33 PVK Blog Post. ‘Exposing Kanayi Kunjiraman’
Note: On August 28, 2022 ‘Kala Kaumudi’, run by the ‘Kerala Kaumudi’ group in Trivandrum, published an interview with ‘Kanayi Kunjiraman’ the sculptor who helped ruin the compound of the ‘Kumaran Asan Memorial’ at Thonnakkal.
Kanayi’s ability to sculpt with clay and concrete was matchless, we are told. His ability to sculpt lies and to aid and abet the worst elements in our society is matchless. Nothing mattered to him other than getting his gynecological marvels up at government expense. Whether it is at Shankhumugham Beach in Trivandrum or public buildings like the Medical College Campus in Trivandrum, he sculpted similar statues – a naked woman, always revealing her bums.
Kanayi is a known pederast and he was, like the archetypical Malabari rich man, always in search of a catamite. While his sexual drive is said to be phenomenal, it was always directed at the bottom of young boys. And wherever he went, it was made available to him. Such is the power and pulling power of celebrity.
This is no rumour. One of my former colleagues at Government Victoria College, Palakkad, was among his close associates in Malabar. Together they had participated in quite a few “wild” activities when they were young. When I spoke to this gentleman about Kanayi he told me: “Vijayaa, his wife is still a virgin. He is only interested in young boys. His heart, in other words, was set on their bottoms.
Be that as it may, ‘Kala Kaumudi’, a pale shadow of its former self, after the departure of such people as Jayachandran Nair and N R S Babu, had an editor named Selvaraj, a bit of a contrast gainer. But, like most Malayalam journalist, challenged by English, envious of those who are at ease in the language and, therefore, I imagine, with some malice towards all.
This is the letter I mailed them in English. I also mailed them a translation.
At one point, Selvaraj wanted me to pass on my lecture on the ‘Sixth Extinction’ I had delivered at a public function near the GPO in Trivandrum. I translated it, with a lot of difficulty, and they carried it on their cover.
The meeting at which I delivered the lecture was one organised by the admirable P K Uthaman. Uthaman, one can say with some confidence, is, along with the reclusive and totally anti-social naturalist Satish Chandran Nair, probably the best bird watcher and naturalist in Kerala. This is notwithstanding the claims of other wannabes to be inheritors of K K Neelakantan or people who built up some popularity as naturalists having carried K K N’s bags while accompanying him regularly.
To get back to ‘Kala Kaumudi’, this was the letter to the editor I wrote in response to all the lies Kanayi had spewed in one of their issues. Please read, if such trivialities appeal to you.
The Kalakaumudi dated 28 August (No 2452) contains an interview with Shri Kanayi Kunhiraman. In it there are certain declarations about my father, the late Shri K Prabhakaran, Mahakavi Kumaran Asan’s younger son.
There is not an iota of truth in any of the things Shri Kunhiraman has said pertaining to my father. For the sake of truth and history they have to be corrected immediately.
The major falsehoods are 1) that my father made an emotional appeal to Shri Kunhiraman to save the Smarakam and that Shri Kunhiraman promised to turn it into a “magnificent poetic landscape”, 2) that Shri Prabhakaran himself moved the managing committee to ensure that Shri Kunhiraman’s designs could be carried out and 3) that before the transformative changes brought about by the landscaping of the premises by Shri Kunhiraman, the Smarakam compound was like a wasteland.
The facts are these:
My father was active in student politics in Travancore. He continued working in trade union activities till 1953, when he quit politics entirely. Thereafter he lived a private life in Thonnakkal, managing Sarada Book Depot, the enterprise started by his father, and farming the land he had inherited.
In late 1957 two of his friends paid him a visit at his residence in Thonnakkal. They were the then minister of Education Shri Joseph Mundassery and the young college lecturer Shri O N V Kurup. They had come to request my father to donate some land for a memorial in his father’s name.
This was done. In November 1958 a deed was executed at the Kazhakoottam Sub Registrar’s office. Asan’s cottages and the land around them was gifted entirely free to the Government of Kerala. The gift was conditional, though. The deed specified that Asan’s cottages along with its surrounding area should be preserved “in its existing condition as a historical monument.” If changes were made, it clarified, the land would revert to the donee.
In 1973, after the birth centenary celebrations of Kumaran Asan, my father who was then secretary of the managing committee, had discussions with his colleagues in the managing committee about the future course of the Smarakam. Shri O N V then suggested that on the land that the Smarakam had and on the old National Highway leading to the Smarakam, the trees and plants mentioned in Asan’s poems should be planted. Boards or granite slabs with the relevant lines should be placed near each tree or plant. A visitor who walked through this garden would be educated and enriched by the experience. A museum should be constructed to exhibit Asan’s belongings, many of which the family was then willing to donate to the Smarakam. Apart from Asan’s cottages and surroundings, a garden, a museum and a library with a publication wing dedicated to books about Asan, were to form the Smarakam
The excellence of the idea met with all round approval. But no money was forthcoming for this. In 1977, after four terms as secretary of the managing committee, pained at the indifference of various governments to the Smarakam, my father resigned his post. However, he took a lively interest in the Smarakam till he passed away.
In the early 1980s, in the hope of getting the Asan Garden going, my father contacted Shri Kunhiraman and asked him to suggest where in the Smarakam compound various trees should be planted. Shri Kunhiraman came out with ideas about landscaping and so on. My father had no hesitation in dismissing these ideas. That weekend, when I visited him, he narrated the experience to me and added “He has other ideas, unfit for this place.” His rejection of Shri Kunhiraman was total.
Shri Kunhiraman was never asked to help after this by my father. His suggestions were never even mentioned to the managing committee at that time.
From the inauguration of the Smarakam in 1966 the institute engaged in meaningful activities to keep alive Asan’s memory. Seminars, discussions and meetings and classes were arranged. Kerala’s top writers and scholars took part in these. Our home, situated about a hundred metres away from the Smarakam, hosted most of them. Serving tea or lunch for these people in our home was part of life for us, Asan’s grandchildren.
A standard biography of Asan, three volumes of Asan’s prose works (previously unpublished in book form) and other books pertaining to Asan were published. All this was done on the very tight budgets of that time.
The Smarakam compound retained the contours and some of the looks of the past. Asan’s cottages were maintained in exactly the shape and form in which they were in Asan’s time. My father would personally supervise the annual thatching of the roof, the white washing of the building and any repair that was needed. The tranquility and charm which had attracted Asan to Thonnakkal was kept alive.
In 1997-98, about a decade after my father’s demise, the government granted twenty five lakhs to the Smarakam for development. More money flowed from the treasury later. At this time, Shri Kunhiraman entered the scene with his promise to build a statue of Asan, provided the necessary ingredients were supplied. He because a fixture and soon began directing the “developmental” activities in the Smarakam compound. In a couple of years the Smarakam was transformed and it began to look like one of the tourist resorts Kerala is known for.
Who gave Shri Kunhiraman the mandate for this? Why were the conditions in the original gift deed signed by Shri Prabhakaran and the Governor of Kerala cast to the winds? Why were the shape and proportion of the cottages altered? Why were new structures, of great symbolic value, but nonexistent in Asan’s time, added to the cottages? How much money did all this cost? How much of it went to Shri Kunhiraman?
The answers to these questions can be found in a Lok Ayukta report submitted to the Government of Kerala. The Lok Ayukta ordered an enquiry into allegations of corruption and financial misappropriation when charges were raised by members of the public. A vigilance enquiry, conducted by a serving IPS officer, gave details of the irregularities committed in the name of development. The Lok Ayukta added its recommendations for punishment of the guilty. Nothing has happened in the seven or so years since this took place. The relevant files are asleep somewhere in the Secretariat.
On October 15, 2009, in a meeting at the then Minister for Culture’s chamber, Shri O N V spoke strongly against the changes taking place at Thonnakkal. If the Asan Smarakam had to regain its purity, he stated, the giant statue coming up in the compound “had to be thrown into the Arabian Sea.”
O N V sir’s words were forgotten. A consort of cultural activists, politicians, contractors and others have buried his dream of a garden and museum and library under concrete and European style lawns. Not an inch of the Smarakam compound now resembles what it was like when Asan left, one evening 98 years ago, on a journey that ended tragically at Pallana. Even the spot at which his family stood and waved him goodbye has been bulldozed. Asan has been erased from the compound he enriched. The compound is now a monument to the ego of a giant sculptor. It still carries Asan’s name, though.
The people who knew these facts best – my father, Shri K Prabhakaran, Shri O N V Kurup and Shri M K Vidyadharan, once Secretary of the Smarakam, have all passed away. An attempt is being made to rewrite history and to justify the violence done to Asan and his old home and Shri Prabhakaran and his hope for a historical monument to his father. Artful lies and monstrous untruths have to be dished out to the people of Kerala for this. Shri Kunhiraman’s status as an artist is unquestionable. Does artistic license mean the right to utter Orwellian “truths”? Can power and money, aided by the glamour of a world-class artist, turn black into white and falsehoods to facts?
The power of organized lies has to be resisted. With the truth. Hence this response.
Thank you,
P. Vijaya Kumar.
P. Vijaya Kumar / PVK
profpvk@gmail.com
Thank you. Nandri. Namaskaram.
PVK 10/June/2026
PVK's Book mark 