Revisiting the Literature in my own mother-tongue Malayalam

When I was a teenager, I was kind of an amphibian voraciously reading (but not always retaining the details) of good books in English as well as Malayalam, my mother-tongue. I could even read in my national language Hindi though nowadays I find it hard to decipher even the alphabets (which I have tried by reading the film news in Navbharat Times).

Regarding Malayalam classics, my tastes more or less revolved around these major writers in Malayalam- Madhavikutty, T. Padmanabhan, MT Vasudevan Nair and Vaikkom Muhammed Basheer. These were the writers whom I loved to read again and again. My mother always brought new books by these writers to replenish my reading list from her office library.

We were a curious mother-daughter duo for in most serious aspects of life and we have always differed from other in principles or just for the difference of it; but regarding books, she is the one who has guided my reading tastes in Malayalam literature. Now, she has turned religious and reads only the Bible and prayer-books but there used to be a time when I could listen spell-bound to the stories that she recounted from the books she has read.

Well, back to my love of Malayalam literature. Though I have read only a few Malayalam books these ten years since I became an English literature student- a few like Khasakinte Ithihasam, Short stories of Madhavikutty, Jeevithanizhalpadukal and Balyakalasakhi by Vaikkom Muhammed Basheer and MT Vasudevan Nair's Randamoozham- the fact that recently I was teaching in a place where Malayalam literature was taught for MA as well brought to light that love of good literature written in Malayalam.

What followed was a gobbling up of Complete works of Madhavikutty now followed by Complete Works of Vaikkom Muhammed Basheer as well as a few works of MT Vasudevan Nair. Greatly amazed by Basheer and well as by MT, I feel like a curious child who is still in the process of joining together a jigsaw puzzle.That means that you, my dear readers will soon be bombarded with reviews and stories of the books I have encountered in Malayalam literature soon!