Manju (novel)

Last updated

Manju
Author M. T. Vasudevan Nair
CountryIndia
Language Malayalam
GenreNovel
Publisher DC Books
Publication date
1964 (1964)
Media typePrint

Manju (Mist) is a novel by M. T. Vasudevan Nair published in 1964. With few conversations and minimal characters, it narrates the story of a school teacher. The novel is set in the mountains and valleys of Nainital where Vimala Devi, a teacher in a boarding school, waits in hope for the winter of her discontent to vanish. Despite having a family comprising a father, mother, sister, and brother, Vimala is kept aloof from them. She hates the company of her family and enjoys solitude. The eco-feminist theme of patriarchal domination and exploitation gains more prominence in Manju, MT's only novel with a female protagonist. The novel stands apart as it is set in a milieu different from the usual one, the Valluvanadan village.

The plot of the novel is allegedly similar to a Hindi story Parinde (Birds, 1956), by Nirmal Verma. [1] However both MT and Verma have rejected these claims. MT said in an interview with India Today , "I don't remember having ever read Verma's story although we are very close friends. I wrote Manju immediately after I returned from a visit to Nainital." [1] Verma himself says it is ridiculous to accuse an author of MT's calibre of plagiarism. "My story's English translation was published only five or six years ago by HarperCollins. I don't think MT reads Hindi works in original. So there is no substance to the charge that MT had read it before he wrote his novel," says Verma. [1]

MT also directed and scripted a film with the same name based on the novel in 1983. The film stars Sangeeta Naik, Sankar Mohan, Sankara Pillai, and Nanditha Bose. [2] The novel also had a Hindi-language film adaptation titled Sharad Sandhyawhich went completely unnoticed.

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References

  1. 1 2 3 M. G. Radhakrishnan (10 September 2001). "The two literary stars of Malayalam stand accused of plagiarism. Or, is envy is the motive?". India Today . 26: 109. Retrieved 10 June 2013.
  2. "M. T. Vasudevan Nair: Manju". Cinemaofmalayalam.net. Archived from the original on 19 October 2013. Retrieved 10 June 2013.