''Naalukettu'' is a

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam was des ...

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

written by

M. T. Vasudevan Nair Madath Thekkepaattu Vasudevan Nair (born 1933 July 15 ), popularly known as MT, is an Indian author, screenplay writer and film director. He is a prolific and versatile writer in modern Malayalam literature, and is one of the masters of post-I ...

. Published in 1958, it was MT's first major novel. The title attributes to

Nālukettu Nālukettu is the traditional homestead of old Tharavadu where many generations of a matrilineal family lived. These types of buildings are typically found in the Indian state of Kerala. The traditional architecture is typically a rectangular ...

, a traditional ancestral home (''Taravad'') of a

Nair The Nair , also known as Nayar, are a group of Indian Hindu castes, described by anthropologist Kathleen Gough as "not a unitary group but a named category of castes". The Nair include several castes and many subdivisions, not all of whom histor ...

joint family. Like many other novels written by MT, ''Naalukettu'' is also set against the backdrop of the crumbling matrilineal order of Kerala in a newly independent India. ''Naalukettu'' remains a classic in Malayalam fiction. It contributed to the renewal of a literary tradition initiated by

S. K. Pottekkatt Sankarankutty Kunjiraman Pottekkatt (14 March 1913 – 6 August 1982) was an Indian writer of Malayalam literature and a politician from Kerala, India. He was also a great traveller among the Keralites, who wrote many travelogues for the peopl ...

Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai (17 April 1912 – 10 April 1999), popularly known as Thakazhi after his place of birth, was an Indian novelist and short story writer of Malayalam literature. He wrote over 30 novels and novellas and over 7 shor ...

and

Uroob Parutholli Chalappurathu Kuttikrishnan, popularly known by his pen name Uroob ( ml, ഉറൂബ്; 1915 – 1979) was an Indian writer of Malayalam literature. Along with Basheer, Thakazhi, Kesavadev, and Pottekkatt, Uroob was counted am ...

in the 1950s. It was given the

Kerala Sahitya Akademi The Kerala Sahitya Akademi or Academy for Malayalam literature is an autonomous body established to promote the Malayalam language and Malayalam literature, literature. It is situated in City of Thrissur, Kerala in India. History The academy ...

Award in 1959. It has had 23 reprints (as of 2008) and was translated into 14 languages and had a record sale of a half a million copies (as of 2008) and still features in the best-seller lists.K. Kunhikrishnan (6 January 2008)
"Caught in the cusp of change"
''

The Hindu ''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It began as a weekly in 1878 and became a daily in 1889. It is one of the Indian newspapers of record and the secon ...

''. Retrieved 6 July 2013."'Nalukettu' a landmark work, says Baby"
(in Malayalam). ''

''. 14 January 2008. Retrieved 6 July 2013.

Doordarshan Doordarshan (abbreviated as DD; Hindi: , ) is an Indian public service broadcaster founded by the Government of India, owned by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and one of Prasar Bharati's two divisions. One of India's largest bro ...

adapted the novel into a

television film A television film, alternatively known as a television movie, made-for-TV film/movie or TV film/movie, is a feature-length film that is produced and originally distributed by or to a television network, in contrast to theatrical films made for ...

in 1995. Malayalam actor Krishnaprasad enacted the protagonist in this film. It won the Kerala State Television Award for the year 1996. A screenplay based on the novel was released on 8 December 2012 as part of the DC International Book Festival,

Thiruvananthapuram Thiruvananthapuram (; ), also known by its former name Trivandrum (), is the capital of the Indian state of Kerala. It is the most populous city in Kerala with a population of 957,730 as of 2011. The encompassing urban agglomeration populati ...

."നാലുകെട്ടിന്റെ തിരക്കഥ വരുന്നു"
. (in Malayalam).

DC Books DC Books is a publisher in Kerala publisher of books in Malayalam, and one of the publishers in India . It also operates one of the largest book store chains in India, with a network of over 45 bookshops under the DC Books and Current Books b ...

. 8 December 2012. Retrieved 2 June 2013.

Plot

''Naalukettu'' is a veritable depiction of the matriarchal social order of Kerala's

community in its final gasp for life. The hero Appunni is a scion of a once rich and powerful family. Appunni is the son of a woman who married a man of her own choices and who did not marry the man whom her

Karnavar Karanavar or Karanavan or Karanava, parsimoniously speaking, was the title of male head in Malayalee and Kodava society. Karnavar is also a surname for some aristocratic Nair families in and around Budhanur, Chengannur, Kerala, India, all br ...

suggested. So she has to leave the family with her son and Appunni grows up without a father and away from the prestige and protection of the matrilineal home to which he belongs. The novel captures the traumas and psychological graph of Appunni, an introvert and angry youth, aspiring to avenge the insult meted out to him in a matrilineal family by building a new edifice on the ruins of his ancestral home.

Reception

s critic K. Kunhikrishnan comments: "''Naalukettu'' was significant in that it fascinatingly portrayed the degeneration of the matrilineal system of joint families (tharawad), where large numbers of relatives lived together. The decline and collapse of the system resulted in nuclear families and consequential social, traditional and economic changes. But apart from the historical angle, ''Naalukettu'' has a lasting literary value, as one of the best in Malayalam fiction."

Translations

The novel has been translated to various Indian and foreign languages. The English translation is by: * The Arabic translation is by: * Musthafa Wafy and Anas Wafy with the same title and published by Al-Madarek- Jeddha The Konkani translation is by: * Gokuldas Prabhu with the title ''Chavki''. This translation won the

Sahitya Akademi Translation Prize Sahitya Akademi Translation Prize or Sahitya Akademi Prize for Translation is a literary honour in India, presented by Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, given to "outstanding translations of creative and critical works" in 24 m ...

in 2002.

References

External links

''Naalukettu''
at dcbooks.com {{Malayalam Literature , state=collapsed 1958 novels Malayalam novels Indian novels adapted into films Novels set in Kerala Novels by M. T. Vasudevan Nair Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award-winning works DC Books books 20th-century Indian novels 1958 Indian novels