T’Puram: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor emphasized the cultural bond between France and Kerala, stating that French literature had a profound influence on state writers and politicians.Speaking at the launch of ‘Pardon My French’ Bookshell in DC Books organized by the French Institute of India on Thursday, Tharoor said, “French culture and ideas have participated in our consciousness through political writing, praise and democracy, freedom, equality and fraternity values.” He said that the extraordinary contribution of French writers opened new ways to think.“More than 100 years ago, in a transformational work of literary vision, Nalappat Narayan Menon translated Victor Hugo’s Les Misarkels as ‘Pavgal’ in Malayalam. It was a cultural transplant and the soil of Kerala received it not only out of curiosity but with gratitude and little revolutionary enthusiasm. Our famous Communist leader, EMS Nambothiripad said that ‘Pavgal’ was one of the sparks that led him to communism. Writers like Thagazi and Ov Vijayan have said that in translated works of French writing, they found a new idiom of sympathy, a new story probability and a new lens, through which to see oppressed and invisible. Tharur said that with ‘Pavgal’, Malayalam found a weapon for awakening and that engagement has partially contributed to the decades of notable visionary and social fermentation in Kerala since the 1930s.He also mentioned that many other Malayalis began translating the works of French and Russian stories and modernist works and thus the doors of people like Gai Day Maikant, Victor Hugo and émile Zola were opened in Malayali brains. He said, “How many Malayalis have discovered the challenges of realism and introspection in a literature, which reflects the society and questioned it,” he said.“French, in many ways, is a cultural relationship for us, including our great conversational habit. The habit of sitting and discussing coffee. Bengali Ada, Malayali Tea Shop. This is France, except that it is happening in our languages,” he said.
