#FIRST FEW MALAYALAM NOVELS SKIN#
#FIRST FEW MALAYALAM NOVELS FREE#

Marquez and other Latin American writers were translated into Malayalam well before they were available in other Southasian languages. The amount was decided by measuring the breasts by hand, and the rates were too prohibitive for the disadvantaged women to afford them. Among the most infamous of such caste atrocities was the вЂbreast taxвЂ™, imposed by upper-caste Namboodiris, where women other than those from the upper castes were allowed to cover their upper bodies only if they paid this tax. That a Pulayan man could not sport a moustache was among the many restrictions imposed on dispossessed castes by upper-caste communities in Kerala in the first half of the 20th century, the period when the novelвЂ™s main parts are set in. The novelвЂ™s social concerns are equally urgent. Is Vavachan a metaphor for Kuttanad, or vice versa, one often wonders. The novel maps the names and people of the villages that ebb and flow with the changes in the story. This fragile physical and human landscape is both stage and actor in the novel and the site for HareeshвЂ™s inquiries into ecological concerns. The people making their lives around the fields are poor, often surviving on kanji-water. Often called the вЂRice Bowl of KeralaвЂ™, Kuttanad lies below the sea level, where growing paddy is an everyday struggle with keeping the water in or out of the shapeshifting fields.

After the theatre group packs up and leaves, Vavachan refuses to shave off his moustache, triggering a period of turmoil, violence and fear in the Kuttanad region where the story is set. He reminds the audience of the mythical demon king Ravanan, though his role is otherwise inconsequential in the play.

#FIRST FEW MALAYALAM NOVELS SKIN#

When he appears on stage, the facial hair on his dark skin looks fearsome enough to terrify the audience. This also gives him the name вЂMoustacheвЂ™.

He is recruited to play a policeman in a play directed by a travelling playwright and director, solely based on his thick moustache that has somehow escaped the barberвЂ™s blade. Vavachan, the novelвЂ™s protagonist, is a Pulayan, from a Dalit caste in southern India. HareeshвЂ™s Moustache, translated into English by Jayasree Kalathil, is a notable addition to these storytelling traditions.ДЄmong the most infamous of such caste atrocities was the вЂbreast taxвЂ™, imposed by upper-caste Namboodiris. The oral tradition of rich folklore culture across the Subcontinent, and even more Brahminical works from mythology, the epics and allegorical works like Panchatantra, employ narrative styles that formally resemble magic realism. The expression of inner experiences without resorting to the continuous and linear narrative is a storytelling tradition long practiced in most cultures, Southasia and MarquezвЂ™s Colombia included. However, it would not be correct to say that this access was what led to MalayalamвЂ™s adoption of the genre. вЂMoustacheвЂ™ by S Hareesh, translated by Jayasree Kalathil. Thanks to the abundance of reading rooms and libraries in Kerala, these books were easily found even in small villages.

As a genre, magic realism remains popular in Malayalam culture, not just in literary works, but also in cinematic forms. VijayanвЂ™s debut novel might not have drawn international attention, but it inaugurated a new phase in Malayalam literature that was influential enough for some critics to divide the languageвЂ™s literary history into pre- and post- Khasak. Around the same years that Gabriel Garcia Marquez was working on his magnum opus, One Hundred Years of Solitude in Colombia, a book that continues to define the genre, in Kerala, O V Vijayan was writing his masterpiece, Khasakinte Ithihasam (The Legends of Khasak). Moustache, titled Meesha in the original Malayalam, follows a long literary tradition in the language and is best described as magic realism. By the novelвЂ™s end, the reader heaves a heavy sigh, for the world has been distilled to a single story вЂ“ of each of us trying to live as best as one can, while caught in the intersections of caste, class and community. Kuttanad, the landscape that is the novelвЂ™s chief allegorical tool, swallows and spits out people and stories.

#FIRST FEW MALAYALAM NOVELS FREE#

Crocodiles seek revenge for old trauma, bullfrogs dispense free advice, and coconut trees speak of generational memories. What has to happen to the world for the animals to start talking? In S HareeshвЂ™s novel Moustache, a whole menagerie has something to say.

First few malayalam novels