There’s a mismatch between the name Batten Bose and the man going by it. Sunk into an armchair, the potbellied man in his mid-60s with a receding hairline, is waiting for the plot to evolve in his head. Then he puts his pen to an A4 sheet of paper and writes in Malayalam: “The midday sun slowly descends on the Western Ghats. The sky looks like a blue vessel placed upside down over the earth. Wispy clouds float through it, resembling blood-thirsty vampire bats!”
At his modest two-storey house near Kudayampadi, a few kilometres from the hustle and bustle of Kottayam town in south-central Kerala, Batten Bose, who was born Kochukunnel Mathayi Chacko, is trying to painstakingly gouge words out of himself for the latest of his dime novels, the 171st in a long writing career that spans many genres.
This year marks 50 years in Batten Bose’s literary life. One of the biggest pulp fiction names in Malayalam, who once enjoyed rock-star status among the readers, Batten Bose has written novels, a handful of screenplays for movies and television serials. His inspiration is drawn from real life — anything from a money heist in Europe to the recent serial killings in Kerala’s Koodathayi village.
