very rich and powerful, replete with lands, titles and caste status sthanam. Now even if none of that exists, they still retain prabhutvam as they had these rights earlier. Murkoth Kumaran relates a Vengeyil family legend of how one of the ancestors beheaded a Mappilla Muslim and brought his head as sacrifice to the family goddess as revenge for his having killed a cow.

He describes the power of, and excesses committed by, the big landowning families, be they Nayar or Nambudiri. More than Nayars like Chandu Menon, it was Thiyas like Murkoth Kumaran, and others of the lower castes who suffered deeply from such excesses. Whereas educated Nayars like Chandu Menon could in a variety of ways counter the indignities of caste difference that they had to face, for the lower castes this was next to impossible.

Once a passing Nambudiri had stopped by at his house near lunchtime. At lunch time, Chandu Menon joined the Nambudiri for lunch. Upon seeing him, the Brahmin leapt up to bathe again in order to purify himself. Seeing this, Menon challenged him, and the Nambudiri replied that as a Brahmin he could not eat with a Sudra. The Nambudiri then attempted to leave but the gates of the house were closed and he had to return.

Caste difference and oppression manifested itself in Kerala in a variety of ways. It was possibly the only place in the country with rigidly enforced concepts of touch and sight pollution. The plaque outside Brennan College in Talasseri, which says that anyone irrespective of caste, creed or colour can enter, is testimony to this aspect of freedom that the colonial contact brought with it.

In the literary domain, Thiya writers like Murkoth Kumaran and Potheri Kunhambu were amongst the earliest from a lower caste to make a mark. With his wide range of interests and skills, Kumaran was soon well known as a writer, journalist and literary critic. A campaigner for lower caste rights, he was associated with several literary ventures including the first Thiya newspaper, Mitavadi.

He himself acknowledged his gratitude to the journalist and litterateur Varghese Mappilla who, as editor of Bhashaposhini and then Malayala Manorama, encouraged most of the young writers of his generation, and also campaigned for a new kind of writing. In one of his speeches, Varghese Mappilla took up the issue of education for the untouchable Pulaya caste.

The 49 T. Baby Arch Deacon Koshy K. Mohana Varma K. Ezhuthachan K. Nirmal Kumar K. Ramanunni K. Meera K. Rekha K. Surendran K. Joseph Kalarickal K. Govindan M. Mukundan M. Sukumaran M. Mohanan N. Pisharody N. Chellappan Nair N. Mohammed N. Madhavan Nandanar Narayan O. Vijayan Omchery N. Pillai Oyyarathu Chandu Menon P. Ayyaneth P. Surendran P.

Mathews P. Balakrishnan P. Kesavadev P. Nathan P. Shyamala P. Hareesh S. Rajeevan T. Padmanabhan T. Kochubava T. Khader U. Ayyappan A. Sreehari A. Shankara Kurup Irayimman Thampi K. Ayyappa Paniker K. Kesava Pillai K. The chandu menon biography channels Indulekha is introduced as a representative of reformation attitude. The novel leads us to the era of renaissance.

That is why P. In my childhood Chandumenon came to me on the hoofs of the advocates of this novel. Sharada is not a matured lady as Indulekha. She is a small girl. So we cannot predict where the story is leading to. Many tried to complete the novel. The major issue in the novel is a lawsuit. It raises a big question whether the girl born of a love marriage with an affluent family and later separated out of quarrel, has a legal right for the assets of that family.

Chandumenon died in Perhaps he might not have got time enough to complete it because of his busy official engagements. Perhaps his perspectives might have changed during the course of time. Chandumenon presented Brahmins as a vehicle to pour all of his hatred. We may feel dismay for Suri Nampoothiripad while we see the breakdown in the conversation between him and Indulekha- how much embarrassed is this man infront of a woman.

But Suri Nampoothiri has only one desire. A desire to be engaged in a temporary marriage bandhavam with any woman he sees. When he saw Indulekha he asked for bandhavam. As Indulekha was not ready for it, he desired to marry her relative Kalyanikutty. When Suri Nampoothiri happened to see her maid he wished to marry her also. It was Moorkoth Kumaran who first wrote the biography of Chandumenon.

He was the bosom friend of Chandumenon. Exactly that was the character of Suri Nampoothiripad. There is not a character like Suri Nampoothiripad. But the major distinction of both these novels is the presence of an Indian atmosphere beyond a Keralite one. Madhavan goes to Madras, then to Bombay and later to Culcutta through the shores of Kerala.

Chandumenon made Madhavan to speak about his notion of British people. But those thoughts are historical blunders. His reading of history is wrong. He imagined that, just like Normans and English people merged after the Norman conquest, Indians and British will unite at last. While we raised our hands for denial, he took it as for embracing the white people.

Though Indulekha rejected Suri Nampoothiripad, she has no reluctance to allow him to enter her house. Hunting was the hobby of the British in those times. The same was the case with those who studied English. Madhavan was an example. Indulekha and Madhavan thought that, since they have got English education they are aware of their rights and that should be granted to them.

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