''Manju'' (''Mist'') is a novel by

M. T. Vasudevan Nair Madath Thekkepaattu Vasudevan Narayanan Nair (15 July 1933 – 25 December 2024) was an Indian author, lecturer, Screenwriter, screenplay writer and film director. He was a prolific and versatile writer in modern Malayalam literature, and was o ...

published in 1964. With few conversations and minimal characters, it narrates the story of a school teacher. The novel is set in the mountains and valleys of

Nainital Nainital (Kumaoni language, Kumaoni: ''Naintāl''; ) is a town and headquarters of Nainital district of Kumaon division, Uttarakhand, India. It is the judicial capital of Uttarakhand, the Uttarakhand High Court, High Court of the state being ...

where Vimala Devi, a teacher in a boarding school, waits in hope for the winter of her discontent to vanish. Despite having a family comprising a father, mother, sister, and brother, Vimala is kept aloof from them. She hates the company of her family and enjoys solitude. The eco-feminist theme of patriarchal domination and exploitation gains more prominence in ''Manju'', MT's only novel with a female protagonist. The novel stands apart as it is set in a milieu different from the usual one, the Valluvanadan village. The plot of the novel is allegedly similar to a

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

story ''Parinde'' (Birds, 1956), by

Nirmal Verma Nirmal Verma (3 April 192925 October 2005) was a Hindi writer, novelist, activist and translator. He is credited as being one of the pioneers of the ''Nai Kahani'' (New Story) literary movement of Hindi literature, wherein his first collection ...

. However both MT and Verma have rejected these claims. MT said in an interview with ''

India Today ''India Today'' is a weekly Indian English-language news magazine published by Living Media, Living Media India Limited. It is the most widely circulated magazine in India, with a readership of close to 8 million. In 2014, ''India Today'' laun ...

'', "I don't remember having ever read Verma's story although we are very close friends. I wrote ''Manju'' immediately after I returned from a visit to Nainital." Verma himself says it is ridiculous to accuse an author of MT's calibre of plagiarism. "My story's English translation was published only five or six years ago by HarperCollins. I don't think MT reads Hindi works in original. So there is no substance to the charge that MT had read it before he wrote his novel," says Verma. MT also directed and scripted a film with the same name based on the novel in 1983. The film stars Sangeeta Naik, Sankar Mohan, Sankara Pillai, and Nanditha Bose. The novel also had a

Hindi-language Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of the Government of India, alongside English, and is the ''lin ...

film adaptation titled ''Sharad Sandhya'' which went completely unnoticed.

References

Malayalam novels Indian novels adapted into films Novels set in India Novels set in Uttarakhand Novels set in Uttar Pradesh Novels by M. T. Vasudevan Nair DC Books books 1964 Indian novels {{1960s-novel-stub