Lines As Fine As Letters

Female literacy is the highest here but one seldom sees Kerala women at the forefront of any intellectual or public activity—politics, literature, cinema or social service. The much-appreciated matrilineal mode of inheritance once prevalent among the Nair community, it is averred, did not actually accord much freedom to the womenfolk; it only empowered the men on the mother’s line. There has been a perennial inflow of petro-dollars here for a few decades now but all or most of it goes into building houses—uncouth concrete structures—an investment both unproductive and unwise. Labour is paid the highest wages but there is hardly any sector, farming or industry, that can employ workers.

Unny takes in the sights and sounds of this ‘God’s own country’ as none has done before and the result is a remarkable book in lines and letters. Understandably, his sympathy and concern and even a sense of nostalgia give way to anger and anguish that grow increasingly into painful sarcasm. An insider can hardly take cognisance of the sights becoming uglier by the day and sounds turning grossly cacophonic. Sadly, even the spirits once believed to keep things going are slowly losing their grip over their credulous subjects.

Obviously, the experience of Kerala lends different messages and meanings to different sensibilities. An artist’s feel and perception of a human situation per se varies from the others’. Unny happens to be one of the finest cartoonists of the day. His quest for truth does not stop at cursory considerations. It goes beyond and beneath the obvious. What he expresses with wit and wisdom through his sketches and cryptic captions encapsulates the essence of a culture and living.

Spices and Souls is an extraordinarily spirited journey through the Malayali mindscape as only a Keralite sensibility is capable of. It is remarkable for its insider’s intimacy and incisive insights even as it keeps an outsider’s ethical detachment in its observations.

Going by the precision and allusiveness of his writing, one gets the happy impression that Unny employs the same pen to write as well as to sketch. His book is an excellent introduction to Kerala for the outsider and a must-read for every Keralite.

(The author is a noted film-maker.)