Author of longest-running literary column is dead

M Krishnan Nair, author of Sahityavaraphalam, a Malayalam literary column that ran for more than 35 years, is no more.

BY GOPAL

23 February 2006
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, KERALA, INDIA

M. Krishnan Nair, 83, who probably authored the longest-running literary column in the world, died here on Friday of a massive cardiac arrest.

He started penning his weekly column ‘Sahityavaraphalam’ (which literally means weekly horoscope of literature) in 1969 and continued to write it till last week though he was ailing and was not even able to fill ink in his favourite pen.

His entertaining prose, classical aesthetics, witty asides and sardonic comments on life and society made the column widely popular.

It first appeared in Malayalanadu magazine and later migrated to Kalakaumudi and Malayalam Varika, without breaking its stride or losing readers.

People ranging from autorickshaw drivers to college professors and avant-garde poets read it with keen interest every week. Even when they disagreed with much of what Mr Krishnan Nair said about art and life, they secretly chuckled at the way he said it.

In Mr Krishnan Nair’s case, even post-modernists agreed with the classical dictum that “style is the man”.
Never one to shy away from controversy, the critic, who was once called a ‘street thug’ by an angry novelist, consistently held on to the view that there were no original writers in Malayalam.
He pooh-poohed celebrated authors of the State and often said that they were pygmies when compared to the likes of Tolstoy and Thomas Mann.

He did not spare himself either and termed his column ‘superficial’ and a ‘mish-mash of literary journalism and gossip’. As an afterthought, he would add, “That is why even headload workers have been reading it for 35 years”.

Many a young writer has squirmed under his acerbic pen and Mr Krishnan Nair always justified his lack of mercy by quoting Aldous Huxley’s dictum, “Bad literature is crime against society”.

However, many of these writers wilted under his polite and graceful behaviour when they met him personally.
Thanks to Mr Krishnan Nair, ordinary Malayalis know quite a lot about Marquez, Neruda and the magic of “Magic Mountain’.

“He introduced all of us to great literature,” said poet Balachandran Chullikad. “Our generation owes him great gratitude”.