M T Vasudevan Nair

Writer

M. T. Vasudevan Nair, popularly known as MT, is a Malayalam author, screenplay writer and film director. He was born on July 15, 1933 in Kudallur, a small village in Palakkad district, in the Indian state of Kerala. One of the most prolific and versatile of modern Malayalam writers, his novels, short stories and screenplays speak of the pain and anguish of the Kerala society in the post independence India.

The essence of his work is self-suffering and its emotional intensity and rhythms of love hold the readers sticking to him.The story of Koodalloor village and Bharathapuzha are the most repeated and favourite theme. Ernest Hemingway, they say, peppered his tales with silences - things unsaid that made readers think and seek the soul of the story. India's literary icon MT Vasudevan Nair explores the silences in life, in the folk tales of forgotten heroes and in the legends of warriors from epics forever retold. MT, as Vasudevan Nair is more popularly known, makes heroes out of villains and winners out of losers. Yet, in some curious twist to most of his tales, his heroic winners are often but sad, and sometimes villainous, losers. That, simply said, is the melancholic charm of reading MT. The man who sourced stories in silences agrees that his tales will leave behind silences too. Maybe years later, maybe, another boy who loved words, who sneaked through folded newspapers to read, might step in. but there wouldn't be a Nila river to inspire him, nor the goodness of a village. But there would be new experiences, new observations and perhaps a new obsession to recreate the magic that master-writers like MT wove into our psyches.