Even contemporary cinema continues to reinvent the vampire myth. The recent Oscar-winning film ‘Sinners’ also featured vampires, introducing the familiar creature into another unexpected setting.
In Kerala, however, Dracula found readers long before streaming platforms and vampire romances existed. For many Malayalis, the Count entered their homes through the Malayalam translation by KV Ramakrishnan, first published in serial form and later as a translated novel.
“I first encountered Dracula in the early 1970s, when I was about eight or nine years old. At home, we had a magnificent Malayalam translation by KV Ramakrishnan. I read for an hour before bed and spent several evenings in the Carpathian mountains next to a bloodthirsty count,” recalls Nandakishore Varma’s two motorcycle short stories.
“To say that Dracula scared me would be an understatement. I had terrifyingly terrifying nightmares. Although I never believed in ghosts or spirits, it was then that I realized how imaginary monsters could transform our minds into haunted houses. The experience is still vivid, more than five decades later.”
His fascination with Dracula later led him to read the English original and also thriller novels by Kottayam Pushpanath that featured Dracula as a character.
“I remember many of my classmates got to know Dracula through Pushpanath’s books,” he says.
Nandakishore remained a devoted fan of the novel over the years, though he also admires the filmmakers who adapted the character. “I have never seen the film Dracula (1958), which was said to have deviated too much from the novel, although the face that still appears in my mind as Dracula is that of Christopher Lee.”
He also notes that the Malayalam term for vampire was popularized by KV Ramakrishnan, who called him ‘Raktharakshassu’ (blood demon).
“The word does not appear in the Malayalam lexicon, but in my generation, the term became popular through a theater production by Kalanilayam.”
Angel Zacharia, a logistics management professional, met Dracula when she was in Class 8 through the Malayalam translation of Bram Stoker’s novel.
“I had just started reading long novels at the time. I first read it for fun and gradually became interested in vampires and werewolves. It opened the door to fantasy fiction. Until then, I had mostly read conventional fiction,” she says.
For digital marketer Shahid Ameen, Dracula arrived through cinema. “My dad showed me Christopher Lee movies. I grew up with a steady diet of horror movies at home, and Dracula became my gateway to gothic horror,” he says. One of his favorite movies to review is the animated film ‘Hotel Transylvania’. “He portrays Dracula as a concerned father,” he smiles. “I’m also reading The Dracula Papers: The Scholar’s Tale by Oliver Reggie, which reimagines the character’s origins and explores Dracula’s early life.”
