At Hay fest,Seth impresses with Malayalam

The parliamentarian tried to hard-sell his constituency “with an unpronounceable name but with blue waters and beaches” and asked the guests to stay back and enjoy the place. 

But the star was writer Vikram Seth,who read out some of his unpublished poems,joked that his next novel A Suitable Girl would be in haiku and scribbled one on his palm instantly. He read it out: It is sixty years on/ From that rather fat book/ I wrote. Later he was seen holding a book of Malayalam alphabet and reading out with apparent ease even the hard-to-pronounce “zh”. That is for vazhapazham (banana),he said with a laugh.

The polyglot who has learnt Mandarin,among others,picked up Malayalam from television anchor Parvathi T. “He learnt it in 15 minutes. He has a photographic memory. He is the most intelligent student I’ve come across,” she said. For him the Malayalam ‘K” is Saturn with a ring and the Malayalam “O” a conjoined 63.

When later he was asked to sign the images shot by wildlife photographer Balan Madhavan which were displayed at the venue,Kanakakunnu Palace,he decided to sign in Malayalam. A suitable student for the language.