Malayalam writer Indira Remakantan (82) passed away on Monday, December 5, following a cardiac arrest. She has written several novels, Italyile Vanampadi one of the noted works among them. Her husband was the renowned writer Kilimanoor Ramakanthan, who had written a number of poetry collections and anthologies and translated classics like Dante’s Divine Comedy. Indira wrote the book Orma Kallukal about her husband.
A day before her death, Indira had penned a detailed post about the bad times that her family had been going through that led to her living alone. Her elder son had passed away many years ago, when he was only a school boy. The younger son, Manu Remakant, a college lecturer, had suffered much in the last year after he stood with his female students who had complained of sexual harassment by another male professor of the college. TNM had reported about the plight of the young women who did not receive any sympathy from the college authorities, who stood with the accused professor. The students also suffered severe repercussions — they were not allowed to sit for their exams and were refused a conduct certificate upon leaving college.
Manu and the other professors who sided with the students were first suspended, and when the High Court quashed the suspension order, were transferred to other locations. Indira wrote that the transfer had left her alone in the house. Both Manu and his father had worked at Sree Narayana College in Chempazhanthy, where the incident occured. Such an episode was unthinkable in the olden days, according to Indira. "Manu's father had worked at the college for 15 years. I remember how he used to talk about the good days when the principals and teachers were friendly to each other and worked together. It was he who took Manu to join the college 25 years ago," she wrote.
Explaining the hurtful incident at the college, Indira said that a protection layer had formed around the accused, as was the case in every other place today. But she appreciated the students for not bowing down to the authorities and boldly approaching everyone from ministers to the court to fight their case. She posted this on December 4, after which she felt too tired to go on.
Indira was a resident of Pettah in Thiruvananthapuram. She was taken to a hospital after she suddenly felt unwell. When they reached the hospital, her hemoglobin count had fallen. A few hours later, she succumbed to a cardiac arrest. Indira had in a way predicted her own death in her last Facebook post. “I stay guard for my own loneliness today. I hear the footsteps of time coming closer to me in the silent hours. I do not fear it, it is the inevitability of time,” she wrote.