Daivathinte Vikrithikal is a 1989 Malayalam novel written by M. Mukundan. Like most of Mukundan's works, this novel too is based in Mayyazhi, better known once as Mahé, the French colony after it was decolonised. The story centres on a magician, Father Alfonso, his daughter, Elsee and an Ayurveda Vaidyar Kumaran and his two twin sons and how their life changes after the land is decolonised. The novel won the Kendra Sahitya Akademi Award and the N. V. Prize. It was adapted into a film by noted director Lenin Rajendran in 1992.
The story begins in 1954, when the French, the colonial rulers were packing off from Mahé, a coastal town in North Malabar, after 230 years, leaving behind remnants of a cultural history. Those, who considered themselves as belonging to Francophone culture, jumped onto the first available vessel to France.
Alphonso ignored the repeated pleas of his wife, Maggi to leave the land, where they no longer "belonged". The new social order became more, suffocating as Alphonso's earnings (as a "magician" of sorts) dwindled. The arrival of their son, Michael, from France revived hopes of a life without poverty, but Michael went back, leaving behind counterfeit gold and plunging the Alphonso family in deeper debts. Daughter Elsie's affair with Sasi became a local scandal.
Alphonso decided to leave, but the decision hung in the air. Alphonso looked around in the realization that he cannot tear himself away from Mahé and the river to which he belonged. Mahé was within him even in a society, where he had no reason for the sense of belonging. In a way, the story reveals what is now described as authentic "ethnicity".
