Capturing the Politics and Poetics of Everyday Life....

Two pillars hold the weight of society's fragile frame— Marriage and morality. Marriage weaves a thread of duty, binding hearts in the fabric of belonging, as long as we seek the world’s embrace. Morality, like an unseen fence, traces the lines between our lives, our acts, our tangled ties, defining what we dare and deny.         

Language is a riddle we grasp with trembling hands - to create meanings  and construct realities; Little do we realise  how we are pulled into the whirlpool of language, where we wrestle in vain to avert miscommunication; With each stumble and falter, we persist in refining our speech seeking to mend every rift and articulate every pause. Yet, in our quest for perfection  we fall deeper into language’s vast abysses.

By 2024, offering Kerala Studies within English departments in higher education institutions under the Government of Kerala has become a common and expected practice, no longer seen as anything out of the ordinary.  But there was a time when discussing even those narratives in Malayalam that had English  translations was considered an aberration.  I joined for PhD research at the Institute of English under the guidance of Prof. G. S. Jayasree in 2006. My research involved exploring the making of the new woman in nineteenth century Malabar. To facilitate the reading, two major texts I had chosen were Indulekha (1889) and  Parangodi Parinayam (1892). These texts had English translations, by OUP and  Samyukta: A Journal of Women's Studies respectively, before the beginning of my research.  Yet, I often encountered puzzled reactions when I mentioned my research topic and the department I was doing research in.   Fast forward to year 2013 - Jayasree M...