For Society, MT Was Its Conscience

It is difficult for anyone who knew MT Vasudevan Nair to live with the fact of his non-existence in Sithara, East Nadakkavu, Kozhikode, his fabled address.

- K JAYAKUMAR

It is difficult for anyone who knew MT Vasudevan Nair to live with the fact of his non-existence in Sithara, East Nadakkavu, Kozhikode, his fabled address. MT's place in Kerala's consciousness is not only that of a writer who has scaled the heights of literary accomplishments. To every Malayali he represents the pride of Malayalam Literature, the best of Malayalam cinema, and the conscience of a society. In his fiction, MT represents an age of transition where old values crumbled and new values struggled to gain moral acceptance.

His stories convey this fluidity in moral values where pragmatism and emotional convictions are in constant conflict. That was the angst of a generation. His was a generation that greeted modernity without fully shedding the baggage of another era. It is the truth of this conflict that made his characters familiar to the reader. In their pursuit of success, these characters have to break many an emotional chord and they do realize its pain.

However they are carried by an inexorable wave of self-centeredness. His characters embody the psychological complexity of every individual living life with intensity and sensitivity.

What MT brought into Malayalam fiction was not only sharp psychological realism, but also the aesthetics of brevity and density. In his later day stories and fiction MT has been able to imbibe the spirit of the changing times as in stories like 'Sherlok,' 'Shilalikhitham,' and 'Vanaprastham'.

It is often said that MT was inspired only by his village of Koodallur and familiar characters of his family and around. In the initial phase of his literary career, this observation is true.