THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, Nov 17: The noted Malayalam novelist and critic Kamala Das, in an interview in a regional magazine, has said that while she was of the opinion that Namboodiripad should not have made such a hue and cry over the alleged references to him in The God of Small Things, she was personally not in favour of writing a book about those who were alive.

``Only part of the book is based on reality. However, the readers would get an impression that everything in the work has really occurred. However, I am impressed by Arundhati's writing style,'' Kamala Das said.

``But I feel that Namboodiripad should not have made a hue and cry over the alleged references to him. He is a cult figure and I consider him and Nithyachaitanya Yati as the two prominent intellectuals in the State,'' Kamala Das said. Das was reacting to ex-Kerala Chief Minister and communist ideologue E M S Namboodripad's most severe attack yet on Arundhati Roy for alleged defamatory references to him in her Booker winner.

E M S, as he is known, has said that while Arundhati had attacked him only for political reasons, the novelist, ``to whom revolution meant sexual anarchy'', had even gone to the extent of depicting her mother as a woman of loose morals. Namboodiripad has said that he had no plan to initiate legal action against Arundhati Roy.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.