Everyone who knew Annamma Mathew called her a woman far ahead of her time. She was the founder-chief editor of Vanitha, the most-read Malayalam women’s magazine in the country, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. But if you were to ask someone about her, Vanitha wouldn’t even make it to the list of her top achievements.
Known to her loved ones as Annamma Kochamma (aunt) and professionally as Mrs KM Mathew, she defied attempts to put her into neat boxes. At the age of 20, she married KM Mathew, from the family that founded the Malayala Manorama Company. But Annamma didn’t allow herself to be defined as someone who married into a high-profile family. She was a prolific and revered cookbook author, a violinist and singer, a journalist, a social worker, a hairstylist and more.
Her dedication to uplifting the women of Kerala, especially in her hometown of Kottayam, formed a core part of her identity.
“Public performances, song, dance and drama, by women and girls were frowned upon in the Kottayam of the 1950s and 1960s. It was not something that girls from good houses did. That was until Annamma Kochamma stepped in,” says Shanthi Ipe, educationist, in a video shared with ThePrint.
If Annamma was there, it was all okay, she says. The women of Kottayam put up concerts, plays and even the first fashion show at the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) in 1967 under her guidance.
“So many people flourished because of her vibrant presence,” Shanthi says.
Friend, guide of Malayali women
Annamma was born on 22 March 1922 in Andhra Pradesh. She spent most of her childhood and young adult years moving around India. The first years of her marriage were spent in Chikkamagaluru in Karnataka, where Mathew was taking care of a family-owned coffee estate. Having adequate kitchen staff meant she was not able to flex her cooking skills. In a book named Annamma, published after her death, her husband wrote that living there had made her lonely, it was “the angst of an artist who could not find the right avenue for her creative expression.”
In 1947, the family moved to Mumbai. And this is where she came alive. Her interest in food was nurtured through the city’s vibrant food scene. She enrolled herself in cooking classes, notably a class conducted by a Parsi woman, Dastur.
Annamma’s prolific career began when her father-in-law, KC Mammen Mappillai, then editor of Malayala Manorama noticed her love for cooking and asked her to write a column in the paper.
Titled Panchakavidhi (method of cooking), the first piece appeared in May 1953. Her recipes for doughnuts and Goan prawn curry appeared sandwiched “between two reports about Nehru and Churchill”.
She then started writing for Vanitha, which was founded in 1975. The latest survey, in 2019, put the magazine at number four, after India Today (Hindi and English) and Samanya Gyan Darpan.
The magazine’s tagline is a friend and guide of Malayali women and this was what Annamma Mathew was like in the newsroom and outside it, says M Madhu Chandran, editor in charge, Vanitha.
“She always called us mone (son) or mole (daughter), and never carried herself like a ‘boss’. Even when VIPs and friends approached her asking to be featured in the magazine, she would never tell us to just do it. She would present it at the editorial meeting and ask us to look into its merit,” he tells ThePrint.
He adds that these meetings were always a delicious affair. “We would finish our meeting and dig into whatever wonderful dish she had brought in,” he says.
She was one of the longest-serving editors in the country with a 25-year tenure and a highly respected one at that. Anyone who visited Kerala met with Kochamma, from Atal Bihari Vajpayee to Queen Elizabeth II.
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Jasmine, camphor, a hint of Chanel No 19
Routine ruled Annamma’s life. She would wake up every day at 4 am and start the day by writing. She was especially fond of writing letters and once her nine grandchildren had gone off to boarding school, they would each get two letters every week from her.
“The light from her study would stream into our room at 4 am. Any hopes of getting back to sleep would be shattered with the music from her violin classes at 5 am,” says Rohan Mammen, one of her grandchildren.
After music classes, she would visit the Kasturba Social Welfare Centre, which she helped set up in 1963. By 10:30 am she was at the Vanitha office. She would take care of the day’s work and leave by lunchtime.
And then she was back in the kitchen for recipe testing and other engagements for the day. She was also the only hairdresser in town in the early days.
“Every bride in town would come to our house to get ready,” says Malini Mathew Varughese, another one of her grandchildren, adding that she was an aesthete in every sense of the word.
“She was not the kind of grandmother who would sit and tell us stories, she didn’t have the time for that. But we always felt her love, through her cooking mostly,” Malini told ThePrint.
Rohan says that his memories of Annamma are filled with the fragrance of “jasmine, camphor and a hint of Chanel No 19 (the perfume)” .
Annamma held great importance for birthdays, it was a day of celebration. “She wore her brightest Kanchipuram sari, put mullapoo (jasmine) on her hair and of course her famous glass bangles. And not to forget, the lipstick she wore for her special day. By early morning, she sat next to the telephone, decked up to receive her birthday wishes,” says her daughter Thangam Mammen in the video shared with ThePrint.
On her 80th birthday, one of Annamma’s sons jokingly asked her what she had done to herself. “Prompt came the reply, ‘let me do what I wish on my birthday. Maximum I live for another 20 years’,” Mammen says.
She passed away after a prolonged illness on 10 July 2003, a few months after her 81st birthday.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)