Apart from being a known short story writer, he was a footballer, swimmer, political activist and painter,” says Kanchana. “Moideen was a multi-faceted personality. Remorseful after the second attack, his father relented to giving him a share of the family property, but never allowed him to enter the parental home or meet his mother. On another occasion, his father stabbed him 22 times for giving a critical speech in public but Moideen survived again,’’ says Kanchana. But Moideen had a miraculous escape even though he sustained multiple serious injuries. “His father shot Moideen using a country gun when he tried to forcibly barge into the house. Under pressure from community leaders, his father cut him out of his will and denied him a share in the family property, even tried to kill him. Moideen was thrown out of his home for refusing to marry a girl his family chose. Kanchana was forced to discontinue her studies and, she says, put under “house arrest”. The life sentences of the two lovers began soon after. The families broke all links with each other. Despite the long-standing friendship between the two families, in the ultra-conservative Kerala of the 1950s, there was no question of the possibility of an inter-faith marriage. All hell broke loose once both families came to know about the affair,” she says. “It was about a year later that my mother noticed a letter from Moideen while cleaning my bookshelf. But very soon I started getting poetic love letters along with the books.” Kanchana had no cause to question Moideen’s sincerity or how much he cared about her, so it never crossed her mind to turn him down either. Once he gave me a collection of poems by a Malayalam romantic poet, and I found sentences expressing love and romance were underlined,” says Kanchana. He used to lend me books, mainly novels and poems. “In the beginning it was just friendship.

Ennu ninte moideen 2015