Kaikurussi Character Analysis

Kaikurussi is a microcosm of Kerala. According to Bhasi, Kaikurussi is a typical village where women “sound old and weary by the time they are twenty five . . . it is because they feel they are destined to a lifelong tedium of chores, a monotony that is more mind-glazing than backbreaking” (TBM 125). Valsala, the wife of ageing school master Prabhakaran, was caught up in her chores. The house and the surroundings became her prison walls keeping her captive for the last twenty three years. Her eyes are devoid of any emotion and her voice is that “of a woman who had no more dreams” (TBM 126) and expectations from life. Valsala who had never known “an awakening of her senses” (TBM 128) falls in love with Sridharan, their neighbour. She wanted to flee from her feeble old

Paru Kutty and Damayanti suffer a lot but accept their suffering because they attach a lot of importance to marital relationships. Besides, they consider it their duty to fulfil the patriarchal and gender expectations of the society. But characters like Meeenakshi, Anjana and Valsala are shown to grow in strength and courage with their suffering. As long as Paru Kutty is alive, she never allows Achuthan Nair to bring his concubine to her house. Anjana is stronger than Mukundan and “All through their relationship, she had been the one to take risks, to forge ahead while he had walked a step behind, afraid, unsure” (TBM 355). She tells Mukundan, “You are a coward. A smug and completely self-absorbed coward who puts himself before anyone else and then uses his own feebleness of character to excuse it . . . You disgust me” (TBM 323). Mukundan shows manly qualities very late in his life. The community hall built by Power House Ramakrishnan is a symbol of his failure. He realises that it was “a statement of his weakness, his cowardice, and his lack of integrity . . . His failure as a friend, as a lover. As a man” (TBM