Malathi Chendur passes away

Chennai: Famous writer, critic and columnist Malathi Chendur died of cancer at a private hospital in Chennai on Wednesday. She was 84. She had been ailing with cancer for the past five years. Last rites will be performed in Chennai on Thursday.

Chendur is a prolific writer in Telugu. Her works include novels, short stories and articles which delineate social transformation in a lucid way.

Her husband Chendur Nageswara Rao was himself a writer of great repute. He published literary magazines– the quarterly Kathaaveedi and the monthly Mali. The latter was rechristened as Jagathi. He expired about two years ago. Chendur’s writing career began around 1950. She had since shot into limelight with her thought-provoking works.

Recipient of various awards like AP Sahitya Akademy and Kendra Sahitya Akademi and Lok Nayak Foundation, she first began with short stories notable of which are ‘Ravvaladdulu,’ ‘Luz Corner,’ ‘Neeraja’ that appeared in famous magazines like Andhra Prabha, Bharati etc. Soon she gained fame with novels such as ‘Cheedapurugulu,’ Sisira Vasantam’, ‘Alochinchu’ ‘Champakam’ and ‘Sadyogam.’

She was born in 1930 in Nuziveedu in Krishna district. Her schooling was done in Nuziveedu and Eluru. At a very young age, she had the opportunity of coming across such great litterateurs like Sri Sri, Viswanatha Satyanarayana, Krushna Sastry, Nanduri Subba Rao, Venkata Chalam, Kavali Lakshmi Narasingam etc who used to frequent the office of a magazine ‘Kathaveedhi’ in the town.

She was married to Chendur and the couple settled down in Chennai where she completed Class X. Seeing her interest and writing prowess, he encouraged her to pursue a career in writing. She thus soon started reading out her stories on All India Radio. Andhra Prabha magazine invited her to write and she began a feature ‘Pramadavanam’ for women readers, which spanned three decades.

Malathi’s answers to readers queries in Andhra Prabha under ‘Pramadavanam’ and in Swati under ‘Nannu Adagandi’ columns greatly expanded her fame. Modelled on the famous ‘Dear Abby’ feature of Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, people would wonder at her analysis of personal problems and social issues as well as wide knowledge of many things. Over 20 novels and 300 Telugu translations of Jane Austin to Arundhati Roy were credited to her illustrious career. Recognising her contribution to the field of literature, the Central government appointed her as a member of the Central Censor Board. She had such devotion to her work that to understand Tamil movies, she learnt the language and even translated some works into Telugu.

She was also made an adviser to institutions like World Telugu Federation and became the president of Potti sreeramulu Memorial Society and rendered yeomen service to Telugu language and culture in Tamil Nadu. The World Telugu Federation has deeply condoled the death of Malathi Chendur at its executive body meeting in Chennai. As soon as the tragic news broke out, a number of her fans began to throng her house. Almost all Telugu literary associations are expected to participate in the funeral procession on Thursday.