The Man who Never was

ചിദംബര സ്മരണ | Chidambara Smarana by Balachandran Chullikkad My rating: 4 of 5 stars Balachandran Chullikkad is someone who is intimately familiar to Keralites; at least those who were born in the 90s and 2000s. Well known for being a gifted poet, whose verses are capable of creating embers in your mind, he was also a mainstay on the film scene, often doing small supporting characters in motion pictures. This was something for which he was ridiculed and judged, both by the general public as well as some of his intelligentsia cohorts. Balan, of course, in his typical irreverent and piercing nature, didn’t bow down or apologize, for consorting with the capitalist machinery, a group viewed as the ideological rivals of the intellectuals. While growing up, I too had some amount of reservation, as to why a respected, erudite literary agent would stoop low and star in soaps and commercial ventures like this. As an adult, the reasons are clear enough; very...