MT Vasudevan Nair, a legendary writer from the southern Indian state of Kerala, has died at the age of 91.
Nair died at a hospital in Kerala's Calicut district, where he was admitted a few days ago with breathing difficulties.
Apart from being a famous writer, MT, as Nair was popularly known, was also an acclaimed director and screenwriter.
Tributes began pouring in for the writer, considered the dean of literature in the Malayalam language.
Born in 1933 in the Palakkad district of Kerala, Nair was a voracious reader – although reading was not encouraged in his family – and began writing at a young age, with his works being published in magazines.
“Unlike other boys my age, I wasn't very interested in gaming. There was only one game I could play alone: writing,” he once told Outlook magazine .
Nair studied chemistry at university and later taught mathematics to students. Later, he joined the prestigious weekly Mathrubhumi and quickly made a name for himself as a writer and editor, with several novels and short story collections, newspaper columns, memoirs and travelogues to his credit.
As an editor, Nair is credited with discovering and publishing many young writers who later became famous.
Nair's novel Naalukettu (Four Blocks), about the decline of a joint family, won one of Kerala's highest literary honors in 1959. Decades later, he adapted the book into a telefilm for the channel government Doordarshan, winning a state award.
His novel Randamoozham (The Second Round), a retelling of the Hindu epic Mahabharata from the point of view of the character Bhima, is considered a classic of Indian literature.
He has won several awards throughout his career, including India's highest literary honor, the Jnanpith.
Apart from his literary work, Nair has had a prolific career as a screenwriter and director in Malayalam cinema, winning several national and state awards.
Among his best-known screenplays is Oru Vadakkan Veeragatha (A Northern Ballad of Valor), set in 16th-century Kerala, in which he retells a popular folk tale and subverts notions of villainy and honor. The film, with its powerful dialogues and performances, is considered a classic of Malayalam cinema.
A recent anthology series, Manorathangal, which adapted his short stories, featured stalwarts of the South Indian film industry such as Kamal Haasan, Mammootty, Mohanlal and Fahadh Faasil.
Malayalam superstar Mohanlal, who starred in the series, called Nair the “pride of Kerala”.
“You can change the dialogues of any other film, but not that of MT, because these dialogues are essential to understand the essence of what is being transmitted,” he said.
In interviews, Nair often talked about the books he read from around the world.
In a tribute to the writer on his 90th birthday last year, MV Shreyams Kumar, managing director of Mathrubhumi, wrote that Nair was always reading and rereading books.
“I have often thought about what future generations, including myself, should learn from TM. I believe it is concentration. Every time I see him, he is surrounded by books, completely immersed, almost like s “he was in meditation. The latest releases are still on his table, alongside classics by writers like Marquez,” he wrote.
