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LAMENT OF MOHINI

Ó Shreekumar Varma 2000

First published in paperback by Penguin Books India in 2000

I was reading and I was halfway into my own ancestry, helpless, taken by surprise....

Gopi Narayan is a shocked to discover unbelievable revelations about his own family and its history in the manuscript of a novel by Rangachari, a small time writer, and sets out to discover how a complete stranger knows so much personal detail. Gopi’s encounter with the eccentric Rangachari and his audacious novel becomes a journey to the past his own as well as his family’s a return to Chennai, the city where he once levied and ultimately to Kilikkara in rural Kerala, where it all happened.

Lament of Mohini is story of five generations of an aristocratic Kerala family, its loves and hates, and its confrontation with a sobering present. As he maps out the complex and colourful history of the clan. Shreekumar Varma brings to life a cast of unforgettable characters; Kochu Kelu, the indolent patriarch, Sarada of the bustling goodwill  and legendary culinary skills, Narayanan Namboodiri, who attempts to become part of the aristocratic family he has married into, MVR, the romantic poet whose epic turns from a celebration of the loves of gods to those of humans after one magical meeting with a beautiful woman in the dark rooms of a bathhouse and Gopi himself – self – deprecating, well intentioned and enormously lovable.

A grand saga written with great lyricism and rich humour, Lament of Mohini is a brilliant debut. The story of Lament Of Mohini had been in the Shreekumar’s mind for many decades, ever since he was a college student. It was written during the late nineties and first published in 2000. The unique matriarchal system of Kerala and the interaction between members of a royal family and a conservative priestly household attracted the interest of readers within and outside India.

SHREEKUMAR VARMA was born in Trivandrum. After an M.Phil in English Literature from Madras Christian College, he took a diploma in Journalism. He worked in the Indian Express, Bombay, and has also been editor, publisher, printer, and lecturer in English and Journalism. He has published articles, interviews, short stories and poetry in several newspapers and magazines, and has written a children's book, The Royal Rebel. He has designed and broadcast radio programmes. He has also written two award-winning plays.

Shreekumar is the grandson of Sethu Lakshmi Bayi, last ruling maharani of Travancore, and great-great-grandson of the artist Raja Ravi Varma. He is married to Geeta and has two sons, Vinayak and Karthik. He lives and writes compulsively in Chennai.