I tried contacting him once, back when I was just a cub reporter. The buzz was that Room No.1 at Ernakulam’s BTH Hotel was booked for him whenever he was in town. On a whim, I dialed the reception, asked to be connected to the room and braced for the inevitable. A deep baritone answered, and I spelled out my credentials, fumbling for courage. Could we meet for an interview? 

“Interview onum tharan patilla,” he said bluntly in Malayalam – he couldn’t give any interview – and the call ended. 

I hung up, feeling a strange kind of glee, like a child who’d dared to ask his father for an ice cream and got promptly turned down.

In later years, I found myself in places where I could have talked to him. He lived just a stone’s throw from my childhood home, and I spotted him at literary events, even within handshake distance at the last Kerala Literature Festival in January. But something in me froze every time. I was no longer the clueless kid who made that phone call. The more I read about him – his works, his world – the more I felt a slight terror at the thought of approaching him.

There’s a notion among some admirers that you need a certain “kazhivu”, or exceptional talent, just to even say hello to him. Otherwise, you’d be wasting his time, and his time felt too precious, too otherworldly, for a trivial greeting.

Over and over, I’ve tried to make sense of this man who loomed so large, this writer everyone calls MT. If you try to separate his life, which is almost impossible because everything overlaps, you might find four distinct ways he shaped our world: as a writer, as a formidable editor, as a groundbreaking screenwriter, and as the ultimate Malayali intellectual.

First, his life as a writer.

He was a literary rock star by the time many of us were barely old enough to know the world or ourselves, having published two of the most popular Malayalam novels ever called Nalukettu and Asuravithu at the age of 25 and 29. Veteran poet P Kunjiraman Nair, in his autobiography, reminisced about how in his 50s he watched this rising star with affection and awe.

His success was despite the unsettling nature of his stories. He was no stranger to fatherless households, or to families bound by tradition yet devoid of warmth. In Iruttinte Athmavu, he conjured a young man driven to the edge by neglect and cruelty. In Asuravithu, he tackled religion and identity with a frankness that unsettled readers. Over and over, his characters found themselves in a world where authority had no patience for them – and they, in turn, had no patience for false consolations. 

Bitterness, longing, or anger flowed through his stories. Whether it’s resentment toward a rigid social order or frustration at father figures who never show up, MT’s characters always carry that “stain” in their veins, wrote poet Kalpetta Narayanan once. That essence of dissatisfaction ran through everything he touched: the sense that old walls were crumbling, the social fabric was changing, and Malayalis were stumbling forward into a modern world with no safety nets. 

He had a gift for sinking into the darkest corners of Malayali life – where old structures collapsed and entire families faced emptiness – and then showing us the raw wound beneath the bandage, Narayanan wrote. Yet, no matter how painful, readers loved him for it. They recognised themselves in his stories of lonely hearts, broken traditions, and the struggle to find dignity in the midst of it all.

His use of unvarnished Malayalam of everyday life, stripping away classical pretensions, surely played a role. His relationship with words felt almost surgical. It’s said there was never a stray syllable or empty sound in his prose. Whether he wrote about people who were lonely in a crowd, about social structures that devoured individuals, he refused to adorn his words with unnecessary flourishes, keeping his language tight, direct, sometimes even abrasive.

To say his stories resonated widely would be an understatement. He was the sort of writer whose very name on a magazine’s cover could send sales soaring. No matter the subject, even if they would be deemed controversial today. When he wrote of a man railing against the gods, or of gods acting like flawed mortals, believers took no offense. Instead, they celebrated. Everybody from prime ministers to movie actors to local businessmen lined up to grant his wishes. People would do anything just to honour him, the way they might revere a godfather – only his weapon of choice was the pen.

And so he became, for five generations, the face of an entire literary culture. Generations of writers, from the old guard to the new wave, wanted to write like him, or at least be received like him. Six-year-olds sent him letters, as did legendary writers far older than him. It’s hard to imagine any writer in Malayalam today commanding that level of love and respect.

Second, his professional life as an editor.

At 35, he became editor of Mathrubhumi Weekly, which was then the gold standard of Malayalam literary magazines. For the next 13 years, he nurtured and discovered some of our greatest writers. Lalithambika Antharjanam’s Agnisakshi, Punathil Kunjabdulla’s Smarakashilakal, and Sethu’s Pandavapuram – all found a home under his watch.

During this time, he published his own short stories and novels elsewhere, but his day job was curating the cream of Malayalam literature. Then came the famous fallout with Mathrubhumi. He was asked to explain his leaves of absence, or so the story goes. At the height of his career, perhaps irritated by the bureaucracy, he penned a legendary resignation letter and walked away.

He returned to Mathrubhumi in 1989 when the owner, late MP Vireendrakumar, personally requested him to come back. By then, he had written Randamoozham, his magnum opus that reinterpreted the Mahabharata from Bhima's perspective. Even after officially retiring in 1999, his influence continued. As recently as last decade he happened to mention a new writer like Manu Pillai, that was enough to catapult the author into near-instant household fame.

Third, his other career as a scriptwriter.

Calling him just a “scriptwriter” doesn’t cut it. With seven National Awards, 21 State Awards, and many other honors, no other writer left a mark on Malayalam cinema quite like MT. Over the years, “an MT script” became an event in itself, drawing audiences in droves and shaping the careers of countless artists. Directors, producers, and actors clamoured to be associated with him.

He spotted raw potential in people like Mammootty, cinematographer Ramachandra Babu, and a then-unknown Santosh Sivan. He forged enduring collaborations with master directors – IV Sasi at first, and then more famously with Hariharan. As a director, MT also delivered some of the boldest moments in Malayalam film history: in Nirmalyam, the climax sees a priest spitting at a Hindu idol, an act so startling that it remains controversial even today. Astonishingly, viewers met it not with outrage but with respect, a testament to the unvarnished honesty at the heart of his storytelling.

He was also among the first in Malayalam cinema to seamlessly blend the flamboyant musicality of Indian films with the structure and pacing often seen in Western genre movies. From early on, his scripts also carried a distinctly progressive sensibility: in 1970, for instance, he rattled social norms by portraying a hero who accepts a heroine raped by the villain – nearly unthinkable in Indian cinema at the time. Time and again, his belief in strong female voices shaped the likes of Utharam, Panchagni, Aranyakam, Manju, Enn Ninte Janakikutty, and Daya, each spotlighting women as fully realised characters rather than mere ornaments. 

Over the course of more than 50 screenplays, MT helped catapult Malayalam cinema from a niche, regional endeavor into a national force. Without his storytelling vision, the industry might still be a cottage affair, rather than the creative powerhouse it is today.

Fourth, his role as a Malayali intellectual.

He was the final arbiter of what was genius and what was not, at least in the popular imagination. It didn’t matter if the debate was cultural, social, or even political – people wanted to know MT’s stance. He didn’t go looking for power; people simply handed it to him.

He was like a massive banyan tree overshadowing all of Kerala’s cultural, religious, and political discourses. There seemed to be no subject on which he did not weigh in, formally or informally, and once he spoke, few dared to contradict him.

Yet, if you look at his personal life, there couldn’t have been a more unlikely person to capture the minds of Malayalis in this way.

He was not the cuddly sort. More often than not, he appeared distant, self-assured, and plain arrogant. He left his first wife and daughter to marry his lover. Throughout his adult life, he smoked like a chimney, drank heavily, and never made any effort to conform to the stereotype of a polite, gentlemanly Malayali family man. If anything, he seemed determined to shatter every notion of decorum.

Even in death, he played one final joke on the Malayali psyche.

For weeks, as the news trickled in about his failing health, every major newspaper and television channel had their obituaries ready. In print, editors had commissioned lengthy tributes, personal essays, and posthumous accolades. Then he died on a day when most newspapers weren’t being printed because of Christmas. Everyone has to wait another day to publish what they’d laboured over so carefully. One more time, he had the final word, and the world simply had to abide by it.

Decades before, he’d pulled a similar prank. After a major health scare, rumours spread that he was on the brink. A certain newspaper even prepared a full obituary. But he recovered, discovered their draft, and later turned the entire incident into a plot for the iconic film Sukrutham.

Looking back at his life, it’s easy to see the pattern in everything he did – an underlying rawness, an unflinching honesty that seemed to feed his stories, his editorial decisions, his screenplays, and ultimately, his public persona.

In the digital age, with its relentless scrutiny and social media echo chambers, it’s nearly impossible for any writer to be universally embraced the way MT was. Today, readers are quick to judge, quick to cancel, quick to pick sides. Yet, for nearly five decades, an entire generation and their children, and their children’s children, bowed their heads in respect whenever MT walked by.

We may never again see such universal acceptance bestowed upon a mere writer. He is gone. The last great Malayali voice is silent.

Nidheesh MK is a journalist who writes on politics, crime and business

This story was republished from The News Minute as part of the NL-TNM alliance. It has been lightly edited for style and clarity. 

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