Sunday 11 May 2014

Indulekha - Malayalam novel written by O. Chandu Menon

Indulekha is a Malayalam novel written by O. Chandu Menon. Published in 1889, it was the first major novel in Malayalam language. It was a landmark in the history of Malayalam literature and initiated novel as a new flourishing genre. The novel is about a beautiful, well educated lady of a Nair tharavadu.
The title Indulekha, refers to the main character in this novel, a beautiful, well educated Nair lady of 18 years.
The novel was written at a time when there was an emerging class of upper caste men (mostly Nairs) who received a Western style education, and were achieving prominent positions in British India. The period was a clash of cultures, as the educated Indians were torn between Western ideals and traditional practices. The Nambudiri Brahmins of Kerala, had traditionally had marital relations with Nair women, known as Sambandham, since only the oldest Nambudiri youth was allowed to marry a Brahmin girl. The younger sons were encouraged to have Sambandham with Nair women, in order to maintain male primogeniture, since the children born from such relations belonged to their mother's family. The matriarchy practiced by the Nairs was also coming under attack during this period. Many of the Nambudiri men, though learned in Vedas and Sanskrit, had little knowledge of English and Western sciences. The novel highlights the lack of willingness of the Nambudiris to adapt to the change of times, as well as the struggle by Nair women to break out of the age-old principle of Sambandham, which had little relevance during the late 19th century.
Chandu Menon has written that he initially meant Indulekha as a translation of Benjamin Disraeli's Henrietta Temple (1836), but, having struggled with the subtleties of an alien culture, he abandoned the project in favour of writing one on his own, depicting a similar story.
Indulekha is a graceful Nair girl with good intelligence, artistic talent. She is a young and educated, knowledgeable woman with education in English and sanskrit, who is in love with another young man, Madhavan, the hero of the novel, who was also presented in ideal colours, a member of newly educated class of nayar class graduated from University of Madras.He dressed in western clothes,but,at the same time,he kept along turf of hair,according to the nayar custom. The story details how the matrilineal society of those times, encourages Namboothiris to start a relationship with Indulekha. Indulekha promptly snubs the old Nambudiri man, but Madhavan in haste runs away from the household, to Bengal. There he makes a lot of good friends. In the end, he arrives back and is united with Indulekha. They then leave to Madras, present day Chennai.The story emphasizes inter caste marriage.
The old Namboothiri represents the decadence of feudalism and its polygamous practices. Indulekha, the novel's educated heroine, dramatises the resistance of a progressive Nair woman. She refuses to succumb to the oppression of the Namboothiri and marries Madhavan, who stands up to the social evils of the period..
n 2014 April, literary critics Dr. P. K. Rajasekharan and Dr. P. Venugopalan, published a well accepted research finding in Mathrubhumi Weekly, according to which the available version of the novel is a revised and edited version of the original one. The original novel which made a strong advocacy for women's empowerment was mercilessly edited and those who published the book in later years chopped off many such portions. The last chapter (chapter 20) was the most edited one. The critics found the original version of the novel from the British Library in London after several years of search.

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