The Sensuous Brahmins of Kerala
Image by Gemini AI After I left high school in 1975, Manipravalam stopped bothering me. Manipravalam was a medieval literary style in Kerala which blended Sanskrit vocabulary with Malayalam grammar and syntax. We were taught at school that Manipravalam enriched the literature of Kerala and elevated poetry to new heights. As a school student, I never cared to learn more about it. Now, when I happened to read a Facebook post by Devdutt Pattanaik, I was driven to curiosity to learn more about my state’s medieval literary wealth. And it’s been a rewarding experience. Pattanaik’s view is that some of the famous Manipravalam poems reveal the lecherous nature of the Brahmin Namboothiris of Kerala as well as their ‘literary’ ways of marketing lust. That the Namboothiris were a lecherous lot was not new information for me. What was new was the realization that the 'elevated poetry' I was taught in school was actually stuff like: “ Her twin breasts, rising close together without...
