Writing Circa DC

Dominic Chacko Kizhakkemuri, DC to friends, was not a name much mentioned beyond the geographic confines of his bristling little world of letters. And what a self-sufficient cosmos it was - dense and alive like no other, if opaque to the outsider's curious gaze. One where, above all, the printed word had a special existence.

But if all of modern Malayalam literature were to have one acknowledgements page, DC is one name that would leap out at you insistently. For he was the author of a seminal moment in its history - one of the most radical experiments ever seen in the world of books anywhere. And a gamut of greats like the late Vaikom Mohammed Basheer, O.V. Vijayan, Kamala Das, Sukumar Azhikode, VKN and Mukundan have publicly declared their debt to him. Says VKN, whose flaming prose flowed regularly from DC's stables: 'DC was different, dependable. He never resorted to the cheap tactics publishers are prone to.'

History and hubris drove Kizhakkemuri to publishing in the early '40s. The National Book Stall, started by him and Ponkunnam Varkey, was the publishing wing of the Sahitya Pravarthaka Sahakarana Sangham (SPSS). A writer's co-operative, spss was the kind of idea that could only have come out of Kerala. The fine balance it achieved between entrepreneurial flourish and writerly passion - a combination patented by the man - revolutionised publishing in Kerala, and stoked the literary ferment that was building at the time.

As SPSS's publications chief and later secretary, he welded the disparate perceptions and colliding egos of writers into the contours of a common cause. spss had salutary spinoffs - copious royalties came the way of writers and affordable editions flooded the markets, whetting the appetites of the vast reading public that was being created. High literacy was just a happy statistic; the quality of that literacy was another thing altogether.

Which is why, after over a half-century of his dominating presence, it's a travesty to think of the man as a mere proprietor of a publishing house. His own flagship, DC Books -floated when he left in a huff after three decades with SPSS - has established a 'one new book a day' record. It now controls 70 per cent of the marketshare and continues that special brand of enterprise. Says Kamala Das: 'He always paid my royalties on time, that took care of my livelihood.' Adds Vijayan: 'He kept my accounts for me. I trusted him completely.'

As DC's brain improvised, expensive books were offered on instalment; pulp was balanced with high art; classics like Ramayana and Mahabharata were popularised; encyclopaedias and dictionaries churned out, all with high production values. A nose for good writing and a feel for the marketplace meant literature was merchandised, not commercialised. Perhaps he had a historical edge. Kottayam, where he lived and died, has a long history as Kerala's publishing capital, dating to the mid-19th century ago, when Protestant missionaries set up presses to print Bibles.

If he derived his vicarious catharsis in launching the literary careers of a galaxy of authors, it was at the cost of his own unrealised aspirations - DC never evolved beyond the genre of a humour essayist or satirical columnist.His real acumen lay in coaxing literature out of other writers. Teacher, freedom fighter, columnist - he was all of them, but cliches don't sit well on him. He had a singular passion, squarely located between the covers of a book.

On Republic Day he was conferred the Padma Bhushan. That same day he died.