Kochi: Dostoevsky rolled over to Perumbadavam Sreedharan. The autorickshaw owed its name to Perumbadavam whose celebrated novel made the Russian novelist a household name in Kerala.
Majumdar, the owner of the oddly named autorickshaw criss-crossing Kochi roads, is one among the legion of fans of ‘Oru Sankeerthanam Pole,’ which told the story of Fyodor Dostoevsky and his sweetheart Anna. The enchanted autorickshaw driver named his son Dostoevsky.
Perumbadavam and publisher Ashramam Bhasi went to see Majumdar after they were told about the fan who named his autorickshaw and his son after the Russian protagonist of the 1993 Malayalam novel.
The Nayarambalam resident was on cloud nine. “I will not be able to sleep tonight,” Majumdar said. “Just as Perumbadavam sir kept awake the night he described Dostoevsky as ‘the one who had the thumbprint of God on his heart’.”
Majumdar first read the novel in 1994. Initially he could not get over the difficult Russian names. He persisted anyway and the book refused to let him go. He said that he had no idea how many times he had read the book.
So which was his favourite passage from the novel, the novelist asked. Majumdar was ready with the reply: “When the police inspector asks Anna about her relation to Dostoevsky and she replies that she was his wife.”
Dostoevsky the second-grader
Majumdar’s son is a second-grade student at the Lobelia Higher Secondary School at Nayarambalam.
Did the couple face any problems with the unlikely name, Bhasi asked them. "If we took him to a doctor, he has to wait until everyone has left. The nurses say they can’t call out his name," Majumdar’s wife Sunitha said.
Dostoevsky's teachers call him Dosto. Perumbadavam quipped that he preferred to contract the name to Dostey.
Like Majumdar, Sunitha and their older daughter Anshumala are hardcore Perumbadavam fans. Before the writer and the publisher bid their farewell to the loyal readers, Majumdar shared a secret wish. "I wish my son marries a girl named Anna when he grows up!"
Read more: Ernakulam news