Daily Archives: August 17, 2015

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ManjushaKERALA17aug2015

Manjusha Mohan has given her family textile business a new spin with her brand of silk shirts

Two years into the family business at Kannur, Manjusha Mohan updated her LinkedIn profile, readied her apartment in Bengaluru; all set to relocate. Then she changed her mind, and stuck on. The engineer who had worked in Bengaluru and the U.S. returned to Kannur to help her father with his textile business, G. Sons and Company. The company, besides having textile stores in Kannur and West Asia, is known for its Dennis Morton brand of shirts, especially silk shirts which retail from stores across the State, Tamil Nadu and Dubai.

Manjusha quit a well-paying, cushy job which, despite the stress, she enjoyed. Sceptical about returning after living nine years outside Kerala, she came home to a job that demanded a different set of skills. “I had no idea…I couldn’t tell fabric from fabric, cotton from synthetics. I didn’t know the ABC of weaving, but I learnt.” The learning curve was steep but, with her father’s help, she learnt.

And she has taught herself well. Today besides retailing from leading textile stores in the State, Dennis Morton has an online store and is launching a new line of shirts targeted at the younger demographic. And she is the operations head of, what is possibly Kerala’s only ‘wedding mall’, G. Mall in Kannur. She is also the chairman of the women’s wing of the North Malabar Chamber of Commerce, at 34 one of the youngest.

Stepping into her father’s shoes was not easy, especially in a business where gender roles are set in stone. Most of the workers in the factory are men and taking orders from a woman didn’t sit well with them unlike the IT industry from which she came. Over time they got used to it.

Her father O. Mohanan set up the business, G’Sons Group. From a single textile store, Kalavastralaya, the business grew to include G’Sons Readymades, Anaswara Silks and Saris, Kalpaka Silks (Baharain), G’Sons Gents Gallery and G’Sons Apparels and then came Dennis Morton, which is a part of the latter company.

“You may not have thought it was an Indian brand?” she asks. She was in Kochi on business. Dennis Morton is just a name, in case you are wondering. It was catchy name which Mohanan liked and named his line of ready to wear shirts thus. Apart from regular shirts, the company came out with an innovative product – the silk shirt – when ready-to-wear silk shirts were not widely available.

“At the time there was no market for silk shirts but Dennis Morton created a niche for itself. It told men they could also wear silk,” Manjusha says. Initially it was ‘wedding shirts’ – the creams and the whites – to which were later added colours. When mundus (dhotis) were innovated, with coloured borders, the brand came out with the matching mundu-silk shirt combinations. “This led to the trend of couples being colour co-ordinated in silk.”

Today she sources fabric, approves fabric and is on the lookout for new things. “I was on the verge of quitting every day of the first two years.” But she refused to quit. Just when she thought she had settled in the business, came Gmall. The learning process started all over, only this time it was about cement mixing and plastering. She also turned interior designer with the Mall, when she ended up designing the interiors of its food court.

The oldest of two daughters, Manjusha is both son and daughter to him. “My father brought us up with the belief that there was nothing we couldn’t achieve.” She had her education in Kannur and did her engineering from LBS College of Engineering, she says with pride that she was the first from her class to be placed and that too at Infosys.

Her plans include branding Dennis Morton silk shirts as a standalone brand. Silk shirts, traditionally associated with older men, because of the comfort fit is a put off for youngsters.

With this range Manjusha steps out her comfort zone. “This is not formal wear, it’s party wear for youngsters and will be very different from the kind associated with us.” She has roped in designer Sameera Saneesh as designer who has designed shirts for Dennis Morton before and actor Rahman is the brand ambassador.

Work is hectic and she has little time to relax, she says. “My six-year-old daughter wants me to read her a story every night. And she complains if I don’t make time. But it is good…,” she signs off.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus> Fashion / by Shilpa Nair Anand / Kochi – August 13th, 2015

200 years on, Nangeli’s sacrifice only a fading memory

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The area near Manorama Kavala, Cherthala, was once known as Mulachiparambu and was the site where Nangeli, in 1803, cut off her breasts to protests against the breast tax imposed on the lower caste women of Travancore. Photo: H. Vibhu
The area near Manorama Kavala, Cherthala, was once known as Mulachiparambu and was the site where Nangeli, in 1803, cut off her breasts to protests against the breast tax imposed on the lower caste women of Travancore. Photo: H. Vibhu

Nangeli gained her place in history as the woman who cut off her breasts to protest against an inhuman tax imposed in erstwhile Travancore

Many books and histories have been written about caste oppression in Kerala and the men and women who fought the injustice. Yet the story of one woman’s protest has almost faded away from the collective memory of the State.

Nangeli, who lived in Cherthala in Alappuzha over 200 years ago, gained her place in history as the woman who cut off her breasts to protest against the inhumanmulakkaram (breast tax) that was imposed in the erstwhile kingdom of Travancore.

CASTE OPPRESSION

Kings of the time ensured the subjugation of the lower castes by imposing heavy taxes on them. Their wealth was built on some of the worst taxes imposed anywhere in the world. Besides the tax on land and crops, peasants had to pay taxes for the right to wear jewellery, the right of men to grow a moustache, and even the right of women to cover their breasts.

The heavy taxes ensured that the lower castes were kept eternally in debt, while members of the upper castes flourished.

“Nangeli was a poor Ezhava woman from Cherthala. Her family could not afford to pay the taxes and was in debt to the rulers,” says D. Sugathan, advocate and former MLA from Alappuzha.

“The tax collector, then called the parvathiyar, came to her house one day and demanded that she pay the tax,” he says. The legend goes that Nangeli cut off her breasts and presented them to theparvathiyar on a plantain leaf. The tax collector fled in fear, while Nangeli bled to death at her doorstep.

Her husband Chirukandan came home to find his wife lying dead and mutilated. He is said to have jumped into her funeral pyre out of grief.

“The incident happened in 1803. It created a lot of anger and the practice of collecting breast tax was put to an end here by 1812,” says Mr. Sugathan, who mentions Nangeli’s story in his book ‘Oru Desathinte Katha, Kayarinteyum’.

While Nangeli’s sacrifice put an end to one form of caste oppression, the land where she lived came to be known as mulachiparambu – the plot where the woman of breasts lived.

“Nangeli’s story is unique also for the fact that it is the first recorded instance of a man committing sati,” says Ajay S. Sekher, a teacher of English at the Tirur centre of Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit. A blog post written by Mr. Sekher, who researches issues of caste and gender, has introduced many to the story of Nangeli and mulachiparambu.

An earlier generation of political leaders grew up hearing about Nangeli’s protest and its significance in Kerala’s history. Leaders C. Kesavan and K.R. Gowri Amma have mentioned her in their autobiographies.

‘UNIQUE RESISTANCE’

“Nangeli’s story is an articulation of a unique resistance and struggle against a Brahmanic patriarchy. The tradition of such resistance by leaders such as Gowri Amma could perhaps be traced all the way back to Nangeli,” says Mr. Sekher.

The legend of Nangeli’s mutilation of her own body in protest against oppression has been handed down through generations.

Today, however, her tale is preserved only in the memories of a few old-timers and researchers. There are no memorials to her name, no books extolling her courage.

The name mulachiparambu too has been covered up, perhaps due to embarrassment. The plot, divided up between several owners, is situated near the SNDP office at Manorama Junction in Cherthala.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Kochi / by Nidhi Surendranath / Kochi – October 21st, 2013

Standing tall at his desk

Arts,Culture & Entertainment

SreekumarKERALA17aug2015

Writers work best in specific surroundings. Of course, they can write or pound the keyboard inside a noisy, smoky chat room or daydream over a cup of steaming tea in a corner of a restaurant. But the space around them, as their fingers pause for a minute, have so often shaped their themes, inspired them, kept them organised and fostered their creativity.

This is true of E.P. Sreekumar, award-winning short story writer and novelist, too. The space in his Tripunithura house is organised as a place for writing. One side of the wall is lined with books, a cupboard on the other side stores stationery, papers, resource materials and various other things that he may need while writing. A window opens to a blank wall outside. A standing desk, a conventional desk and chair with a laptop complete the ‘sanctuary.’

Sreekumar writes standing using a specially designed desk. In fact, for writers, the standing desk has a long lineage.

History has it that great writers and thinkers, from Dickens to Churchill and Hemingway preferred the standing desk. “This is part of a change in my life, in my writing, part of the evolution. When I started out it was the regular writing table and a comfortable chair. I could have if I wrote the soft kind of stories, say like love, man-woman relationships, which I never did. My subjects have always been so serious that I could never sit down and write. The thoughts created a storm inside me, a pain that really disturbed. In such a situation how can one sit or lie down on an easy chair with a bar across the arms of the chair and write?,” asks Sreekumar who won the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award in 2010 for his searing short story collection Parasya Shareeram.

There was a time when Sreekumar had to divide his time between writing and his job as general manager, People’s Urban Cooperative Bank. Now that he has retired Sreekumar finds more time for his writing.

“Yes, but you still need to get that surging flow of thoughts to write. I simply cannot sit down after breakfast and decide to start writing. And when the ideas gush I begin writing till it ends. And when that happens I may walk around, gesticulate; it is a sort of mad experience. Those are moments of agitation within me, which affects my body too, its movements. Standing beside my desk and putting those thoughts on paper is the only thing that works for me.”

Unlike many writers Sreekumar does not fix a particular time nor does he really need silence when he is working. “This house was built 25 years back. I had begun writing even before that. So, the need of a particular space never really bothered me nor does time. But if you ask me my favourite time for work it is between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m., which may sound strange.”

When Sreekumar writes he has the shruthi on. This musical pitch, the note from which all others are derived, envelops him and allows him to soar on the wings of imagination.

“Music is part of life. I have played the tampura for concerts and I know how the shruthi can transport you into another world. I don’t turn on music because my attention may get diverted by the tune, the raga or the lyrics. The shruthi then harmonises with my writing. Again this was part of the change that happened down the years. I use a CD that I put into my laptop. And then the microtone, the process of writing and I become one.”

Starting out by writing plays and the occasional short story while at school in Cherai, Sreekumar shot into limelight through his radio plays. Incidentally, he made a comeback to this genre after many years with his play Raksha, which was broadcast as part of the recently concluded All India Radio drama festival.

He switched to short stories, a field where he has won wide acclaim. Sreekumar’s stories have been translated into Hindi, English, Tamil, Kannada and Telugu, his stories have been prescribed for study at Gandhigram University, Madurai, Calicut University and for CBSE students. “Prof. Selvamani of the University College, Thiruvananthapuram, was awarded a Doctorate for his research mainly based on my stories, while a new collection of stories in Hindi is ready for publication soon.”

His two novels Maaramudra and Mamsaporu, have been much-discussed for the freshness of themes, idioms and techniques in style. His latest anthology of stories Currency bagged the Abu Dhabi Shakti Award and Sreekumar is working on a couple of new projects.

“I’m working on a novel that will have Somalia as its backdrop and I have completed two new stories. An article on the noted novelist Kovilan, who was like an elder brother to me, and a couple of articles on music are also being done.”

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus / by K. Pradeep / Kochi – August 14th, 2015