Fiction

Memory: My Radhamol: Devayani Kunhambu

J DevikaLeave a comment

Translated by J Devika

[Accounts of the resistance and suffering of women and children during political struggle in mid-20th century are relatively rare — this is therefore a very valuable account, from a leading woman activist of the Communist Party in the 1930s and 40s who married a male colleague who later became a prominent leader. If party leaders were hidden by the most deprived sections of the people who took the brunt of police violence for them, this account reveals how their wives, too, found refuge in the families of working-class, lower-caste women. Devayani’s story is also unique in another way. While the wives of upper-caste communist leaders were protected by their families, often large joint families — tarawads — Devayani, who hailed from south Kerala, Travancore, married a man from Malabar and migrated there and lived in a labouring community, and for her, the experiencing of marrying a communist involved learning to labour as well.]

Continue reading “Memory: My Radhamol: Devayani Kunhambu” →

The Autobiography of Anna Chandy — Part 1 (Continued)

J Devika1 Comment

Appendix

So I decided to write up all the sorrows I had suffered as the first woman lawyer in Thiruvitamkoor at the Law College and after and relate how I faced all of it with real tantedam, courage, and claim a Veerachakra for it after I left the field, and searched my files, to find an amusing article written by Sri A G Ganguli in the Sunday Statesman of 27 January 1970 titled ‘Portias in Search of Recognition’. It was then I found out about the strange experiences that my forerunner who applied to practice in court after getting her law degree. Reading it, I, who had been granted permission the moment I applied, found my pride waning somewhat. I am going to add some parts of that article here so that my lawyer brethren who followed me and women officers in the department of law and justice at least who are interested may know.

Continue reading “The Autobiography of Anna Chandy — Part 1 (Continued)” →

The Autobiography of Anna Chandy — Part 1 (Continued)

J DevikaLeave a comment

To the Law College

Those days, Sara Pothen had just completed her BA and was living with her parents. Mr Chandy met Mr Pothen and discussed the matter of sending his daughter to the Law College. He was willing; so was his daughter. I have already told you that Mr Chandy returned with the application form to Law College. I tried my last hand to escape from it, but to no avail. He completed the form himself. I signed it, with much reluctance and fear.

Continue reading “The Autobiography of Anna Chandy — Part 1 (Continued)” →

The Autobiography of Anna Chandy — Part 1 (Continued)

J Devika2 Comments

Mr Chandy Enters My Life

I was a third-year student at the Arts College, Thiruvananthapuram, when Mr Chandy entered my life making me his life-partner. I was 21 then; he, 30. At that time, I was a nobody — just the daughter of the widow Sara who was a teacher at the Holy Angels’ Convent. There was nothing remarkable about me except my excellence in studies.

Continue reading “The Autobiography of Anna Chandy — Part 1 (Continued)” →

T A Sarasvati Amma : Hidden Star – Janaky Sreedharan

J Devika7 Comments

They were three sisters and two brothers — brilliant, studious and intellectually alert. The daughters were Padmalaya K.Nair, T.A Sarasvati Amma and T.A Rajalakshmi. As daughters of T.A. Kuttimalu Amma and Marath Achyutha Menon, growing up in in the early half of the twentieth century, both Sarasvati Amma and Rajalakshmi showed a flair for literature and science alike and entered into the field of higher education in Kerala as teachers in the mid-decades of the twentieth century with great confidence and hope.

Continue reading “T A Sarasvati Amma : Hidden Star – Janaky Sreedharan” →

The Autobiography of Anna Chandy: Part 1 (Continued)

J Devika17 Comments

I continued my education after High School at the Maharaja’s College. Because I had a slight partiality for the Malayalam language, I approached the Malayalam professor Sri C P Parameswaran Pillai to seek his view, hoping to opt for Malayalam as my elective subject. When I told him, he looked astonished, and said, “My kutty, don’t bother us — Mappilas (that was a common way of referring to Christians) are very poor in Malayalam. I am not sure whether you will even score pass marks. Whatever, don’t even think of taking it as your optional subject.”

Continue reading “The Autobiography of Anna Chandy: Part 1 (Continued)” →

The Autobiography of Anna Chandy – I (Continued)

J Devika3 Comments

[In this part of Anna Chandy’s autobiography where she talks of her childhood, her mother’s tough love made me think. I have always thought about my life that contrary to much common sense, tough love has served me much better than the overprotectiveness that is favoured these days by parents. Tough love is an implicit acknowledgement of your potential to develop as a human being while overprotectiveness implies your permanent state of passivity. Tough love is a form of power that provokes resistance and makes you immune to it later (as is so beautifully evident in this section), while overprotectiveness just weakens the immune system altogether, making you break down at the first encounter with life out there. Also, as the difference between Anna and Sara show each one learned to absorb and resist in different ways, so tough love, however much it may try, can never succeed in producing identical subjects.]

An orderly routine

Our usual practice was to cook in the morning, pack our lunches, and leave for school. The routine at home was very structured. All of us were expected to leap out of bed as though we had springs attached to our backs when the alarm clock rang at five in the morning. If we were late even by a moment, the warning call, “edi kochanne, saramme, do I need to come there?” would sound. Our parrot, which heard it regularly, learned it by heart, and if Ammachi was delayed for some reason, it would screech the same words and wake us up.

Continue reading “The Autobiography of Anna Chandy – I (Continued)” →

In the Waiting Room: K Saraswathi Amma

J DevikaLeave a comment

Translated by J Devika

Santhy was bored. Are BA students condemned forever to absorb lessons seated mechanically in attendance? The lecturer was pouring praise on the poet’s description of Aja who had woken up from sleep and arrived for the Swayamvara of Indumathi. That description, apparently, was gifted to the poet by none other than Saraswathi, the Goddess of learning. The Goddess who wrote him these verses, and the Goddess of Sleep, Nidra, who was now pulling down her eyelids, are no doubt the thickest buddies, Santhy felt certain. Her classmates – maybe because they had a nap at home during the lunch break – were engrossed in the lecture.  The lecturer, a lady, turned to Santhy, “Aja seated on green silk, Kartikeya, mounted on the peacock with plumes open … what a beautiful comparison it is. Don’t you agree, Santhy?”

Continue reading “In the Waiting Room: K Saraswathi Amma” →

The Riches of Love: K Saraswathi Amma

J DevikaLeave a comment

Translated by J Devika

The train kept moving and stopping at clear intervals as was its wont. My mind which was journeying in the past, too, had to linger a bit at certain places. But in the end it entered a particular place and refused to budge from there. However much I tried, it would not move an inch forward. Its pig-headedness troubled me.  In this mobile world, if one single heart decided to stay immobile, would not accidents occur? I rubbed my chest with my right hand.

Continue reading “The Riches of Love: K Saraswathi Amma” →

The Autobiography of Anna Chandy – Part 1

J Devika4 Comments

Childhood and Education

Birth

Yours truly was born on 5 April 1905, in the asterism of Aswathy. There has been no dispute about the date of birth, but I cannot say that there were no disagreements at all. Long after the time of disagreement had vanished, the article on the women of Kerala which appeared in the Femina magazine of 12 November 1971 referred to the first woman Judge in the Commonwealth as “the 68-year-old luminary.” Now, if this case were before retirement, I would have filed an affidavit, argued, and got it dismissed with costs. Because it surfaced now, so I’ll let it go.

Continue reading “The Autobiography of Anna Chandy – Part 1” →