Life Writing as Plant-Writing: Arboreal Encounters in Kallen Pokkudan’s Kandalkaadukalkkidayil Ente Jeevitham

Abstract

Kallen Pokkudan, known as the ‘mangrove man’ of Kerala, devoted his life to the restoration of mangrove forests across the state. Pokkudan’s autobiography, Kandalkaadukalkidayil Ente Jeevitham (2002), is as much a life narrative of the mangrove habitats in the Kannur district of Kerala as it is of the Dalit Pulaya community to which he belongs. Reading Pokkudan’s arboreal activism in the light of recent critical approaches to vegetality, we argue that his autobiography can be read as an instance of ‘Phytography’ (Ryan 2020) or plant-writing, where the very act of writing the self evolves into writing with and listening to vegetal subjects.