Padma Shri got MK Kunhol. That’s how people in Perumbavoor reacted to the news that 82 year old Kunhol, born as the son of Kurumban and Vallothi, a Harijan couple, has been honoured with Padma Shri, by the President of India. Padma Shri is reaching the town for the first time. (Though a film actor who was born in Perumbavoor went on to win a Padma Shri award through his performances in Tamil movies and that too in Tamil Nadu, an average Perumbavoorean is experiencing the thrill of this award for the first time).
The award for Kunhol is different in many ways. It is an award which has come in search of a person who had to undergo all bitter experiences because he was born as Harijan. He was denied education in school, college and medical college by the powers that be (both the Congress and the Communists who swear by their love for the downtrodden). Sitll, Kunhol fought against all odds, got education from the Ramakrishna Mission in Kalady where he was a disciple of Swamy Agamananda who has undertaken the task of teaching Sanskrit and Vedas to the depressed and oppressed classes and that too in 1950s and 1960s.
Kunhol was a perfect student who went on memorising the Vedas and Upanishads much to the surprise of Swamy Agamanandaji.
The monk understood that Kunhol’s life should not be wasted within the precincts of the Ashram learning Vedas. He wanted the Harijaan boy to get modern education and this he was enrolled as a student in the nearby college from where he graduated in science with distinction.
Though he got admission to MBBS course in Kozhikode Medical College, purely based on merit, the student leaders born in high society had reservations in a Pulaya youth emerging as a medical doctor and they hand in glove with the teaching fraternity ensured that Kunhol was thrown out from the “elite” college.
What Kerala lost in the melee was not only a potential brilliant medical doctor but the possibility of more Harijan youths entering the mainstream professions way back in 1950s itself.
Kunhol’s life is full of struggles, sufferings and agitations against injustice. He may be the only person who takes proud of the fact that he belongs to the Harijan community. There was a former minister in Kerala who filed a complaint against the late Chief Minister E K Nayanar for calling him Harijan!
“Yes, I simply love the term Harijan. There is no other word which is more beautiful than this term and I love to be addressed as Harijan,” Kunhol told The Pioneer. If you want to meet Kunhol, come to Perumbavoor and ask anybody.. they will direct you to his house.
But chances are that most of the time he would be in the forefront of agitations against injustice perpetrated against humanity. It is easy to identify this small man moving along the by lanes of Perumbavoor in his traditional attire of torn saffron veshti and cotton shirt. He does not have time for soliloquies or pep talks.
The beauty of Padme Shree vas fully visible when his neighbours and friends rushed to his make-shift house to greet him on hearing the news.. His voice chocking with emotions, he said “Sorry, I don’t have even black coffee to serve you.” That’s Acharya Kunhol, the last of the legendary characters in Kerala’s social life.