‘The difference between the dead and the living is that we see the living when we remember the dead.’ Apart from his writing career, we can describe Akbar Kakkatil as such. The book ‘The Storyteller of Akbar Desabhavana’ edited by Lasitha Sangeet makes it a reality. A long line of friendship comes into it.
MT, Sathyan Anthikad, Adoor, Mukundan and P. Harindranath, Veeran Kutty, Khadija Mumtaz, Mutukad, notes of about 75 people from all walks of life, small and big, full of friendship. When reading each note in it, the eyes of anyone who keeps friendship moist in their mind will be filled with tears. That’s because those notes are so emotional. It happened only because of the after-effect of the magic of friendship and goodness that Akbar Mash always carried in his mind. The tides of friendship that burst out uncontrollably through the writer in every note make the reader also Akbar Mash’s dear friends. Because there is so much flow of friendship, this becomes a handbook of friendship rather than a memory book. Every moment Mash comes and goes, we deposit memories that lie deep within us. Those memories are sown and then it blossoms into a tree and a fruit.
Editor Lasitha says that this book is her gurudakshina. When I said, ‘I don’t have anything to write, Mashe, I’m writing and it’s not good’, Mash said in the same native language: ‘You get up… I’ll think about whether it’s good or not.’ It was a bridge of friendship. In the parlance of the backwoods, Akbar was also a magician shaped to penetrate the innermost being of any man, big or small. Sathyan Anthikad says that Akbar is not one Akbar but there are many Akbars. ‘Akbar the writer, Akbar the friend, Akbar the teacher, Akbar the organizer, Akbar the speaker, Akbar the textbook committee, Akbar the funny talker… We do not know which Akbar has left us. M said that Mash’s love, friendship and presence gives comfort to the mind like a medicine. Mukundan remembers. At last, the great tree of love that overshadowed the whole world of friendship fell apart, leaving only a shadow. This book introduces us to many levels of love.