Publisher’s write-up:
‘ME GRANDAD
'AD AN ELEPHANT is the translation of Ntuppuppakko- ranendarnnu. The original
Malayalam book made great impact in reading and has been translated into all
major languages of India. In this book Basheer has drawn here and there for
character on people he has known.’
Note: I read the French translation of the novel
Me Grandad 'ad
an Elephant is one of the most well known novels of Vaikom Muhammad Basheer,
one of the most important figures of Malayalam literature and was also a
freedom fighter against British colonialism.
The plot takes
place in a village in Kerala, around a young Muslim girl named
Kounnioupattoumma. Even though her family is rich, her family are also very
conservative and they are illiterate. Her mother is already worried that
Kounnioupattoumma is notmarried yet and she is already in her twenties. She
herself is in the dark, when it comes to either knowledge, nor when it comes to
knowing people, even though she was a very curious woman and used the
principles of Islam to show compassion towards animals, to the point of
becoming vegetarian, much to the ire of her mother. Her love for animals
started when the only piece of information she ever had, was the fact that her
grandfather had an elephant, which was a great source of pride for her mother.
Their lives were going to change given their legal problems, and also, when
they had new neighbours, who were also Muslims but progressive and educated, a
great contrast compared to that of Kounnioupattoumma’s family.
The development
of the character of Kounnioupattoumma was done well, how little by little, she
starts to defy her domineering mother. The landscape and scenery of Kerala was
also well described, the name of the village or the district where they lived
was never specified but it was
evident from the description of the places, the names of characters, the staple
food that they cooked and consumed that it was somewhere in Kerala. The author
also evoked the feeling of false pride, which kept the family and even the society
at large in ignorance. With the wealth of her family, Kounnioupattoumma could
have surely had better opportunities that she did. The relationship between Aïcha
and Kounnioupattoumma, the first friend whom she had ever made, was also described
well.
I would have liked it though, if the author had written a little more on
the legal dispute that had changed the destiny of the family of
Kounnioupattoumma, and equally a little on the history of the family – we knew only
as much as Kounnioupattoumma, that her grandfather had an elephant, but not why
they became so conservative or the choice to not be literate. At times, I felt
there were issues with the translation, as when Kounnioupattoumma starts to learn
to read, she learns that the first letter of the alphabet is ‘ba’ like in
Arabic, but considering she was learning Malayalam, it should have been ‘a’ for
vowels or ‘ka’ for consonants, but certainly not ‘ba’.
To conclude, the is a well written novel and it would interest those who
are interested in reading novels that take place in other parts of the world. I
award the book a rating of seven on ten.
Rating – 7/10
Have a nice day,
Andy
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