Walking past the Appan Thampuran Library in Thrissur’s Ayyanthole nearly 25 years ago, KR Beena, a young researcher, thought of taking a membership. Inside the library, scanning through the catalogues, she chanced upon a list of books related to theatre. Turning the pages of the catalogue, Beena stumbled upon a title she had for long searched – Thozhilkendrathilekku (To the Workplace). She had read that there was such a play, the first by a feminist theatre group, written and enacted entirely by women in 1948, soon after India won independence. But no one knew who wrote it – the play and the script had faded into oblivion for decades, until that day.
Excitedly, Beena took a copy of the play to her husband and academic NR Gramaprakash. By 2008 they would reprint the book in Malayalam, after taking great pains to find the women who wrote the original play and who were still alive. Thozhilkendrathilekku was created by members of the Antharajana Samajam, a group formed by women from the privileged Namboodiri caste, who had mostly been confined to their homes and enjoyed little to no freedom in their lives. It was the late 1940s, a time of revolution when the Namboodiri women fought to break free of the many shackles imposed on them by the community’s men. The Samajam created a workspace for them, to learn new skills and earn on their own, to be independent.
“What is interesting is that other plays of a feminist nature of the time, such as Adukalayil Ninnu Arangathekku (From the Kitchen to the Stage) written by social reformer VT Bhattathiripad, continued to thrive through the years while Thozhilkendrathilekku simply disappeared. One can only imagine that this is because the latter was entirely conceived by women and not celebrated the way a man’s work would have been,” says Gramaprakash, days after an English version of the book, translated by Anjana Sankar, was released during the Kerala Legislative International Book Festival.
Before Beena’s discovery of the moth-eaten copy of the book at Appan Thampuran’s, there had been mentions of the play in articles or essays – such as TK Anandhi’s in Bhashaposhini or the collection Nammude Sahityam Nammude Samooham, edited by MN Vijayan. But even in those, the author of the work was mentioned as a group of unknown Antharjanams (Namboodiri women).
Gramaprakash managed to trace the first of the women who were behind the play – ES Saraswathy, who played Parvathy – and through her, found more information about the others involved in the play. In his introduction to the reprinted book, Gramaprakash writes with the gratification of one who had found the invisible authors, “...it is ironic that it required a man to go in search of these missing females from the male dominated canonical literary ‘History’ of Kerala.”
The play revolves around two main characters – Parvathy and Devaki, members of the Antharjana Samajam, who intervene to save a 14-year-old girl from being married off by an uncle in exchange for money. In parallel, Devaki, the more romantic of the two women, gets married to an advocate with seemingly progressive ideas but who turns out to be just as vile as the other men in the community who treat women like slaves in the kitchen. However, Devaki has no plan to endure the least bit of oppression and announces to Parvathy that however rich or handsome her husband is, she was not prepared to live as a slave and would sooner leave him.
The exchanges between characters are so often strikingly relevant in the times we live in that you wonder if anything much has changed at all. You’d imagine that perhaps a rebellion for equal rights back then would be less fervent, that the women had decided to act only when they reached the end of their tether. Given that they had been so used to living in oppression, you’d expect they must have begun reacting in small ways, after enduring many wounds. But Parvathy and Devaki and even young Savithri – a girl of 11 who accompanies them – are quick to react to the slightest injustices or even a wrong word.
Devaki utters even before her marriage – “however wonderful he is, I won’t let him interfere with my likes and freedom.”
Savithri questions her grandmother about the practice of forcibly veiling a Namboodiri bride who then is led by hand by her uncle. “Won’t she stumble and fall if she’s covered from top to toe? And isn’t that why her hand is held? If there’s no veil, why should he hold her at all?”
The grandmother goes on to criticise a young Namboodiri girl who had left her old and ailing husband for another man, bringing to mind the legendary story of Thathrikutty, who famously called out her harassers during a trial held by Namboodiri men for her ‘adultery’. In the play, Parvathy calls out the young girl’s wedding to the old man as a sham and shoots back, “In these modern times, girls cannot be married off without their consent. Or else, such things are bound to happen.”
Decades down the line, in 2025, women are still making the same arguments, consent is still a little understood concept, and forced marriages of young girls take place all the time. Worse, they get murdered if they do not give consent and back off.
In other ways too time seems stuck in the 1940s, when you see the women in the play talking about the rigidity of caste and right-wing politics. It takes little Savithri to ask, “If gods don’t practise untouchability, why should we? Are we above gods?”
The inclusion of the right-wing Hindu nationalist party RSS – Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh – might have come after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi [by a Hindu nationalist called Godse], says Gramaprakash. “The assassination took place at a time they had set out for a performance. When they heard, the performance was of course cancelled.”
There is mention of Gandhi’s killing in the play. The hypocrite advocate that Devaki marries is shown as a follower of the RSS as well as a fake liberal. It is amusing that fake liberals were called out as far back as the late 1940s, when they are even now at the centre of social media battles.
“There are different types of liberals. There are some, mostly the rich, who will accept any reform if it suits them. And the traditionalists will choose not to see it,” Parvathy says.
The characters are derived from real people of the time. The 14-year-old who is to be forcibly married off for a large sum of money was based on the life of Kavungara Bhargavi of Valanchery, an orphan who was raised by her uncle and who was saved by members of the Antharjana Samajam. Gramaprakash learnt about all this from Saraswathy. By that time, the women had all lost touch with each other but Saraswathy had a vague idea that Bhargavi was near Shornur. Gramaprakash found Bhargavi, who revealed how copies of the drama were confiscated by the police back in the late 40s when they raided the house of Pariyanampatta, nephew of the Communist leader EMS Namboodiri, during those years when Communism was banned.
What Bhargavi went through was the practice of selling off young girls on the pretext of marriage to men many times their senior in exchange for a large sum of money, Beena says.
Along with Saraswathy and Bhargavi, Gramaprakash and Beena found out the names of other members of the play – Thaliyil Uma Devi, Alambilly Uma, PM Sreedevi, M Savitri, P Priyadatta, VN Devasena. Even though they received help from men like VT for the creative process, the play is majorly the work of the women. Even the roles of men were enacted by the women.
On November 1, 2008, when Gramaprakash’s reprinted book was released, five of the women who were part of the original play were present for the occasion. The book has since become part of the curriculum in universities. After the reprinting, the play was performed once again by students of the Victoria College in Palakkad, removed from Parvathy and Devaki by generations but fighting the same battles.