INDIAN LITERATURE IN ENGLISH

TRANSLATION
CHEMMEEN
T. S. Pillai
 SETTING

• Chemmeen is set along the Kerala coastline, in a community of fisherfolk.

• On the seashore – The fishermen get their boats out to sea, rowing, swinging their
nets out, hauling in the catch, bringing it ashore, and sorting it.
 ACHANKUNJU

• Among these is the middle-aged Chembankunju and his friend and neighbour
Achankunju.
• Achankunju is a happy-go-lucky man who spends most of what he earns on drink,
which leaves his wife Nallapennu thoroughly irritated.
• They have no children, which means Nallapennu has plenty of time to nag her
husband and try and get him to mend his ways.
 CHEMBANKUNJU

• Chembankunju’s household: His wife Chakki, and his two daughters, the beautiful
Karuthamma and the teenaged Panchami.
 KARUTHAMMA AND PAREEKUTTY

• In the scene where Karuthamma is first introduced, she is sitting beside an upturned
boat on a secluded part of the shore, chatting with Pareekutty.
• Even though their conversation is innocuous enough—she tells him that her father
wants to buy a boat and a net, and will Pareekutty please lend him the money—it’s
obvious that these two are in love. Their eyes say it, even if they do not put it into
words.
 CHAKKI SCOLDS KARUTHAMMA

• Panchami, sent by her mother to fetch Karuthamma home, returns without her sister.
• It’s only when Chakki emerges from their hut and starts yelling for Karuthamma that
Karuthamma scrambles up and rushes back home—where Panchami tells Chakki that
Karuthamma has been with Pareekutty.
• Pareekutty is Muslim, and therefore, not a man Karuthamma should be meeting, since
nothing can ever come of it.
 THE SEA MOTHER AND THE FAITH

• Chakki yells at Karuthamma: for them, the fisherfolk, the ‘Sea Mother’ provides all
they need—as long as they, the women of the community, keep a hold on their morals.
• If a woman slips and yields to an illicit passion, the Sea Mother will inflict a terrible
punishment: death. Any fisherman whose wife is unfaithful will fall prey to the sea.
 CHEMBANKUNJU AND PAREEKUTTY

• Shortly after, Chembankunju—who had been planning to ask Pareekutty for a loan—
goes to meet the young man.
• Pareekutty is a trader. He owns a small outfit that dries and sells fish and prawns, and
is wealthier than Chembankunju.
• Chembankunju needs four hundred and fifty rupees for the boat and net. He knows
of someone who wants to sell the boat, and that is about how much Chembankunju is
willing to pay.
 AGREEMENT

• Pareekutty, because of his love for Karuthamma, agrees.

• Chembankunju and Pareekutty discuss the deal through: how will Chembankunju
repay the loan? They finally agree that all the catch that Chembankunju brings in his
new boat will be Pareekutty’s until the value of the loan has been repaid.
 CHEMBANKUNJU IS HAPPY

• Only, Pareekutty has no money to lend Chembankunju; will dried fish do instead? He
can deliver basketloads to Chembankunju’s home that evening, and Chembankunju
can sell it and use the money.
• Chembankunju is more than happy. That evening, Pareekutty delivers the baskets.
 CHEMBANKUNJU BUYS A BOAT

• The next day, Chembankunju hurries off to the house of the man whose boat is on
sale. He is given a warm welcome, buttermilk to drink, a stool to sit on, and a taste of
just what it might be to be wealthy.
• The man’s wife—perhaps just a few years younger than Chakki, probably, since her
son is a teenager—is elegant and well-dressed, too, and Chembankunju is
impressed.
 CHEMBANKUNJU’S REAL FACE

• This is how he wants them to live, he tells Chakki when he gets back home with the
new boat. They should be living in style.
• The next morning, Chembankunju begins to show his true colors. His dear friend
Achankunju, who had been certain that he would be among the first to be welcomed
onto the new boat, finds himself left behind.
 CONTD.

• When the boat comes, full to the brim with the catch, everybody comes crowding
around.
• Cheerful Panchami reaches for the fish, asking her father if she can fill up her
basket—only to have him beat her and tell her to get lost, this fish isn’t for her.
Panchami bursts into tears, and Chakki and Karuthamma try to console her.
 CONTD.

• Onto the scene comes Pareekutty, who, by rights, is the owner of all the fish that
Chembankunju has brought in.
• But when he asks if he can take the fish, Chembankunju pretends complete ignorance
of that verbal agreement. “Do you have the money for the fish? I want ready cash for
it,” he tells the young man, as if Pareekutty wants to buy the fish, not claim what is
really his.
• Pareekutty does not have any money, and Chembankunju shoos him away. And
Pareekutty, too polite, and too much in love with Karuthamma to accuse her father
who has broken the promise, goes away.
 PROSPERITY

• The days pass. Chakki begs with her husband to return Pareekutty’s money.
• After all, the boat and the net are bringing in lots of fish, which translates into
increasing prosperity for the family.
• They have managed to buy new furniture, and when the monsoon stalls work for the
rest of the fisherfolk, Chakki even has enough money to loan to her neighbours
against surety—a brass lamp here, a small metal pitcher there.
 CONTD.

• Karuthamma does not like this idea of accepting surety, at least not from dear friends
like Nallapennu.
• Chembankunju did not give any surety when he borrowed from Pareekutty, she
points out bitterly to her mother, but Chakki—her head also somewhat turned by all
this wealth—is not listening. Even though she too agrees that the loan should be
returned to Pareekutty.
 CHEMBANKUNJU AND PALANI

• Meanwhile, Chembankunju has made the acquaintance of Palani, a fisherman who works
on Chembankunju’s boat.
• Palani is no great catch: he is very poor, he has no family or friends to speak of; he even
admits—and with no sorrow—that he sleeps on the beach and spends whatever he earns
on food.
• Chembankunju decides that Palani would make a good match for Karuthamma. He seems
to hope that Palani will agree to live with them, which will let Chembankunju retire.
• He invites Palani to his home for a meal, and he, along with Chakki, proposes the match to
Palani.
 CONTD.

• Palani agrees, and Karuthamma, though she is distressed, really has no choice.
• Pareekutty, being a Muslim, can never be hers. And she has to be a good daughter;
she cannot defy her father.
• She does put her foot down on one matter. She will not stay on the same village if she
marries Palani.
• Palani belongs to a village some distance off; she will go there with him. Karuthamma
realizes that living in the same village with Pareekutty will be painful for both of
them.
 KARUTHAMMA MARRIES PALANI

• Karuthamma and Palani are married.

• Just as the wedding ceremony is completed, Chakki suffers what seems to be a
stroke. Karuthamma decides to stay back, but Chakki—who knows how much
suffering that will cause her daughter—begs Karuthamma to go.
• Snowed under by this emotional blackmail, Karuthamma finally agrees to go—only,
this time, Chembankunju, who is unaware of Karuthamma’s feelings for Pareekutty
and has no idea why she wants to leave the village, pleads with her to stay for her
mother’s sake.
 PATHETIC PAREEKUTTY

• Karuthamma does depart, in tears, but leaving behind a father who’s so furious, he
refuses to have anything further to do with his newly-wed daughter.
• Karuthamma also leaves behind, grieving for her, a ruined Pareekutty. His business
has fallen apart, and despite many requests from his father who comes visiting now
and then, Pareekutty refuses to leave the place and go back to a more comfortable
life.
 SCANDALS AND RUMORS

• In Palani’s village, Karuthamma settles into married life.

• Palani may not be a fine husband; he may not be the man she wanted to marry—but
she is a dutiful even affectionate wife.
• The only thorn in their flesh is the fact that the other villagers are suspicious of
Karuthamma.
• Why did a woman so beautiful marry a worthless no-good like Palani? She must be
characterless, say the women; and soon, rumors spread linking Karuthamma with
Pareekutty. Karuthamma and Palani find themselves being disliked.
 END OF THE STORY

• While, back in Karuthamma’s own village, things are swiftly beginning to deteriorate,
both for Karuthamma’s family and for the inconsolable Pareekutty.
 SYMBOLISM

• Would you know why it’s titled Prawn?

• Of course, that’s one of the main things they harvest from the sea, but is there any
symbolism attached to it?
 ANSWER

• That area of the Kerala sea coast sees a very unusual phenomenon – at the onset of
the monsoons, the prawns throng together, turning the sea red.
• It is incredible to watch, because one moment the sea is the greyish-blue that it
usually is around the coast in the rains, and then suddenly, one can see it turning red
before their eyes.
• Really, truly, red. As one may imagine, it is fantastic for the fisherfolk – all they have to
do is to cast their nets and in a few moments, their boats are full.
 PRAWNS

• As prawns, Pareekutty, Karuthamma and even Palani deliberately goes fishing in the
night during the storm.
• Palani is supposed to be the child of the sea. He is blessed, which is also probably
why he feels he can go into a raging sea and come back alive, by the sea mother.
• He tells Karuthamma once. So in fact, his death is because of Karuthamma’s fall from
grace. Thus, the fable is true; if Karuthamma had not left that night to meet her lover,
her husband would not have died.
 ON THE WRITER…

• T. S. Pillai had written it bring realism into his works, to deal with the lives of the poor,
the fisherfolk whose struggles had just begun, against casteism, mechanized fishing
etc. The real character here is the sea, ever present seemingly immutable but ever
changing, always the mother goddess bringing life and dealing death.
 WIKI…!
• Chembankunju's only aim in life is to own a boat and a net. He finally succeeds in buying both with the help of
Pareekutty, a young Muslim trader, on condition that the fish hauled by the boat will be sold to him.
Chembankunju's pretty daughter Karuthamma and Pareekutty love each other. Karuthamma s mother, Chakki,
knows about it and reminds her daughter about the life they lead within the boundaries of strict social tradition.
Karuthamma sacrifices her love for Pareekutty and marries Palani, an orphan discovered by Chembankunju in the
course of one of his fishing expeditions.
• Following the marriage, Karuthamma accompanies her husband to his village, despite her mother's sudden illness
and her father's repeated requests to stay. In his fury, Chembankunju disowns her. On acquiring a boat and a net
and subsequently adding one more, Chembankunju becomes more greedy and heartless. With his dishonesty, he
drives Pareekutty to bankruptcy. After the death of his wife, Chembankunju marries Pappikunju, the widow of the
man from whom he had bought his first boat. Panchami, Chembankunju's younger daughter, leaves home to join
Karuthama, on arrival of her step mother.
• Meanwhile, Karuthamma has endeavoured to be a good wife and mother. But scandal about her old love for
Pareekutty spreads in the village. Palani s friends ostracize him and refuse to take him fishing with them. By a
stroke of fate, Karuthamma and Pareekutty meet one night and their old love is awakened... Palani, at sea alone and
baiting a large shark, is caught in a huge whirlpool and is swallowed by the sea. Next morning, Karuthamma and
Parekutty, are also found dead hand in hand, washed ashore. At a distance lie the washed-up corpses of Palani the
baited shark.
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