PIONEER NEWSPAPER
PUNE MIRROR
Variety
Book of life
The
novel Kith and Kind draws inspiration from the colourful lives lived by its
characters
Mrunmayi
Ainapure
Posted On Wednesday, February 20, 2013
 A collection of slice-of-life stories revolving around the Melekats, a fictitious old Nair family from Kerala, Kith and Kinfeatures the matriarch Ammini Amma and her various siblings and descendants. In the author’s own words, “Kith and Kin is about life lived, badly or well. Life throws all sorts of things at us. Some of us deal with the situation competently, some of us drown in the undertow, many run away from it all! And then there’s the dying light of old Nair clans who still live in the past even though their days of glory have long passed.” On why she chose to pen stories on this premise, Sheila informs, “I am a Malayali, so I guess I was operating from my comfort zone. However, I surprised even myself, going back to my roots. I was basically giving a voice to the many tales I have heard. It resonates with non-Mallus too.” Being a non-resident Keralite, the challenge for Sheila, was to stay true to the Kerala flavour inherent in the book. “My research was largely oral and memory-bound, stuff to do with attitudes, lifestyles, foods, festivals. For many years, there was no book inside me. Then suddenly, it dropped into my head almost fully formed! The characters pretty much got onto the page and wrote up their own situations, I promise you! I guess I got lucky with such strong, self-opinionated, wacky characters.” For Sheila, writing a pithy short story was no daunting task. “Being a feature writer, harnessing that ability to tell a story and keep it succinct came automatically.” Sheila will read out from her book on Thursday, at Crosswords, Senapati Bapat road, 6 pm. CITY EXPRESS, BANGALORE |
THE WEEK
T I M E OUT BANGALORE - BOOKS
Kith and Kin
As realistic as the lovely book jacket
A reader familiar with
god’s own country will recall the latter part of the title – devil’s own people
– while reading Sheila Kumar’s Kith and Kin – Chronicles of a Clan. Tightlipped matriarch Ammini Amma and her
sprawling abode Mon Repos in south Malabar form the mother lode of the Melekat
clan, a Nair family whose descendants have left Kerala for Bangalore, Mumbai
and the US, but are traceable by their aquiline features, snobbery and
emotional fireworks.
Kumar spins vignettes
on idiosyncratic relatives, with a family tree and a brief glossary after each
chapter as navigational tools. There are the two widowed aunts who tend to
their maternal home, even as its demands outstrip their ageing capabilities;
youth teetering between arranged marriages and adultery; and the cantankerous
grandfather whose only link to a grander past is his mother’s carved teak
bench, which he now occupies on the porch of his son’s home in Bangalore.
The fictional
chronicle is an entertaining reflection of a proud clan whose best days are
over. But there is a point at which the Melekat eccentricity begins to pale;
after a couple of superfluous stories, the whimsical pop culture asides begin
to vex with the realisation that the connections fail to create a stronger
narrative thread. Kith and Kin conjures an image of the Malayali psyche that is as realistic as
the lovely book jacket, but sadly stops short of becoming a powerhouse family
saga.
Sheila Kumar's Kith and Kin Rupa, R250
By Saumya Ancheri on August 31 2012
THE TIMES OF INDIA, KOCHI
Sheila Kumar’s
book ‘Kith and Kin’ released
TNN | Nov 18, 2012,
The book, which is a collection of 19 short stories, was released by noted script writer and director Renji Panicker, who handed over a copy to Thiruvathira Tirunal Lakshmi Bai, a member of the Travancore royal family.
Renji Panicker said as a fan of fiction he enjoyed reading the book and had finished it overnight. The debut collection of stories features Melekats, a fictitious Nair family in south Malabar which has Amminni Amma, the matriarch, at its centre.
The book was released in Bangalore in July this year. "Reading the book is like looking into a mirror. It brings to your mind grandmas and old temples. It also creates the feeling that you are familiar with characters in the book," said Lakshmi Bai. Addressing the gathering after the release, Sheila Kumar said many people wanted her to write a book, but she was always reluctant. "But then characters and their lives started flowing in. The book speaks about joy, sorrow, heartbreak and many other feelings," she said adding that she prefer fiction as it gave the freedom to write anything. "I used to observe everything when I visited my native place once every year," said Sheila. And she was quick to point out: "It's surely not about my family or tharavadu".
WINNOWED BLOGSITE REVIEW: VINOD JOSEPH
WEDNESDAY, 11 JULY 2012
Three generations of the Melekats are represented in Sheila Kumar’s short story collection Kith and Kin. There’s Melekat Ammini Amma, the Matriarch, her son Balan, daughters Padmini and Leela and a number of assorted grandchildren. The Melekat folks are a breed apart. Hailing from an aristocratic Nair family in northern Kerala, some of them can be arrogant, just as many are down to earth. Good looks run in the family and many Melekats are handsome or extremely beautiful, like Ammini Amma herself or her daughter Padmini. There are exceptions of course, such as Padmini’s daughter Beena. In this modern day and age, they live in various parts of India and travel overseas quite often. Over nineteen delightful stories Sheila Kumar manages to gently suss out the vagaries and idiosyncrasies of this exotic breed, their spouses, partners and lovers, and the reader ends up wanting more.
The Melekat family believes in its importance and image and takes great pains to maintain it. When Ammini Amma’s daughter Padmini becomes a widow, she is relieved because her tuberculosis afflicted husband had inflicted a great deal of suffering on her. She has a fourteen month old son and a number of older children. Though her husband had imposed a frugal life on her, or maybe because of it, there is enough money to go around for the rest of their lives. Plus she has Saju, her Man Friday who is such a comfort to have around. The family descends for the funeral and later insists that she fire Saju since Saju no longer acted like a servant and it was only a matter of time before people started talking. Padmini tries to resist – 'Does no one care that I need Saju here?' she bursts out. 'Servants are dispensible, They must be dispensible,' is the refrain from the rest of the family. Family pride wins in the end. Saju is sacked, but as he leaves, he utters a couple of sentences which turn the story, Cast In Mourning, on its head.
Yes, a handful of stories in this collection come with a Jeffrey Archeresque twist in the end. These are quite unexpected, especially because these do not seem to be stories with a hidden or surprise ending. Cast In Mourning would have been a good read even without the sudden turn towards the end.
The best thing about Kith and Kin is that Kumar does not make any value judgements. Colours, the story of Beena (Padmini’s daughter and the Matriarch’s granddaughter) is a case in point. Beena’s folks are on the lookout for a suitable boy for her. The first proposal comes in when Beena is twenty-two. Some boys reject Beena and Beena rejects a few, such as one on the ground the man lived in Ghatkopar. Time passes by and not too smoothly. Finally when Beena is close to thirty and her younger brother Amar is already married, she meets a man she likes. Does “tall, dark and handsome who holds a good job in London” reciprocate? Do read Colours to find out. Mind you, the ending doesn’t really matter since the breeze in Sheila Kumar’s farm is gentle, irrespective of the direction.
The Melekat clan might be ancient, but modern values and ailments have caught up with them. Some marriages are broken, some of the Melekats make unfaithful partners, and some like Ammini Amma’s granddaughter Suvarna seem to be commitment phobic. However, Sheila Kumar never plays judge and all characters receive equal respect for the diversity they represent.
You can’t have a clan like the Melekats without a family home, something on the lines of Tara or Manderley. The sprawling Melekat family house is incongruously named Mon Repos and has an outhouse, called The Retreat. Mon Repos, despite its French name, is a typical Kerala house with mango, almond and chikoo trees, a cowshed with its distinctive smells and lowing animals inside and a tiled brick shed where water was boiled in copper bottomed vats for the numerous oil baths.
I could go on in much more detail – there are nineteen stories in all. However I’ll stop here with a gentle Sheila-esque suggestion that Kith and Kin be added to your reading list at your earliest convenience.
WOMEN'S WEB WEBSITE
Sheila Kumar’s Kith And Kin is an almost voyeuristic peek into the lives
of the Melekat clan, written in an unusual format.
Review by Sandhya
Renukamba
Imagine a tree that
grows tall and strong, and bears many branches; each of which may have its own
separate destiny. Yet, there is no denying the link they have to the roots of
the tree, which grow deep into the earth and bring them their sustenance.
Sheila Kumar’s Kith And Kin bring to mind just such a tree. It is aptly subtitled –
chronicles of a clan. Meet, the Melekats; they are a formidable bunch, in all
their dysfunctional glory.
The novel is in an
unusual format – 19 short stories, each in the voice of one of the various
characters that populate the Melekat clan, narrated from the point of view of
that particular person, a slice of everyday life as they live it. Each story is
complete in itself, able to stand alone. Collectively, they paint an interesting
picture of human dynamics in a large, extended family that is multitudinous in
hopes, needs, wants, motives, wishes, action and station.
Right from the first
story, Sheila Kumar’s narrative draws the reader into the lives of her
characters. They are far from perfect, seriously flawed even, which makes them
human and real. There are pragmatic ones as well as dreamers. There are
impractical optimists who embark on impossible relationships as well as
brooding pessimists who live only in past glory. There are passive-aggressive
ones who feel relieved and ready to live their lives after the death of a
spouse, as well as resentful ones who try to make things work despite
everything. There is adultery as well as commitment. There is destructive
hatred as well as joyous celebration. At one point I was wondering if I was
reading about a celebrity I know of, one who belongs to the same community the
Melekats belong to.
There is also an
interesting circular pattern to the stories, which begin in the present, go
into the past, and return to the present. We even have the first and last
stories about the same characters. There is a sense of inevitability to the way
they play out their destiny in the unexpected twist in the last story.
Ammini Amma rules over
Mon Repos, the improbably named, sprawling ancestral home. She is the loved but
somewhat feared mother, beloved grandmother or legendary matriarch, whose word
is always the last one. She rarely features in person in the stories, but we
get a composite picture of her through the voices of each character. Her
presence is unmistakable in the background or foreground of their lives, as is
that of Mon Repos, a home that is comparable to Manderlay in Daphne du
Maurier‘s Rebecca or Tara in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With The Wind – almost a separate character by itself.
There are a couple of
stories, though, that dragged a bit and could have done with a re-write. There
is also a story involving a ghost that could have been edited out; it somehow
did not feel essential to the narrative as seen from a bird’s eye view. All in
all, a well-written debut novel.
Publishers: Rupa Publications.
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