In the last few weeks, a memoir by Deedi Damodaran and Echmu Kutty, released in November 2025, has sparked discussions, debates and demands for withdrawal. The book is part memoir (Deedi) and part reflection (Echmu Kutty) on the life and works of Prameela Nair – late writer, teacher and the former wife of Malayalam’s literary doyen MT Vasudevan Nair.
The wordplay on the title of the book - Empty Space: Bashpeekrithayude Aaram Viral - was not lost on anyone. In its attempt to rediscover Prameela, the writer, Empty Space becomes, in part, a critique of MT and the role it alleges he has in the lack of her recognition. It carries a letter by MT, expressing his unhappiness allegedly over the publication of a novel by Prameela, that was serialised in a magazine a few years after their separation in the late 70s. The magazine stopped publishing the novel - Nashtabodangal - midway, returning the rest of the book to her.
Unsurprisingly, discussions that ensued about Empty Space have more to do with MT and the effects of the strained relationship of the couple, than Prameela.
The couple who had met as teachers at a tutorial college in Kozhikode in the 1950s separated in the last half of the 1970s. Their teenage daughter Sithara went on to live with Prameela before graduating and going abroad. MT later married classical dancer Kalamandalam Saraswathi. Their daughter Aswathy is also a classical dancer.
Aswathy has been vocal about her disagreements with the book, calling parts of it inaccurate or taken out of context. She spoke on behalf of Sithara and herself, in demanding the withdrawal of the book.
In this story, TNM will give an account of what the book says, Aswathy and Deedi’s responses, as well as a brief look into Nashtabodangal, a novel by Prameela Nair, largely referenced in Empty Space, which considers it autobiographical.
About Empty Space:
The book is not a biography. It does not try to dwell on the life of Prameela Nair, from her childhood to her passing in 1999, but attempts to find out why she never got enough recognition as a writer. Prameela had published two books—Nashtabodangal (1981), a novel, and Gauthami Enna Penkutty (1992), a short story collection. Before that, she had translated MT’s stories for the Illustrated Weekly, along with the works of other literary icons like Vaikom Muhammad Basheer. Her features on her life in America came out in later years.
A smiling photo of Prameela Nair – one that Deedi writes was not easy to find – is on the cover and the back. Printed in tete-beche (head-to-toe) style, each side opens to narratives of the authors printed back-to-back—Deedi’s 120 pages, a memoir, and Echmu Kutty’s 47, a reflection.
Deedi had known Prameela Nair and MT right from the days they visited her parents as a couple. Deedi’s father, the late T Damodaran was a renowned script writer in Malayalam cinema. Prameela, who was a colleague and friend of Deedi’s aunt Vilasini, became close to her mother as well, Deedi recounts this in the book, scattering a few black and white images of their younger days. Echmu Kutty writes that she hadn’t known or seen Prameela, but came across her works and learned about her, and found parallels between both their lives.
MT’s letter
Deedi’s account blames MT for intervening in the publication of Nashtabodangal, at the time it was serialised in a magazine called ‘Malayalanadu’ in the late 70s, a few years after the couple had separated. The serialisation of the novel, she writes, was stopped after MT wrote a letter to the magazine’s owner SK Nair, about the ‘mudslinging’ on him. SK passed the letter onto VBC Nair, the editor of the magazine, asking if they needed such a column that hurt a gifted person like MT, Deedi adds. A copy of the letter, written in 1978, is part of the book.
MT’s letter, as published in Empty Space, says: “My dear SK, this is a very personal matter. VBC had met me when he came here. After he left, some friends told me that you had sent VBC to make my first wife write a story about the failed marriage. This is only hearsay and if it is only that, forget this letter. I have faced a lot of mudslinging. Do you want to continue that? And you and VBC are taking the lead in that? True that I haven't been able to do something to help you SK but I also haven't done anything to hurt you. Not writing more. Yours, MT.”
Incidentally, VBC is one of the persons Prameela dedicated Nashtabodangal to.
In the book, Deedi alleges a ‘silent conspiracy’ in the invisibilisation of Prameela Nair, the writer, since none of her writings appeared in Mathrubhumi – prestigious literary magazine in Malayalam that MT had been the editor of for long years – and hardly any journalist attempted to feature her. Even a Google search doesn’t throw up much, Deedi writes.
She also narrates different episodes of trying to write articles about Prameela or mention her in her writings, but prevented from doing so every time. The parts about Prameela were edited out or whole articles were completely cancelled.
On one occasion, an article Deedi wrote on Prameela for a feminist organisation was not published but had caused her quiet expulsion from it, she alleges. Her consistent efforts to get photographs of Prameela Nair were also often fruitless, because, she writes, most of the people she’d asked did not want to displease MT by sharing it. In this way, the book gives the impression that MT had in one way or another closed all the doors for Prameela Nair’s creativity and further recognition.
Aswathy’s response:
The timing of the book became a point of concern. MT Vasudevan Nair (91) passed away a little over a year ago, on Christmas day in 2024, and Prameela (69) in November, 1999. “Both of them are not alive to respond to any of this. If the book is about Prameela teacher, it should talk about her works, but nearly every page mentions my father,” Aswathy tells TNM.
Aswathy says she has read the book and found parts of it not factual or placed out of context. The book considers Prameela Nair’s novel Nashtabodangal as autobiographical and also quotes from K Sreekumar’s biography of MT that was released last year, as well as other publications.
Aswathy alleges that the authors included elements that her sister Sithara had categorically denied.
“The story about my father refusing to write a recommendation letter for Sithara’s journalism admission is something she denied before [but which has been included in the book]. There also seems to be an attempt to represent us as ‘enemies’, by taking Sithara’s words out of context. She has, in an interview published in Sreekumar's biography, spoken positively about me and our relationship, but they have not included that. No one is denying the trauma that Sithara must have gone through in her childhood, but this selective quoting of incidents makes one wonder about the intention of the book,” Aswathy says.
On the letter written by MT about Prameela’s novel, Aswathy says: “I don’t know in what context my father wrote that letter [to SK Nair] or if it is even about this book. There is a lot of speculation here. Was it something else that hurt him to write that letter, I don’t know. There is no chance he will do something to stop someone else’s creative work. Several accounts in the book are not factual."
Aswathy says she did not attempt to contact Deedi, but instead spoke through the media about the demand for withdrawal. It has put both Sithara and her in a zone of discomfort, she says. “Prameela teacher should not be placed like this. The merits of her literary work should come out in a book about her,” she adds.
About Nashtabodangal
In the opening pages of Nashtabodangal, Prameela’s novel, is a disclaimer that it is entirely a work of fiction. The protagonist is an unnamed woman who finds her life full of regrets (nashtabodangal) because of the different losses she experiences from a young age—two of her childhood crushes die, a third man she liked gets married, an inter-religious relationship fails, and her eventual marriage becomes unbearable. The protagonist is not a teacher, her husband not a writer, but is a cruel businessman who even tries to poison her. She has a daughter who leaves with her when the marriage fails.
The protagonist goes on to find new friendships, rekindle old relationships and secure a job, waiting for the fruition of it all for later, after seeing her daughter to a safe and happy life.
It is not easy to find Prameela Nair’s works, Deedi has written. This reporter was able to find an old copy of Nashtabodangal at the Thiruvananthapuram Public Library, after it was returned one morning. The librarians say there is a lot of demand for the book now.
Deedi’s response
When TNM contacted her, Deedi did not wish to be quoted again, but she has in an earlier interview to Book Talk (in the Youtube channel Kerala Insight) spoken about her reasons for writing the book now. "For me this is a political call out, and even if it is late, it has to be done," she said.
"Many women may have been unable to write [because they were not allowed to] but here we have in the public domain a document that was used to stop the publication of a woman's writing," Deedi said, referring to MT's letter to Malayalanadu. She said that she realised the need for an intervention when she observed MT being celebrated as a feminist. She wanted to 'expose the anti-woman stance' he has taken in life as well as through some of his films, she said.