"I was very touched by Moncy Pothen's excellent presentation of life in Kerala, the southern Indian state, and every incident he narrates happens there every day. Beneath the Clouds and Coconut Leaves offers not simply glimpses into life in Kerala but deep insights into how the people there think. It skillfully uses Malayalam words, for which no equivalents exist in any other language, leaving no room for ambiguity."

  "Beneath the Clouds and Coconut Leaves is a very refreshing work, and it is not an exaggeration to say that every Malayalee would wish to have authored it."
  
  "A job excellently done. I rank Beneath the Clouds and Coconut Leaves a notch above every other book written in English about life in Kerala, including, 'The God of small things,' which won Booker Prize in 1997."

-P.V.Vivekanand.

Author Pothen should be applauded on his ability to handle such  revolutionary ideals as social enlightenment and welfare issues in such a backwater setting; a rather laid-back rural community where change is frowned upon and things can only move at a snail’s pace. Linguistically, the book should delight all with its generous imagery and plethora of picturesque descriptions. The kaleidoscope of exotic characters, Hindus, Muslims and Christians, living side by side in peace and amity, also adds to the overall warmth of the novel."

-Safi Abdi (Safia Mohamed), well known Somalian writer, has been living in Dubai for the past five years. Her books, A Mighty Collision of Two Worlds and Offspring of Paradise are popular.

   "Extremism, now more widely termed, terrorism, is on the lips of every human being and on the front pages of the world’s newspapers every day. But we still long for love and love still thrives. This poetic novel by Moncy Pothen plunges us directly into the forests and paddy fields of Kerala, India from the 1960s to the 1980s, describes the delicate and heartfelt awakening of love in two lives, and has roots in ancient Indian tradition. Can you forgive a terrorist, if he has participated in the murder of your own father? Like the heroine, Ahalya, we live in complicated times, where black and white give way to shades of gray, and in Beneath the Clouds and Coconut Leaves, we hold our breath to witness which will win the battle, love or hate? Like the hero, Arjunan, we are fighting to win that battle within ourselves."

-Allana Joy Bourne. Newspapers in Education Program Specialist, The Seattle Times. 
Adjunct faculty, Seattle Pacific University .

  Moncy Pothen’s novel, ‘Beneath the Clouds and Coconut Leaves’ gives a panoramic view of the socio-economic life in Kerala in a realistic manner, threading along the warp and weft of the Kerala community.

  Arjunan the hero and Ahalya the heroine are mythological names. Arjunan is the ideal fighter in the eternal battle between right and wrong; Ahalya stands for the curse-befallen society that needs a stone-like persistence for its final liberation.

   The novel is full of meticulous descriptions of the coconut land filling the air with the flutter of the Coconut fronds and the fragrance of the paddy fields. The vernacular expressions in the novel add to the Kerala flavor of the story.

-Prof. Bridget Joseph M.A.M.Phil.  
Retired Professor, Assumption College, Changanacherry, Kerala. Former Co-coordinator of undergraduate courses, School of distant education, M.G.University. Former Resource person for Post Graduate Courses in English, M.G University. Former faculty at the International Embassy School, Dammam , Saudi Arabia.

SUNDAY
2006, November 18, Saturday
Book

Beneath the Clouds and Coconut Leaves
Moncy Pothen

Beneath the Clouds and Coconut Leaves tells the simple story of human virtue and addresses social issues as well. It also talks about friendship and harmony among people of different religious beliefs. Publisher, Poorna Publications, Kozhikode.

NOVEL DESCRIPTION

Lies as a tiny state in India's extreme south, gifted abundantly by nature's bliss, surrounded by coconut groves, paddy fields, greenly hills, valleys, rivers, canals and backwaters; Kerala signifies the term, 'the God's own country'. Using an imaginary village called, Nellikkara, this novel portrays the lives of people in Kerala who belong to various castes and creeds. It is an extremely odd society co-exists peacefully for centuries irrespective of their uncompromising beliefs and customs.

The story starts at dusk when Arjunan, the hero, gets down from a passenger bus, at the village junction, after serving his jail term for Naxalite activities. His saga of existence with the variety of strange village characters starts there. He wishes to patch-up with his friends, relatives and neighbors. He tries to support the Brahmin Mana, the once rich and pompous family where Ahalya, the Assassinated Ramabhadran Nambuthiri's daughter, her bed-bound mother and the younger brother, Kesu, live pathetically; as expiation for his past which devastated them. Could he rescue them from ruin? Could he succeed in his efforts to prove his goodwill? What are the strange events awaiting him in his course of action? How will his timely actions change the desperate village women's destiny too? The author invites the readers to his beautiful village to experience the lively smell of screw pine, pala and elangi flowers under the sanctity of coconut and banyan tree leaves. Hear the songs of cuckoos and the perpetual melody of breeze and rains in the rhythmic dissonance of crickets and frogs. Won't this be a different literary experience?