On top of the Varghese Memorial Book Stall in Kozhikode’s Pottammal Junction, in two rooms decked with photos on the walls and books on the tables lives Ayinoor Vasu, a 94-year-old man who refuses to move away from the revolutionary life he has led so far. Known more by the name he acquired later, GROW Vasu, he went to jail even at 94 for an earlier protest against encounter killings of Maoists. He chose jail for 46 days at his advanced age, refusing to sign a bail bond or pay a fine, asserting that he was free of guilt. If one were to describe him in a couple of words, one could call GROW Vasu a relentless activist, but he has a rich history to narrate, beginning with but not limited to the acts of naxalism that he is still most known for.
Arshaq, a filmmaker from Kozhikode, who grew up admiring ‘Vasuvettan’ (as townsfolk call him) as a hero, made an hour-long documentary about the nonagenarian, peppering it with animated visuals and gripping music to cover events of the past, and interviews of people who worked with him and with the man himself. “It began as an idea for a 10-minute film, but every time we visited him we would uncover something new about Vasuvettan that we knew had to be documented. This person, his life, it should all be documented, we knew, and that was a big responsibility,” Arshaq tells TNM.
The film is being screened at the International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala (IDSFFK) that is happening currently in Thiruvananthapuram.
Arshaq’s film goes back centuries to present the slavery that existed in Kerala, a system that had existed in parts of Wayanad even in the 1960s. Arikkad Varghese, also known as Naxal or Sakhavu Varghese, exposed it to the outside world by organising an agricultural labourers union and holding strikes, Arshaq’s documentary says. It is this movement that young Vasu joined and would be known for in the years to come.
Varghese was a revolutionary leader who is still fondly remembered by the people of Kerala for his fights for the rights of Adivasis and his untimely death at 32 at the hands of the police. A police constable’s admission 40 years after Varghese’s death, that he had shot the unarmed man and it was not a confrontation (as it was earlier made out to be), elevated Varghese to the revered status of a martyr. In 2008, Prithviraj played Varghese, immortalising the character, in Madhupal’s unforgettable debut film, Thalappavu.
Arshaq’s film, by simply framing the props in the Pottammal house, reveals how Vasuvettan’s life still revolves around the revolutionary leader that he had chosen to follow as a young man. High on the wall are framed pictures of his icons, BR Ambedkar, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Engels. But most prominently displayed behind Vasuvettan’s chair is a flickering picture of Varghese, like a guiding figure for the 94-year-old.
“What surprised me most is how he still holds the Varghese commemoration every year in Pottammal. Whoever is there or not and whatever the circumstances, Vasuvettan holds it without fail,” Arshaq says.
At 94, Vasu is honest about a lot of things, about the choices he made in his life, the changes of paths he walked on. He had as a lad chosen Communism after hearing a cousin speak of the various flags in their neighbourhood: tricolour is the flag of the landlord, green the colour of the Mapillahs, but red is our colour, the colour of the labourer. After a while though, Vasu felt communism was not enough. He joined Varghese and naxalism. He was there on the night of February 10, 1970 when naxalites infamously barged into the houses of feudal lords and shot at them. Vasu was arrested and jailed for seven years.
Once he was released, no one would give him a job and he went back to the umbrella-making work he began in the 50s, to make money to retain a Communist party office in Pottammal. Through and through, he went out and fought for the rights of people who came to seek his help. He fought for the workers of Gwalior Rayons, a factory in Mavoor that has been creating a lot of pollution and allegedly exploiting contract labourers. He led a new union that came to be called GROW (Gwalior Rayons Organisation of Workers), suggesting that the factory stop producing pulp and paper and instead make non-polluting products.
Even now, he still goes out to raise his voice against injustice. With documents in his hand, he stood on a public platform last year to tell people how a tribal man called Viswanathan, who was found dead at the Medical College Hospital after he was accused of theft, had injuries that pointed to murder.
Vasu will turn 95 in November, the fighter in him remaining as fearless as the youth who walked with Varghese all those decades ago.