THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Thousands of people from all faiths gathered at the Palayam Juma Masjid graveyard here Tuesday to bid adieu to writer Kamala Suraiyya, who died in Pune Sunday.
The poet of love and lust, who embraced Islam a decade ago and started living in purdah, was buried in an unmarked grave true to the Wahabi tradition that the mosque follows.
The iconoclast who wrote in both Malayalam and English and stirred many a controversy was accorded a state funeral and policemen gave a gun salute as her body was interred.
Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi and several state ministers attended the services along with writers, filmmakers and her fans cutting across religious barriers. She was Kamala Das to her readers in English and Madhavikkutty in Malayalam before her controversial conversion that provoked fundamentalists to step up attack on her.
She suffered from diabetes and was hospitalized last month with pneumonia, which led to her death. Her body was brought here Monday night after being taken to Thrissur, Kochi, Alappuzha and Kollam, where thousands of her admirers paid tearful homage.
Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan paid his last respects to her when her body was kept at the University Senate Hall here Sunday evening.
Separate prayers for men and women were held before her body was lowered into the resting place at 9 a.m. Her close family members, including her elder son MD Nalapat, also attended services at the mosque.
Addressing a condolence meeting on the mosque premises later, Nalapat said the family decided to give the Islamic funeral service at the chosen mosque as she wished. "Mother had always wished to come home for good, and it was befitting that her final resting place is in Kerala," he said.
At the mosque, the body is washed with warm water, shrouded in an unsewn clothe and taken to the last resting place in a coffin after the customary prayer for the dead. Police played the last post and offered gun salute.
Culture Minister MA Baby said a befitting monument would be built for the writer in her ancestral village of Punnayurkulam where she was born to VM Nair, former managing editor of Mathrubhumi, and renowned Malayalam poetess Balamani Amma 75 years ago.
"She had handed over her ancestral property there to the Kerala Sahitya Akademy. The memorial will come up on that piece of land," Baby said.
Considered to be one of the outstanding Indian poets writing in English, her popularity in Kerala was credited mostly to her short stories and the autobiographical My Story, which was translated into 15 languages.
