Antharjanam: Memoirs of a Namboodiri Woman

Devaki Nilayamgode

Translated by Indira Menon and Radhika P Menon

Oxford University Press,

202 pages, R395

What was it like to be a Namboodiri woman 80 years ago? In the enormous Pakavoor Illam, dressed in plain clothes, their hours filled with sombre ritual baths, denied flowers or jewellery, left to the care of maids and deprived of parental love, young Namboodiri girls grew up unseen and unheard by the rest of the household. Ending the silence of centuries, this first full-length account is a personal and social history of the Namboodiri woman’s world.