Poet Chemmanam Chacko leads us into his ‘writing room’ in his house in Padamugal. It has a small writing table in a corner next to the window, a chair, clipboards, pens, a magnifying glass and other writerly things. In another corner is a shelf with neatly stacked notebooks and files. Each time an idea strikes, he jots it down in a notebook for it to be developed later. These idea books have been numbered and stacked. Another set of notebooks has completed poems.
Even his writing table was designed by him—a small one on which he can rest his elbows while writing. He chose the pale green top for the table as it is soothing for the eye. Chacko has been using the table for years now, right from his Thiruvananthapuram days and says he brought it with him when he shifted to Kochi in 2004.
The writing space looks out into an especially green portion of the garden. “I like to look out of the window when I write. I can also see my daughter’s house from here,” he says.
Chacko, one of Malayalam’s much-loved satirical poets, is also a well-organised person. “I am not a lazy poet,” he says. “I am a planner.”
At 89, he is remarkably lucid. “I guess I was born with a good memory,” he says. “However, for over 30 years now, I have been having gooseberries with kanthari chillies…they say gooseberries are good for memory,” he adds.
Born in 1926 in Mulakulam, a small village in Vaikom, Chacko says he is a self-made poet. “Mine was a family of farmers. There was no one who wrote.”
Being the sixth of the seven siblings in the family, Chacko was expected to help out with work on the farms. He, however, always cited studies as a reason to bunk work. To justify his excuse, Chacko would borrow books from the only library in the village.
Though it started out as fun, reading became a passion for young Chacko. “I had to cut across paddy fields on my way to the middle school, which was in Piravom, about five kilometres away. And there was no way I could read while walking. So I used to learn poems by heart and recite them to myself while I went to school.” Vallathol Narayana Menon’s Sahitya Manjari and G. Sankara Kurup’s Sahitya Kouthukam were his favourites. Chacko believes his poetic instincts took shape thus.
He soon began to experiment with writing. It was around the time the freedom struggle was raging that Chacko was drawn to the spirit of the struggle. His first published poem Pravachanam was inspired by the Independence struggle. In 1947, he brought out a book titled Vilambaram, after which he decided to take a break from poetry. He turned to writing articles and essays. He brought out two books, compilation of his articles— Bhashatilakam and Arivinte Khani —in 1957.
But poetry was not to leave him. In 1964, he wrote Ulparty Yuddham, a satirical take on the clashes between the Left and the Congress parties. Chacko’s poems were noted for their socio-political commitment. His characteristic stamp of humour had many likening his work to that of the legendary Kunjan Nambiar.
Nellu, which he wrote in 1967, dealt with the plight of the farmer who had to move away from food crops to cash crops. His verse mourned the loss of fields to concrete jungles. The poem received a flush of praise for its strong social message.
Vyabhicharam, 1969, which was published in the Mathrubhumi weekly, on the unethical practices in the educational system, too brought in immense response. “I guess my popularity was partly because of the humour in my work. None of these issues is funny, but I chose to treat them with a pinch of humour.”
His professional life was spent in Thiruvananthapuram. He started in the lexicon department of the University of Kerala. When the university got its own Malayalam department, Chacko became the lecturer. His longest stint in the university was as the director of the Department of Publications.
His literary career includes works in prose too. “But I have always felt I express better in verse,” he says. His poetry has won him numerous awards including the Kerala Sahitya Akademi award, the Kunjan Nambiar Kavitha award and the Authors Guild of India.
He is currently working on a poem on the recent hullabaloo in the Kerala Assembly.
Chacko prefers to write in black ink. He decided to leave computers to the next generation. “My writing is not a seamless flow. It is divided into well-defined paragraphs. I even number the paragraphs. After each section, I would usually take a break. Just walk around the house or may be pick a silly fight with my daughters,” he laughs. He and his wife Baby have two daughters, both doctors, one in the U.K. and the other who lives next door.
Chacko always prefers to write in the wee hours. “Most of my best works have been written between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. It is the best time because the whole world is sleeping and only I am awake. I feel like a custodian of the world and I get the strength to take on the world through my words.”
