When I meet George Onakkoor at ‘Sudarsana’, his residence in Akshaya Gardens, Nalanchira, he tells me that he will soon have a new workspace in one of the three rooms that is being constructed on the first floor. It is not that he is unhappy with his present creative space – a chair and a table near the window in his bedroom on the ground floor. It is here that his literary career flourished, an eventful journey that completes 50 years this year.
“Although there is an executive chair in the room, I like using this simple wooden chair. Also, I keep two of the four panes of this window open when I sit here to write. There are curtains on all other windows in this house, except this one. I need some greenery and the open sky in front of me when I am in the mood to write,” says one of the prolific writers of Malayalam, gazing at a jasmine growing outside and some greenery in the neighbouring plot. “I usually write in the night when there is absolute silence all around. And, of course, this window is open,” he says.
A pile of plain white paper rests on the table, waiting to be filled with people, emotions and places. “I am writing a foreword for a book. I might be the one who has written the most number of forewords in Malayalam,” he says with a hearty laugh. Copies of the latest Malayalam books are piled up on another table on the right side of his writing table; books by K. R. Meera, Subhash Chandran, E. Santhosh Kumar…. “Before I sit down to write, I ensure that I have enough reference material around me. These books by new authors do come handy on some occasions,” he says. A pen stand, chocked with pens, and a flower vase are permanent features on the table, he says.
A shelf on the left side of the writing table is stocked with books, papers, files et al. A sepia-tinted picture of C.J. Thomas is kept on top of it. Showing a black and white photograph, kept on the bars of the closed window pane, along with pictures of Jesus Christ, he says: “I am in the photo with my parents, valiamma (mother’s elder sister) and my younger sister. I feel quite nostalgic when I look at it,” says the author.
That takes him back to his village, Onakkoor in Ernakulam district where he lived till he was in his 20s. “I took to writing at a very young age. My creative space was one corner of a long verandah. Also, it is where I used to read out from books for my paternal grandmother who couldn’t read and write. She would ask for the story summary if the book was in English and that eventually developed my story-telling skills. Since I started wearing spectacles at the age of 13, my outdoor activities were restricted and so books became my world,” says Onakkoor who moved to Thiruvananthapuram at the age of 21 when he was appointed as a lecturer at Mar Ivanios College.
At the college, he had the luxury of a room since he was the hostel warden as well. “It was my comfort zone, my colleagues and students pampered me a lot because I was very young! I needed absolute privacy, no strangers around me when I wrote. Even now I want that solitude,” says Onakkoor who was in the teaching profession for 33 years.
His first novel, Akale Akasham, was written while he stayed in a rented house near the college. Then came the hugely successful Ulkkadal , a poignant campus tale, which was later made into a film. “This house was made 42 years ago from the earnings of the book Ulkkadal and the film based on it,” he says. All his later works, be it film scripts, short stories, travelogues, literary criticisms et al, were written at his home.
“It is difficult for me to write anywhere else. My mind has to be fresh – the best time is a day after a holiday, a day sans meetings or travel,” he says.
(A series that explores the workspaces of creative people in the city and its suburbs)
