MGR'S FATHER AND THE CASTE INQUISITION

He left the children to fate and poverty

Iruvar: An Actor, and his Script Writer, with the Mentor in the background

I began seeing the picture of MGR's mother, Satyabhama, somewhere around 1972, when MGR started writing his autobiography, in the Tamil weekly Ananda Vikatan. Her image and the stories of the family's poverty were an integral part of the pages of the magazine, and,I  never saw an image of his father, Melakkath Gopala Menon. I never expected to see it for two reasons: Menon was ostracized by society, by a caste inquisition. Hence, his first wife's descendants might not be keen to publish it. Secondly, MGR never liked his father's first family. But there is one picture, for posterity.

MGR's Father, Gopala Menon

Palakkad Nallepully Melakath Gopala Menon was a Court official at Thrissur when he was implicated in an adultery case with a Nambudiri widow. I had interviewed a victim of the last caste inquisition(Smartha Vicharam), A M N Chakyar in 1999, and he had told me that Menon was not a victim of the sensational trial of Kuriyedathu Thatri, in 1905, but of the first trial of the century, in 1903. It is described very briefly, in his book, Avasanathe Smartha Vicharam (The Last Caste Inquisition). I quote:

There is an interesting story in circulation, related to the  Kuriyedathu Thatri incident. Among the people ostracized, there was a law officer of Thrissur, who was married; he left the place and married a lower-caste woman from Palakad. They migrated to Ceylon, lived there for some time and he died after two sons were born. The insecure widow came back to Tamil Nadu, and became a maidservant in several towns, to look after the children. One of the children became a very reputable film actor, a politician and a top administrator.

Chakyar adds: Everything in the story is true, except the reference to Thatri. The names and details of the 66 adulterers in the Thatri incident are there in the archival records at Ernakulam, signed by Smarthan Pattachomayarath Jathavedan Nambudiri, on 1080 Mithunam 32 (1905 July 15), but there is no name with the caste, Menon. It has been gathered from reliable sources that the Menon in reference, is Melakath Gopala Menon. He had married Meenakshi Amma of the Vattaparambil Nair family, Irinjalakuda. They had two daughters. He was punished in another caste trial and had to flee the place and leave the family. The rest of his story begins at Palakad. He might have been ostracized in the 1903 inquisition, conducted at an Illam, near Kunnamkulam. It was a mix-up of two trials that happened within a few years, and his name got included in the notorious one.

In the 1903 trial, the widowed Antharjanam confessed to having slept with 15 men, from Nambudiri to Barber. The 15 and the widow, were excommunicated. The incident has been reported in the Malayala Manorama on June 27, 1903, but the place name in it is, Kunnamkulangara. The report records that the trial was conducted at Tripunithura and she was accompanied to Chalakudi by soldiers and was interned there. It laments that none of the 16 was allowed to put forward their arguments.

Here is the report:

The King of Cochin got a report that a widowed Antharjanam, close to Kunnamkulangara, in Cochin state, had a defect of prostitution, she was summoned to Tripunithura and was put to trial, by priests, under the supervision of the King. In the trial, it was proved the allegations were true, and she was excommunicated by clapping, and then accompanied by soldiers to an uninhabited home on the bank of the Chalakudi River, where it was certain, she would live isolated, at the expense of the Government. Since it has been proved by this cargo(Sadhanam-term for the woman under trial), by her own admission and the trial of the priests, no one would be there to grieve her life imprisonment. She has confessed to having relations with 10-16 males, and accordingly, the 16 have been excommunicated and have been banned from entering the temples and temple ponds, by the King, by orders to the Peshkar. In this case, too, the arguments of the two sides have not been heard into, following, precedence. Everyone has the impression that this is sad and sans justification. This lecherous cargo may have implicated a few gentlemen out of vengeance, or by prodding. Among the 16 who have been excommunicated, there are people from Nambudiris to barbers. There are a lot of gentlemen, people who are married, and few government servants. It is impossible to redeem them from punishment, by someone else, or an apology. Since the decision is for them to stay away from their wife and children, and the Hindu society, no need to say, the decision is arbitrary.

As a Journalist, I salute the democratic values, followed by the then King of Cochin, Rajarshi Rama Varma. A newspaper was free to criticize the King, in 1903. Today, unfortunately, while I write this, Journalists are silenced by bullets, by fundamentalists and administrators alike.

Rajarshi Rama Varma

Smartha Vicharam was a ritualistic trial of a Nambudiri woman and fellow male adulterers, accused of illegitimate sexual relations. The accused were, excommunicated, ostracized and banished. 

MGR's First Wife at 8

The banished Gopala Menon, married Satyabhama, of Maruthur, an Ezhava family of Vadavannur, 15 Kilometers from Palakkad, in Chitur Thaluk. They migrated to Ceylon, where, both worked as labourers in tea plantations. Erik Barnouw, who was Professor Emeritus of Dramatic Arts at Columbia University, interviewed MGR in 1961 and recorded in his book, Media Marathon that Menon was a School Principal and he died when MGR was just two. Maruthur Gopalan Ramachandran(1917-1987), was born in a squalid tea estate 'line room', in Nawalapitiya,38 Kilometers away from Kandy and 112 kilometres from Colombo. If Menon was a Principal (quite unlikely) it would have been an elementary school for the Indian labourers in the tea estates. Nawalapitiya is primarily a tea plantation area, with no great school to boast of. The story that Menon had been a Magistrate in Candy, too is fiction. M G Chakrapani was the eldest and MGR the younger, with a girl child in between. The girl child died soon after the death of Menon. The child MGR was a devotee of Murugan, whereas his mother, was of Guruvayoorappan. She used to call MGR, Mudikalan, meaning, the hairy little demon!

V N Janaki

With the chief breadwinner gone, Satyabhama, with her two sons, returned to India. I have read in a Tamil magazine that first they came to Kerala, and sought the help of Menon's first wife, Meenakshi and her family, who drove them away. I have also read, Meenakshi Amma then had two daughters, Kanaka Lakshmi and Sumitra, and a son, Balakrishnan. But, now it appears that she had a daughter, Ammu and a son. Ammu is a nickname. Vattaparambil Meenakshi was the daughter of Parameswara Menon and Pappi Amma, and they had 11 children. The first five among them, are Kochukutty Amma, Narayana Menon, Parameswara Menon(?), Karunakara Menon, and Kalyanikutty Amma.

Sheela

It is said, the poverty-stricken Satyabhama went with her children to Burma, came back to Erode, and settled down in Kumbakonam, with her elder brother's help, during,1919-1920.Chakrapani was 9 and MGR,3.She could not think of sending her children to school, and MGR joined the drama company, Madurai Original Boys Company of S M Sachidanandam Pillai, at age 7, together with his brother. "We were given food, clothes and 25 paise a week, which we did not need at all," MGR reminisced years later. He was afflicted with cholera when he was 10, and with his unemployment and illness, Satyabhama spent her days in penury and prayer. His debut in films was when he was 19, in Ellis Duncan's Sathi Leelavathi in 1936 and he was an extra in M K Thyagaraja Bhagavathar's 1941 movie, Ashok Kumar.

Satyabhama

Tamil politics had been a roadblock to the Malayali in MGR, forcing him, at times, to claim a Mandradiyar or Mannadiyar ancestry. I quote a moment of MGR speaking to the actor, Arurdhas, from, Arurdhas' book, Naan Mugam Partha Cinema Kannadikal (The Cinema Mirrors that I Looked At):

One day in the make-up room when we were alone, MGR told the following: "Everyone believes that I am a true Malayali. I'm telling this you. That's wrong! There isn't anything inferior in identifying oneself as a Malayali. But as for me, it is not true. My ancestors belonged to the Kongunadu region and were from the Mandradiar caste. Their ancestral town was Pollachi. During the period of Hyder Ali, who ruled Mysore, he passed an edict that Hindus should convert themselves to Muslims. Scared by this, many Hindu families turned into Muslims. Those who were not willing to convert left Pollachi and passed Coimbatore and via Palakkad valley settled in the villages around that region. Among those settled, my father's ancestor was one".

On December 7,1962, there was a switch-on function of the power supply facility, enabled to the Maruthamalai Temple by Sando M M A Chinnappa Thevar, MGR's producer. The Minister for Co-Operatives, Nalla Senapathi Sarkarai Mandradiar presided over the function, and MGR claimed he was a Mandradiar!

After the DMK split, Karunanidhi and Kannadasan were harping on the Malayali ancestry of MGR and he had no choice other than to vehemently deny it, and to speak to his Malayali friends, secretly in Malayalam.

Still, there is an attempt among the descendants of Chakrapani to deny MGR's Malayali connection, saying his father was not Melakkath Gopala Menon, but Maruthur Gopalan. Among Nairs, it is the matrilineal system, to use the family name of the mother, for the children. So in MGR's case, the Maruthur is not Menon's family, but the mother's family.

Even in the marriage of both MGR and his brother, the Malayali root is visible.MGR married thrice: first wife, Chitarikulam Bhargavi /Thankamani died early; second wife, Sathanandavathi(Ammukutty), daughter of Kuzhalmannam Kadukunni Nair and Mookambika Amma, died of TB. MGR, as Chief Minister, visited Sadananthavathi's home, Chandranantha Nilayam, Kuzhalmannam in 1986. The family had preserved the cot used by MGR in earlier days; he sat on the same cot and cried. He spent money to renovate the home.

Sadananthavathi's home in Kuzhalmannam

MGR, in 1956, eloped with V N Janaki, an actress and a Malayali from Vaikam, who later divorced her husband, Ganapathi Bhat, a make-up man, to marry MGR. Some relatives of Janaki have married Vadavannur. Janaki (1923-1996) was the daughter of Rajagopala Iyer, elder brother of Papanasam Sivan, and Narayani Amma of Vaikam. Her brother, P Narayanan was an educationist.MGR in his autobiography has written that she was earning double her income in the 1940s and '50s. She had a son, Surendran, at age 16, from Bhat. She succeeded MGR as Chief Minister. She always resented Jayalalitha, with whom, MGR was romantically involved. In 1967, when C N Annadurai picked up MGR to contest the assembly elections, MGR asked, how much he should contribute."I don't need money", Anna said, "Your face is worth millions".He won the election from a hospital bed, because the actor, M R Radha had shot him.

MGR with Sathanandavathi

I have always felt that mixing up MGR's father with Thatri was but natural because, a few artists were involved in her life: She cherished the famous Kathakali artist, Kavungal Sankara Panikkar sleeping with her in the attire of Keechaka. Other famous Kathakali artists of the time, Katalathu Narayanan Nair, Panankavil Govindan Nambiar and Ranathu Achyutha Poduval had to leave the land and stage. The Kathakali singer,Kunjiraman Nambisan left for Kasi.Thirty years later, in 1935, when Kavungal dressed up to perform, in the silver jubilee celebrations of Palakad Government College, his companions refused to accompany him. Malayalam actress Sheela is Thatri's granddaughter.

In the infamous 1905 trial of Kuriyedathu Thatri, in which 66 males were involved, 64 males and Thatri were excommunicated. Two, Thonallur Krishna Warrier and Guruvayur Njarakattu Pisharath Achu Pisharodi, had died before the trial. Among the punished, there were 30 Nambudiris, including  Desamangalam Vasudevan Nambudiripad (I had spoken about this to AKTKM Guptan Nambudiripad, at Kozhikode, in 1983-he admitted and said it was there in the unpublished family history) and one Kaplingad Bhattathiri, 1o Tamil Brahmins, 13 Ambalavasis and 11 Nairs. During the trial, the cash-rich Desamangalam Nambudiripad, sent some people to  Thatri's place, to silence her. The area was cordoned off, and the attempt boomeranged on him. The King of Cochin, Rajarshi Rama Varma had permitted the males to come forward with their version, in the trial, in consultation with the legal luminary, V Bhashyam Iyengar.

Vadavannur home of MGR

Ramavarma, who abdicated the throne in 1914, confessed in his Autobiography that he had a relationship with a 16-year-old married girl after his first wife died. Thatri was the wife of Chemmanthatta Kuriyedathu Raman Nambudiri and the daughter of Kalpakancherry Ashtamurthy Nambudiri. She was 18 when she was married off to an 80-year-old Nambudiri. She had been raped, when she was just 10.

Chakrapani

The trial took six months, in the Vallayil nalukettu, near the Hill Palace, at Tripunithura. Thatri could reel out the names of the males she bedded, some with identification marks. She was sent to Chalakudi and interned at a riverside home. Desamangalam Nambudiri was invited by Swami Nirmalananda of Ottapalam Sree Ramakrishna Ashram to stay there, and he married a Nair woman. There was great furore after the inquisition, and the King, in consultation with renowned lawyers, changed the system, introducing a hefty deposit from the complainant. There was only one trial after that, in 1918. I had been to Chemmanthatta, near Kunnamkulam once, and saw remnants of her Illam. 

Nedumparampu Mana/Tripunithura

The last inquisition happened very close to my own house in Tripunithura, and I used to walk to my school through the vast compound of Nedumparambu Mana, the victim's home.

The heroine in this incident was also Thatri(Savitri), of Pazhur Paduthol Illam, married to Elampankodath Aadhyan Vishnuthrathan Nambudiri of Tripunithura. She was his third wife. Thatri, her four children, Thayyil Raman Menon, Ezhumavil Vasudevan Bhattathiri and Nedumparambil Cheriya Krishnan Nambudiri and his four children were excommunicated. A M N Chakiar, was one of Krishnan Nambudiri's children, who was a Nambudiri, till he was 11. Krishnan Nambudiri hanged himself the same night, and his wife and children were notionally attached to the Ayiniyil Muringoth Chakyar family. Though she had named Krishnan Nambudiri, he had gone to her illam, when he was just seven, to study Rigveda from her husband. His Guru had even died. Her stepson had approached King Rama Varma, against her lecherous activities.

Sathanandavathi (C.1887-1947)

Raman Menon and Bhattathiri were never seen after their ex-communication. Thatri was taken by a Muslim of Vadanapally, Thrissur. Her daughter was married into a Chakyar family; her eldest son married the niece of the famous Chachu Chakyar of Irinjalakuda. The next son became a car driver for the Royal family and the fourth died young. A M N Chakyar retired as Registrar, Kerala University.

MGR/Debut role

Though the Last Inquisition in Cochin was in 1918, records show that, in Malabar, there was a trial in May-June,1930 at the Appala kothamangalam Illam, Kuruvadissery, Ozhur, Ponnani. There were trials in 1902,1908 and 1914 at Parayath Thekkupram Illam, Sukapuram. Other caste trials: Ayanamkunnam 1916, Ponnani Irimpiliyam Moothedath 1917, Ponnani Vadakkekad Thekkekat Kolathapally 1917, Mangad Illam 1917(Kavungal Sanku involved), Ponnani Kaladi Peruvur Edamana Veluthedath 1919, Thirunnavaya Padinjarepattu in 1920 (name, Kenka), Kookkod Chempakassery 1920, Palakad Thatukassery Pakkath 1922, Keraladhiswarapuram Appala Kothamangalam 1927.

In Travancore, Malayala Manorama of  November 16 and 21, 1901 reported the trial of a 13-year-old girl, of, Kottayam Muttambalam Peringara Illam, at Thrigouthamapuram Vishnu Temple. She was alleged to have a relationship with Kunjunni Thampan of Koratti Swarupam. When both were excommunicated, she told the Tahsildar that she doesn't need the money of the Travancore government for sustenance; she would live with the Thampan. Thereafter, both began living at a rented house called, Puthenpurakkal, at Kodimatha. Thampan got a job at the Kottayam Engineer office, at a salary of Rs 12. Her father was generous enough to pay her Rs 25 for the expenses till he gets his first salary.

These records show the zeal of Nambudiri women in chasing their dreams, at regular intervals, thereby, challenging the archaic, cruel system and the existing male dominance. But there is a larger question: For MGR, who dabbled with women, on-screen and off-screen, with his father's DNA, and for Karunanidhi, who married thrice, what was a woman? A cargo?

Menon's first wife from Mulavukad

Rathi Venugopal from the UK informs me that her grandmother, Rugmini, is the daughter of MGR's father's first wife, Devaki. Devaki was from Veluthamveed, Mulavukad, Kochi. He had three children in Devaki: Rugmini and two sons. In other words, Menon married Rathi's Ammumma's mother. Devaki's family had migrated to Mulavukad from Ponnani.

Rugmini was only 1. 5 years old when Devaki passed away. Then Menon left.

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Reference:

1. Avasanathe Smartha Vicharam/A M N Chakyar

2.Nan Mugam Parkum Cinema Kannadikal/Arurdhas

3. Media Marathon/Erik Barnouw

4. Archival records, newspaper reports, and Zamorin palace scrolls
5. Smartha Vicharam/P Bhaskaranunni

6. My interviews with AMN Chakyar, Sheela and Premji

Courtesy:mgrperan.blogspot.com for two images.

© Ramachandran 

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