Category Archives: Literature

No poetry till now, to the year 2003! After this long gap of nearly 40 years I suddenly found myself gripped with the poetical muse! I can’t explain the reasons. Perhaps, I reasoned with in myself that writing my autobiography in Tamil and after the many drafts of my prose autobiography circulated among my friends and writers, there ensued lots of discussions about some of the thoughts and views expressed on various issues, politics, society, literature, philosophy, religion etc., and they might have found a more deeper expression in my new poetry.

I hope I need not dwell here about the many diverse intellectual and cultural influences to which I had been subjected to in the course of my education and life afterwards. Santiniketan can be taken as a symbol of all that is best in Eastern civilization and culture and truly Tagore’s education and cultural ventures shaped my mind and personality.

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Shortly before I left for England I put my poems into a slim volume of poetry with the help of my friends in Coimbatore. It was brought out only when I was in UK. The first edition didn’t bring me to anyone’s notice except it was printed in a book form! So poor was the whole process and I only possess a rare specimen for the love of its existence!

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When I went to Madras, now Chennai, for my college studies, Pachayappa’s College kindled my literary instincts and they found many outlets. I was surrounded by Tamil scholars and writers of repute and the college itself was a breeding ground of first rate scholars and politicians, all bred in the then prevailing environment of Dravidian political consciousness.

Alone among my class mates in the college, I was the one who was a habitual wearer of pure white khadi and I was a nationalist, having been trained in a pucca Gandhian school, the school’s foundation stone was laid by none other than Mahatma Gandhi himself! That was in 1934.

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Now for my poetry. My first poem in Tamil was written in my 9th class in the high school in the year 1949-50. It was immediately published in the then well-known literary magazine “Vasantham” published from Coimbatore. The magazine enjoyed the patronage of the then influential industrialist and a leading public figure, Sir Shanmugham Chetty. He had the distinction of serving as India’s first Finance Minister. 

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Thoughts on Tamil literature and reflections on my poems and tunes.

One former Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee flaunts his poetical skills!

Another former Prime Minister V.P.Singh had his poetry reading session listened to by four other former Prime Ministers! All these happenings had lifted Indian poetry to Olympian heights?

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