Sarah Joseph, one of the best storytellers of her generation, professor of Malayalam, left of left social activist, has always tempted me to call her a rebel par excellence. Hailing from a conservative, none-too-rich Christian background Sarah Teacher, as she is respectfully addressed, writes with powerful insight into whatever she writes on. In Alahayude Penmakkal (Daughters of Alaha; Alaha means God) as well as in earlier works like Nanmathinmakalude Wriksham (The Tree of Knowledge), she gave ample evidence of her craft as well as incisive scanning skills. This work, Othappu, is therefore no new revelation of her genius as a writer.

This novel describes the agony of a nun who runs away from her convent. Entering a convent as an aspirant and leaving a convent to re-enter the world as a defrocked nun are both difficult decisions. Both are acts of renunciation. However, the former is appreciated and the latter heavily condemned by society. In this, we the outsiders are conditioned by our prejudices. It is but very seldom that we try to get into the abandoned robes and understand what led to those robes being cast away. In Othappu, Joseph attempts to do that though not with complete success. Margalitha, her heroine, leaves behind the picture of a helpless and confused woman challenging the reader to analyse the complexity of a person who goes through two death experiences while alive, dying to the world into which one is born and later dying to the world which one has entered with enthusiasm.

... contd.