Where Else…
The van, the auto, the waste cart, the seaside library, the guest room, the kitchen – all are libraries. All are literature.
On the way to Kochi, someone had named his tourist carrier Rumi Ride. A Force Urbania. Dark grey. Kollam registration. And right in the middle of Cherai beach — not a bookshop, not a university — a two-storeyed library. Named Janakeya Vayanasala. A People’s Reading Room, in Malayalam. As if the beach needed one. As if, of course it does.
Francis Bacon, Father of Science, wrote in his essay Of Studies — Reading maketh a full man, Writing an exact man. Most people stop there. But the full sentence adds: conference a ready man. Conversation. Dialogue. The third leg. The one we always drop, as if reading and writing alone were enough. Bacon knew better. Readiness is not solitary. It happens in the presence of another mind.
In Kerala, that third leg has always been the street. Not the seminar hall. The street corner where an auto driver names his vehicle after a novel.
A few years ago, a photo went around of an auto in Kerala. The driver, Pradeep, had named his three-wheeler The Alchemist — after reading the Malayalam translation of Paulo Coelho’s novel. That was ten years before the photo was taken. He had changed the vehicle a couple of times. He never changed the name. Someone photographed it, tagged Coelho on Twitter, and the Brazilian writer — fifteen million followers — reposted it with just this: Kerala, India (thank you very much for the photo). Pradeep became an internet sensation without quite intending to. Coelho probably smiled and moved on. But the auto kept running. Same name. Same roads.
And then there is Dhanuja Kumari. She is a sanitation worker in Thiruvananthapuram, with the Haritha Karma Sena — the door-to-door waste collection service. She dropped out of school in the ninth grade. She began writing on scrap paper. Not to publish. Just to cope. What came out was a memoir — Chengalchoolayile Ente Jeevitham. My Life in Chengalchoola. Published in 2014. By 2024, it was part of the BA curriculum at Kannur University and the MA curriculum at Calicut University. She still collects waste in the mornings. She is writing her second book. Her colony has a library. She started it. It is called Wings of Women.
Two libraries. One on a beach, one in a colony. Both named after people.
Pradeep changed the vehicle. Never the name. Dhanuja wrote on scrap paper. It ended up in syllabi.
I remember reading, a long time ago, how Mahasweta Devi — the Bengali literary giant — encouraged an ordinary rickshaw puller (Manoranjan Byapari) to write. It stayed with me. I didn’t know then why. I think I do now.
After my own days of trauma — the nights, the twilights, the dawns — I sat in an online writing workshop and learned one thing. Perspectives matter. But more than that: those who have suffered, who have tasted the salt in their own tears — they are the ones who write literature. Mostly.
Rumi on a tourist van. Coelho on an autorickshaw. A library facing the sea.
Where else.
On our last day at Kochi, I told Nishad, who was taking care of us at Kochi, that we got to pay a visit to Kaladi Sankara’s birthplace. I had been there a couple of times. Thara has not. In the dedication page of my first published book “Fallen Flower and Fragrant Grass”, I had penned, “There were three Sankaras in my life.. EMS, Sankara and Adi Sankara. Of the three, it was Sankara, my late father, who taught me without teaching me to walk on the Middle Way between left and right. I dedicate this book to his wonderful memories.” And on our way, there was a board Pazhayidam Naivedyam. That triggered a photo of a Sadya on leaf shared by my sister Sandhya when she was visiting Guruvayoor, just a week back. My sister Sandhya, my nephew Anand, and my brother-in-law Manjunath — when they visited Guruvayoor last month — had their lunch at Pazhayidam Ruchi, a restaurant run by him.
Pazhayidam Mohanan Namboothiri.
And then, in the kitchen, another stage: Pazhayidam (literally “Old Place” in Malayalam, often contrasted with Puthiyaidam — “New Place”) is always fresh in taste. A six-flavoured culinary art that never tires the eater. Even those weary of life, ready to die, find themselves returning to the rasa — the essence of life — through it… He would say that life thirty years ago was not beautiful. After completing a degree in chemistry, there was a search for jobs. Nothing was working out. He started supplying equipment to school and college laboratories. That too failed midway. Then he began to lose hope. He was 28 years old. Sitting at home without any work or employment, he even thought of death. Even when he was completely depressed, he did not forget the path to the Kuttichathan Public Library. Behind that journey was his love for M.T.’s stories. When it felt like darkness was ahead, standing at a junction, he happened to flip through a weekly magazine hanging in a shop. In it was the beginning of M.T. Vasudevan Nair’s Randamoozham. It started like this: “That day, the sea had a dark colour…” He read the chapter titled Yatra two or three times. His mind told him that if he left the world without finishing this novel, it would be a loss. He journeyed with the novel until the 51st issue. Later, as brand ambassador for a food product, Mohanan Namboothiri earned his name and fame cooking for thousands at Kerala School Festival (one of the most reported events in Kerala), holding rare records and earning accolades.
Not sure Sandhya was aware of the story.
On our way to Kochi, Thara and I stayed at Usha Aunty and Dr. Radhakrishnan’s home in Coimbatore. Family friends for forty years. In the guest room, on the table there was a book. The Academy of Magic. Written by their granddaughter, Sanvi. A schoolgirl. Just that — a child’s first published story. No syllabus. No struggle. Only the ordinary miracle of a child who wrote. Who knows. I was about to take it and read it, then Nyra, the author’s cousin sister walked in to talk to Thara and I, and the rest of the evening went for it. So I added that book to my reading queue. The title of the book sounds like one of those J.K. Rowling series. “The Academy of Magic”. Who knows she may be the next J.K. Rowling.
The van, the auto, the waste cart, the seaside library, the guest room, the kitchen — all are libraries. All are literature.
Where else? Everywhere there is hunger. Not for food. For the thing that makes food worth making. Last month, my family sat at his table. They didn’t need to know. That’s how it works.
