The Futility of Loss: A Review of Madhavikutty's "Nashtapetta Neelambari"
After a heavy lunch, I committed the mistake of coming to the reading room of my university so as to begin my academic writing. It has been a long time since I have written anything for my research. I kept all my things aside and took my phone to switch it off. As usual I pulled down the notification bar and saw that I have a message in Telegram, and it was from my colleague. She had sent me the PDF of the story "Nashtapetta Neelambari" (literally translated as "the Lost Neelambari", the latter word referring to a raga in Indian music). As predicted, I lost the rhythm of my plan and endeavored to read this long forgotten story from my degree days. The short story is about two characters Kannan and Bhadra. They argue in the beginning. From the conversation, the readers get to know that they "were" in love and Bhadra plans to break the relationship as she is betrothed to a rich man. This is a cliche in most of the stories were girls bec...