The last time I met John Elamatha of Mississauga, Toronto he was busy writing an autobiographical novel Mounathinte Mahamuzham (Great Resonance of Silence), recreating a life spanning from his younger days in Kuttanad, once known as the rice bowl of his native state of Kerala in India. I gave him a copy of John Grisham's autobiographic novel 'A Painted House' that tells of his child hood in rural Arkansas. 
First published in 2000, A Painted House was touted as a new best seller and a moving story of one boy's journey from innocence to experience. Till now Grisham has written 37 consecutive number-one fiction bestsellers, and his books have sold 300 million copies worldwide.  

John and Animma in Alaska
My friend John Elamatha is no comparison with John Grisham and yet both are of the same feather-novelists. Elamatha has published 18 books of short stories, satires, plays, travelogues and novels numbering 13. He presented me with a copy of his latest Soofikalum Sulthanmmarum, a novel recreating the travels of the Moroccan judge Ibnu Bathutha. The earlier one of similar strain Marco Polo is also with me. 

For Elamatha, 82, writing is a solace after the 2023 passing away of Animma, his life partner for 50 years. To enjoy the silence that prompts his creative urge, he has recently checked into an 8-story Amica City Centre in Mississauga. Rising at the icy cold mornings of Ontario, he dictates his thoughts to his cell phone that converts the voice to digital bites that produces his first draft when fed to a computer and printer.  It takes around 20 minutes to produce a five-page print. There is no strict time schedule. He can do the dictation whenever his mind dictates.  

View from the high-rise of Amica City Centre, Mississauga
Unbelievable how resourceful these modern gadgets are! They were unheard of in his school days in Kadapra Mannar in the Pathanamthitta district of Kerala, the southernmost state of India. Since then his home state with a staggering 36.5 million people has emerged the most literate province in the country. 

Over a cup of tea with Toronto Star in Amica library
People are aging in India, the most populous nation in the world with 1.49 billion. Kerala by its own terms has more than 4000 centenarians, men and women, and according a BBC programme many big mansion-like homes in Kerala remain ghost houses with no one to care for the aged parents.

Elamatha was  a graduate of science in Zoology, Botany and Chemistry before migrating to Cologne in Germany to study nursing. By the time he met his future life partner Animma, she had finished her nursing courses there and working. They were married in 1972 to spend 16 years in Germany to jostle in the same hospital. 

 With Amica officers Bianaca, a Serbian, Daniel from Mexico
John started writing poems at the young age of 16. It blossomed into a passion while in Germany. There was a 300-strong Malayali community in Cologne with whom they developed a strong cultural relationship. John wrote forty plus skits and plays for the community and staged them in Cologne, Dusseldorf, Munich, etc. 
John is bilingual. He writes fluently in his native Malayalam as well as English. Of his 13 novels, twelve have been published by his long-time friend Ashokkumar of Kairali Books, Kannur. Buddhan, The Journey and Storied Stones are his novels in English. 

Lasting camaraderie: with M.N. Karassery and M. Mukundan
He won a couple pf literary honours including FOKANA Literary Award and eMalayalee award for lifetime achievement as a writer.  He was chairperson to FOKANA Literature Festival and served as founding secretary and president of LANA-Literary Association of North America.  

Nostalgia for the emerald green paddy fields of Kuttanad 
Johns's 17th work Marco Polo, based on the voyages of the intrepid traveler from Venice to explore the Chinese Silk Route was well received. His 18th Soofiyum Sulthanmarum is based on the 75,000 km travels of Moroccan Quadi (judge) Abu Ahmed Ibnu Bathutha to the unchartered waters of north Africa and the Eastern continents. In the depth of research and felicity of writing both works have stood the test of time. Soofiyum Sulthanmarum came out in February this year. 

Elamatha feels that the knowledge he has collected from his wide travels in the Americas, Europe and the East has helped him to recreate the travels Marco Polo and Ibnu Bathutha. 

In the company of granddaughter Hannah Mari
John is fully immersed in his next autobiographical novel which could be his magnum opus.  He writes on what he missed in the West-the shimmering emerald green paddy fields of Kuttanad in Kerala. He is confident that the new high end retirement home in Mississauga with a garden, swim, gym, theatre, restaurant and above all a well stacked library will help him continue reading his favorite newspapers and do research. 

'Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet', wrote the English poet Rudyard Kipling. In the case of Elamatha, very idea is rubbish. He was born in the East but  embraced the West wholeheartedly. There is no going back. The silence up in the sky prods him in his urge to create and codify his thoughts of the East and the West in gay abandon. 

All in the family-with wife Animma, sons Jino, Jikku
The silence is marred only by the occasional visits of his grand- daughter, chirpy the 13-year old Hannah Mari,  daughter of his son Jikku and Liza, an Italian. The elder son is Jino.

(Some of the images are credited to Jaison Mundakkal, Toronto)

Images

1.    John Elamatha, browsing A Painted House, autobio novel by John Grisham
2.    His travel books on Marco Polo and Ibnu Bathutha