How a city enriched a writer, and how he returned it

Kozhikode in the 1950s and 1960s was a literary hub that shaped M.T. Vasudevan Nair's career.

Kozhikode city in the 1950s and 1960s resembled Athens during Socrates’ period, writer Punathil Kunjabdulla is reported to have said once. It was into this intellectual and cultural crucible that M.T. Vasudevan Nair landed in 1956 when he joined the Mathrubhumi weekly as a sub editor.

The city already had S.K. Pottekkatt, the globe-trotting writer. Vaikom Mohammed Basheer settled in the nearby Beypore after his marriage in 1958. The other wordsmiths who made the city their home included Uroob (P.C. Kuttikrishnan), Thikkodian, N.P. Mohammed, Akkitham Achuthan Namboothiri, N.N. Kakkad, Pattathuvila Karunakaran, and K.A. Kodungallur. Artist M.V. Devan, satirist VKN, and future filmmaker G. Aravindan too were part of the group. The camaraderie with them and the literary and cultural ambience of Kozhikode enriched M.T. in no small measure to evolve as a writer and filmmaker par excellence in later decades. And, M.T. enriched the city too over the years as he became its most famous resident in recent times.

In one of his articles, M.T. recalled that his first visit to Kozhikode happened when he was a 12-year-old boy. His father T. Narayanan Nair took M.T. along while visiting a bank in the city. For the village-bred boy, the horse carts trudging along the roads of Kozhikode was a curious spectacle, and he tasted ‘jilebi’ for the first time from Hotel Arya Bhavan on S.M. Street as well.

After joining Mathrubhumi, M.T. lived in rented rooms in different parts of the city before constructing a house named after his daughter Sitara, on Kottaram Road at Nadakkavu. Hotel Paragon, where Aravindan had a room, V. Abdulla’s Jambo Stores, the office of Kendra Kalasamithi, K.R. Menon’s book stall on Court Road, Pattathuvila’s rented room on Koorial Road...M.T. had many favourite havens.

The writers of those days loved to hang out on the Kozhikode beach. Bombay Hotel near the beach, Modern Hotel near Radha Theatre, Wheat House on Court Road, Hotel Alakapuri, Nilgiri Lodge, and Komala Vilas on Kallai Road were among the places that the group used to sit together. There used to be cultural events at Annie Hall and the Town Hall. They frequented Crown Theatre to watch classic English films. M.T. wrote most of his celebrated short stories, novels, and screen plays during the period.

When UNESCO declared Kozhikode as the first ‘City of Literature’ in the country in 2023, it was also seen as a recognition to the master craftsman. When the Kerala Literature Festival (KLF) was launched on the Kozhikode beach in 2016, M.T. was its patron. One of his last public speeches criticising ritualistic worship of those in power, which stirred up a healthy debate, was made at the KLF’s inaugural event in 2024.