From the margins to the mainstream

PK Rosy is the first female actor of Malayalam cinema. However, scant regard is paid to her in the annals of film history. Last year, the Women in Cinema Collective (WCC) in Kerala launched a film society named after her. Rosy was a Dalit Christian and her parents, Paulose and Kunji, were daily wagers. She was poor and worked menial jobs such as grass cutting for a livelihood. Besides, she was also a prolific actor in Kakkarissi plays, a form of folk theatre which blends Tamil and Malayalam.

In her debut and the first Malayalam film ever, Vigathakumaran

(The Lost Child, 1928), she played Sarojini, an upper caste Nair girl. When the film was released, Rosy was viciously attacked. Stones were pelted at her during the inaugural screening. Her hut was set ablaze and she had to run for her life. The director of the film and her co-actor, JC Daniel, was driven to bankruptcy. The film attracted the wrath of several Hindu orthodox groups who were enraged by the presence of a woman in the film. Acting in film was equated with prostitution. They were also belligerent because a Dalit Christian had dared to play a Nair girl. Things got so bad that both Rosy and Daniel had to leave Kerala to settle in Tamil Nadu. Rosy married Kesavan Pillai, became

Rajammal, and spent the remainder of her life in Nagercoil. Her children know little about this chapter in their mother’s life. Daniel had to rely on his practice as a dentist to make ends meet. Both relinquished their dreams of filmmaking.

Author Vinu Abraham heard PK Rosy’s story at an international film festival in Kerala during a protest by Dalit activist groups demanding that Rosy be accorded her rightful place in the history of Malayalam cinema. Abraham’s novel is a fictional reconstruction of a period in Rosy’s life. In the introduction, he writes, “Very soon, it dawned on me that I should go for a narrative which would employ liberal doses of imagination, albeit conforming to the broad parameters of her known realities and historical honesty – in fact, a novel”. Thus, Nashtanaika (Malayalam title) was born.

The novel has run into multiple editions. It has also inspired several film renditions. Owing

Vinu Abraham; Translated by CS Venkiteswaran and Arathy Ashok

176pp, ~299

Speaking Tiger Books to its popularity, many readers now know about the tragedy of PK Rosy. The Lost Heroine could be read as alternative history. Abraham’s novel safeguards precious public and personal memory about the beginning of cinema in a state that boasts of a robust film culture. Special thanks are due to film scholar CSVenkiteswaran and Arathy Ashok for their efforts to translate the novel and make it available to a reading public beyond Kerala. My favourite parts in the novel include Rosy’s evening strolls home after shooting for the film had ceased for the day. She walks past upper caste Nair households where women lived a life of comfort. However, none of them were allowed to act in a film. As if her brief encounter with cinema was the genesis of a new found confidence, she feels triumphant that she can make her own choices unlike women caged in their mansions. The moment renders Rosy alive.

As for Vigathakumaran, no copy of it can be traced. The novel ends with Daniel’s children burning the film reel as part of their games. From a distance, Rosy watches the gradual extinction of personal and public history, of a period being erased from her life. She, however, is not the lost heroine. PK Rosy is to be found in Abraham’s novel.

Mehr Afshan Farooqi