It is better to be old-fashioned with belief in God, rather than being a modernist without belief in God, said well known writer from Kerala, M. Mukundan. We need a God to call to, in times of need, else we are poor. The return to God is not subservience to human gods. Pure faith needs to be regained, said Mukundan, delivering his speech after receiving the Third Youth India Expatriate literary Award. These are good times for writers. Readers have increased and books are selling better than ever. And money is flowing in. Earlier a maximum of 2000 copies used to be printed per year. That has now increased to 10,000 per year. 'Pravasam', the book which was selected for the award, 10,000 copies of it were printed and were all sold out in 10 months, said Mukundan.
The nostalgic feeling associated with staying away from home has changed. In the earlier times when people left home for long years, they always kept alive their sweet memories. But nowadays, everything that is available in Kerala is available in all corners of the world where the Keralite community lives.
Travel is very important. Writers need to travel a lot. There are people who are confined to their locality and bind themselves there. I do not subscribe to such a view. You need to travel to far off places understand and write. People have been making fun of me, saying I am an international writer, when I said this, he said.
Kerala Islamic Group President Zubair KA inaugurated the function which was held in Abbasiya Integrated school. He presented Mukundan with the Award and Certificate. PP Abdul Razak presented a critique on the book 'Pravasam' which was selected for the award.
Youth India Acting President Nisar K Rasheed presided over the function. Solidarity Youth Movement President, T Mohamed Velom delivered the keynote speech. Ayyoob Kechery of Grand Hyper inaugurated the 'Better Tomorrow' project by handing over a bucket of necessities to Youth India Acting President Nisar K Rasheed. Mukundan distributed the prize for the Short Story competition winner Nishad Kaattoor and Shabeer Mandoly distributed the prize to the winner of Youth India Photography competition Ratheesh Gopi. Shafi PT, CK Najeeb, Hasanul Banna and CP Naisam spoke at the event. John Arts handed presented M.Mukundand and T Mohamed Velom with their caricatures. John Mathew, Abdul Fathah Thayyil, Varghese Puthukulangara, TV Hikmath, Sakkeer Hussain Thuvoor, SAP Azad, AniyanKunju, Lisi Kuriakose, Shabeer Mandoly, Warda Anwar, Sajith Kumar, Deepa and Samiya Faisal also attended the event.
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