Lalithambika Antharjanam

Lalithambika Antharjanam (March 30, 1909 – February 6, 1987) was an Indian author and social reformer best known for her literary works in Malayalam language. She was influenced by the Indian independence movement and social reform movements among the Nambuthiri community and her writing reflects a sensitivity to the women's role in society, in the family and as an individual. Her published oeuvre consists of short stories, poems, children's literature, and a novel, Agnisakshi (Fire, My Witness) which won the Kendra Sahitya Akademi Award and Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award in 1977. Her autobiography Atmakathaykku Oru Amukham (An Introduction to Autobiography) is also considered a significant work in Malayalam literature. Her other works include Adyathe Kathakal (First Stories), Takarna Talamura (Ruined Generation), Kilivatililoode (Through the Pigeon Hole), Kodunkattil Ninnu (From a Whirlwind), Moodupadathil (Behind the Veil), Agni Pushpangal (Flowers of Fire) and Sita Mutal Satyavati Vare (From Sita to Satyavati). Lalithambika Antharjanam was born on March 30, 1909, at Kottavattom near Punalur, Kollam district, in the south Indian state of Kerala, in a conservative household to Kottavattathu Illathu Damodaran Namboothiri and Changarappilli Manaykkal Aryadevi Antharjanam. She had little formal education, however, her father appointed a private tutor who taught the child, which was unusual at the time. Although she was part of the most powerful landholding Brahmin caste of Kerala, Lalithambika's life-work was the exposure and destruction of the hypocrisy, violence and injustice with which women were treated in Nambudiri society. She was not allowed to study in school, and could only glean scraps of information about the outside world through male relatives who were kind enough to tell her about current affairs. She knew a little about the ongoing Indian freedom movement, and longed to take part. In 1926, she was married in the prescribed way to the farmer Narayanan Nambudiri. As a wife, she now lost all contact with the outside world and her day consisted of a claustrophobic routine of hard physical labour in smoky kitchens and damp closed courtyards, petty domestic politics and the fears and jealousies of other similarly imprisoned women. But she also saw their courage and their determination to be human in spite of the unnatural conditions of their lives. In this world her only outlet was her writing, which she did in secret. At the end of a working day that began before dawn, she would put her children to sleep, bar the door and write in the light of a tiny lamp. Constant exposure to smoke and inadequate lighting began to destroy her eyes. When the pain got very bad, she would write with her eyes closed. The frustration and degradation of her caste sisters moved Lalithambika to expose their plight in her celebrated Malayalam novel Agnisakshi (Fire being the Witness). The novel was later made into a film with the same title in 1997.