A collective of readers and book lovers in Kozhikode, the country’s maiden ‘City of Literature’, is celebrating its golden jubilee this year by recording Kerala’s cultural history in the past 50 years.
N.M. Sunny, secretary of the Calicut Book Club, traces the beginning of the group to informal interactions that used to take place at Hotel Maharani. “Pala K.M. Mathew, former MP and journalist, was the general manager of the Manarcaud Pappan-owned hotel then. He used to have a good rapport with writers and intellectuals of the time. The seeds of the club were sown in his room, according to old timers,” he says. Though Kozhikode then had a number of good libraries and publications, platforms to discuss books were rare.
Stalwarts
Literary critic Sukumar Azhikode, who was the Pro Vice-Chancellor of the University of Calicut, was active in the cultural circles of Kozhikode city then and supported the initiative. Poets O.N.V. Kurup and Kadammanitta Ramakrishnan, who worked at the Government Arts and Science College and the Postal and Telegraph department, respectively, too had been part of the discussions. The club later relocated to a rented room below the CH flyover. T.P. Mammu, writer and retired teacher, is the president of the group now.
“Members of the club meet on the third Wednesday of every month between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. to discuss books by established or new writers in different languages. We have been following that practice even now. During the COVID-19 period, the discussions went online. Discussions are also held on the books by our members, some of who are writers,” Mr. Sunny says. Old records of the club show members expressing their views on books such as Freedom at Midnight by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre. They had also organised an event to honour Ronald E. Asher, British linguist, who translated the works of Vaikom Mohammed Basheer into English.
Functionaries of the club say that they are planning to bring out a compilation of articles highlighting the cultural history of Kerala in the past 50 years to mark the golden jubilee. The articles will be based on lectures by experts on topics such as women’s writing, the lives of transpersons, cinema, theatre, art, travel writing, film music and so on. Another article in the book will be on Kozhikode’s contribution to Malayalam literature and cinema.
The first lecture in the series was recently delivered by Sonia E. Pa. An exhibition of books by expatriate writers and an event to honour veteran writers too are in the pipeline.
