Cross Examination

Margalitha leaves an affluent family to take the vows of chastity,poverty and obedience. Within the new family she cannot help being herself,even in her God-realisation. She breaks no vow that she has taken until she leaves. Yet she drifts into a grave state of sin when she feels that she has to chart her own path. That is vanity as a cardinal sin. Her basic problem is that she cannot be one among the many.

Karikkan,the young idealistic cowardly priest,on the other hand,is a slumdog millionaire. He comes from very poor circumstances. For him priesthood opens up a whole new world of possibilities. And yet he falls by the wayside totally helpless. In him it is the sin of selfishness that is obviously in action. He has his doubts and challenges,but his response is totally selfish. He seeks peace for himself. In the process,he destroys the peace of his father who commits suicide,his mother and sisters and finally Margalitha.

Perhaps,all this is playing Devil’s Advocate. After all,Joseph is making an effective commentary on the Church rather than explaining the thought processes of her characters,powerful as they are. She does succeed in unravelling those processes,but shies away from trying to analyse or explain the hows and whys thereof. The main theme is that institutionalised church does not satisfy in the end. Daniel Achan’s church,powerful and rich,does not reflect the tranquility of Jesus. It is in Yohannan Kaseesa’s home and Pattipunyalan’s eccentric forest mission where the reader finds that. And yet the author leaves the whole issue open-ended. Neither Margalitha nor Karikkan finds a convincing solution to the problem from which they seek to run away.

Joseph’s works give a discreet insight into contemporary society as it exists within the limits of her region. Othappu is no exception. One difficulty that I notice is that she is neither neutral nor impartial in her responses to the societal transformations that she reports. I do not allege that she is biased but I have to say that she believes in her ideological perspectives more blindly than the Christians of the Middle Ages did.

Professor Jancy James says in her precious Introduction that Othappu “unveils the birth pangs of a feminist spirituality,counterpointing itself to the aberrations of a male-dominated society that is hypocritical,materialistic,vain,cruel,and cowardly”. I beg to differ. No female portrayed in this novel,not even Margalitha,or Rebekka,defines any new dimension of spirituality. True they have their anguished responses to the spirituality they see around them but they do not give any model to emulate. However,I would joyfully endorse James’s verdict that “Othappu is an experiment with truth,integrating deftly into its narrative Biblical allusions and passages,and presenting a social vision based on Kerala’s history and heritage”.

Having read most of Joseph’s works,I would not have dared to translate her Malayalam: part of her craft is the almost untranslatable uses she puts the language to! Valson Thampu has succeeded in capturing the essential spirit and ensuring that the beauty of Malayalam used by one of its best storytellers — many compare her to Madhavikutty alias Kamala Das a.k.a. Surayya and place her next only to Madhavikutty among women storytellers in Kerala — is not lost in translation. Reading Thampu’s translation,I was reminded of V.K. Narayana Menon’s translation of Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai’s Chemmeen. Thampu’s English is as enjoyable as Joseph’s Malayalam.
_(The writer held the rank of chief secretary of Kerala)