Name: Puththam Veedu (Puththam House or The New House)
Author: Hephzibah Jesudasan
Year: 1964
Original version in Tamil: https://apvijay.me/2025/08/04/puththam-veedu/
This is an as-is AI-translated version of the above original without verification. First published Aug 5, 2025.
Hephzibah Jesudasan worked as an English professor at a college in Thiruvananthapuram in the mid-twentieth century. She wrote a four-part collection on the history of Tamil literature titled Countdown from Solomon: The Tamils down the ages through their literature. Puththam Veedu was Hephzibah’s first novel. She expanded on a character from this novel to write her next one, Doctor Chellappa.
Puththam Veedu is an important work that not only tells the story of a girl named Lizzy living in the fictional town of Panaivilai in Kanyakumari district but also subtly describes changes in the old social structure, the complexities of relationships, and an individual’s journey towards inner freedom. Owning land and a house was a significant mark of status and power during the era of landlordism. Even today in the Kanyakumari district and Kerala, if a person’s name ends with “Veedu” (house) or “Purathu,” it can be inferred that their family was a landowner either currently or in the past. Lizzy is a girl who grows up in such a house, which is named Puththam Veedu. The novel, however, introduces us to the old people living in the house. These are people who still cling to old values, refusing or finding it difficult to accept new changes.
The novel’s direct and straightforward writing is its greatest strength. The reader doesn’t have to lift a heavy rock or stand on one leg to struggle with the text. It is a novel that can be finished in a few hours over a weekend. The writing is clear and uncomplicated. It is an exemplary novel in modern Tamil literature for its natural use of a regional dialect not just in the conversations but also in the narrative description. However, the new words are understood within the flow of the reading. As a debut novel by an author, the pleasant reading experience it provides demonstrates the author’s clear thinking and writing prowess.
Writings that describe the changes of an era are important. When we read about such changes in a non-fiction work, we get an objective view. Our mind will simply absorb facts like “the economy changed this way,” “this town underwent these structural changes,” or “this country had this kind of political shift”. A work of fiction, on the other hand, describes people by rising above and delving within them. Instead of just reading about what the change is, we travel with a character and experience it as an inner feeling. The novel Puththam Veedu beautifully demonstrates this through the character of Lizzy. The various people surrounding Lizzy add great strength to the novel. We see people from different generations. We see people who live in her house and also those who live outside, building a new house where there was none before.
The novel shows people who belong to the same caste and religion. Yet, we see how the social hierarchy and work-based discrimination, which have been prevalent for ages, still persist. The novel can also be interpreted as showing how the opportunities of the new era bring about a change in this hierarchy. The simplicity and depth of the writing immediately draw us in. The first chapter of the novel begins with a beautiful description of the natural surroundings. We begin to see the town of Panaivilai in our mind’s eye. Hephzibah conveys that the local people still consider old traditions as customary by mentioning that everyone believes the “aranai” (a type of lizard) is a venomous creature and stays away from it. This is followed by the introduction of Puththam Veedu and its inhabitants: the past generation represented by Grandfather Kannappachi and the future generation by his granddaughter, the young Lizzy.
We naturally follow Lizzy. We are told that she is a bit dark-skinned and that her aunt and her aunt’s daughter, Lily (Lizzy’s sister), are fair-skinned, and are therefore considered beautiful in the village. Her aunt, who came from the city of Thiruvananthapuram, has a family there to whom she writes letters. This attracts Lizzy like a magnet. It is her aunt who argues and sends Lizzy to school despite everyone’s opposition in the house. Lizzy’s mother is the eldest daughter-in-law of the house, and her father is a drunkard. Lizzy’s father comes home at odd hours. When Lizzy tells her uncle about this, he laughs. Since she doesn’t connect with her father, Lizzy looks up to her uncle, but he is just the same.
Lizzy’s only friend is Mary, who studies in the eighth grade at the Mission House. Although not as spacious as Puththam Veedu, the Mission House is very beautiful, and Lizzy likes it. The way Mary interacts with her mother and hangs out with her father is something not seen in Puththam Veedu. This is the family of the next era. Puththam Veedu, however, maintains the old structure of a distant mother, father, and child who do not touch or speak to each other. Mary is older than Lizzy but is friendly with her. She comes to Puththam Veedu to play. Her family is poor, yet they send her to school and later to college, unlike Lizzy. One day, when Lizzy is at Mary’s house, Mary gifts her a mynah bird in a cage. Lizzy is so happy. The mynah says “Lizzy Lizzy”. Lizzy, even happier, asks it to learn to say “Lizzy Lily”.
Lily is introduced as a baby. Lizzy is also asked what name to suggest for her. Although she suggests many names, her aunt names her Lily, saying that “Lizzy-Lily” sounds fitting. Like one child for another, Lizzy has a great love for Lily. It is a universal rule that if there are two children in a house, one will follow the other like a tail. Or, let’s say, it’s the rule in some worlds. In Puththam Veedu, a leap from one rule to the next takes place. At first, Lily, still a child, doesn’t understand Lizzy’s attraction to a boy. Then, India gains independence, and electric poles arrive in Panaivilai. Lily grows up and notices Lizzy’s love. A doctor, who is twice their age, comes to Grandfather Kannappachi and says he will marry Lizzy, who is unmarried. Everyone in Puththam Veedu is overjoyed. In a way, Lizzy is happy that something is happening to her. However, the doctor returns and says he will marry Lily, who looks like a “Brahmin girl”. Heartbreak and wedding preparations both happen. On the wedding day, Lizzy stays in a dark room, out of everyone’s sight. As no one seems to notice her, Lily goes and knocks on the door just before the wedding ceremony. The moment Lizzy and Lily embrace provides a sense of fulfillment, like the change in sound when a tumbler fills up.
Generally, when men write stories about women, they write about their first heartbreak being related to love. Or, they show the change after marriage to demonstrate a woman’s maturity. However, the first heartbreak Hephzibah shows in Lizzy’s story is not about the separation from a man. Time passes, school stops, and Lizzy is confined to the house. The palm climber of Puththam Veedu is driven out by her grandfather. Because of this, he has to leave the village. Along with him, the old woman known as his grandmother also leaves. Lizzy’s relationship with Lily can be described as a state of childlike joy; she acts as an older sister to Lily. She reflects as a younger sister to her friend Mary, and at the same time, as a grown-up school-going peer. But with the old woman, she presents herself as everything—a child, a daughter, a granddaughter, even a fellow old woman. The moment the old woman leaves the village is Lizzy’s first loss and first heartbreak. “I will come, I will come, am I going to die before the wedding? Write to me,” says the old woman. Lizzy thinks to herself, “Is this what worldly life is?”. The mynah is unable to do anything, it can only stay inside its cage.
The novel is not without male characters. There is Lizzy’s drunkard father. Her uncle tries to do business in the city and fails. Grandfather Kannappachi, who was once tall and thriving, now lies all day on the verandah, which is called ‘adichukoodu’. The Nadar family, which prospered under feudalism, is now in decline. All the men lack the maturity to accept the changing times or the ability to adapt to them. In contrast, the palm-climbing Nadars, who were looked down upon by the landlords, start new businesses. They send their children to school. Anbaiyan buys a small piece of land with the money he has saved and builds a house. He does tamarind business with his son Thangaraj. His younger son, Chellappa, also goes to school. The novel has a beautiful description. All the palm climbers talk on a “conference call”. How? A man at the top of a palm tree in one house sends a message to a palm climber at the top of a palm tree in a house on the opposite corner using sounds. This is how all the palm climbers communicate. This is a fantastic metaphor. While the landowners are still down below, the palm climbers are ascending to the next level in the sky.
There is no one in Puththam Veedu to free Lizzy from that house and those old people. None of the women in that house are free either. Lizzy’s grandmother from the previous generation dies working for her husband. Lizzy’s mother lacks the ability to even understand what her own loss is. Lizzy’s aunt grew up and studied in the city, but she also gets trapped in this house, as if following the times. Lily, her aunt’s daughter, is married off to a doctor who is much older than her. But when we realize that this doctor is also from a previous generation of palm climber families, we feel a quiet, contented smile rather than the shock that Grandfather Kannappachi feels. Finally, Lizzy has to find a man for herself.
When we read the latter half of the novel, it might seem like a short love story. The novel moves linearly towards the conclusion. This is also the novel’s weakness. The writing in the first half that allows us to discover the depths of various characters becomes tiring when it follows a single path later on. For instance, the author could have more deeply explored how the life of the aunt in Puththam Veedu changes because of the events that affect her, what path Mary’s life outside Puththam Veedu takes, and what their mental attitudes are. This novel starts by unfolding the lives of various people from Lizzy’s perspective but then ends with only Lizzy’s own life. Perhaps that’s why the English translation of this novel is titled Lizzy’s Legacy. In a way, love is the only rocket Lizzy has to free herself from the gravity of the earth. And even that didn’t happen by design. The love that blossoms from Lizzy’s first stirrings, like a moon boat sailing in the sky, is beautifully told in this novel. Something that was not possible for any of the male writers of the fifties, sixties, and seventies has been achieved in this work.
In Lizzy’s school, the children play on a tree branch as if it were a bus. Then, a fourteen-year-old boy named Thangaraj teasingly calls Lizzy “Asaan” (teacher), and in return, she calls him “Mandookam” (frog). Lizzy runs to the teacher, thinking she should be the first one to complain. In the end, Thangaraj, or Rasa, gets a hit on his hand. But she feels sadness, not happiness. She asks him if they are enemies, but he has no malice and just laughs. She gives him the eye of a peacock feather as a gift.
After she stops going to school and is confined to the house, one magical day, Lizzy sees a shadow and hears a voice. Hephzibah writes that she laughs a forgotten laugh. It is a laugh full of light and a joy she has never felt before. Thangaraj gives Lizzy something no other man has given her: he values her inner self, asks for her desire, and seeks her consent. That is the moment when Lizzy entrusts her heart, like the peacock feather. It is the mynah’s first flap of its wings, its first attempt to fly out of the cage.
In the world of literature, it is common to box female writers by saying, “Oh, this is just women’s writing”. It is also common to assume that if a woman writes, it will be centered on love, lust, and domestic life. The social trend is to refer to Nammazhvar simply as an “Azhvar”. However, when it comes to Andal, people do not fail to mention that she is not just an Azhvar, but a “female Azhvar”. Even if we were to accept that the elements of femininity are present in Andal’s writing, no one reads the works of the other male Azhvars to examine how masculinity is present in their songs. The novel Puththam Veedu was written by a female author, and its main character is a woman named Lizzy, but it cannot be reduced to a “women’s writing novel”. It is about a person who, without a source of light in the dim darkness, runs towards the source of light. It is a novel where a glimmer of social change is visible, as old hierarchies fade and move towards a new lack of hierarchy. It is a novel that shows love as a soft wing, like the memory of the first sweet taste of a saliva exchange that is always in the heart.