The State Institute of Languages has paid rich tributes to litterateur S.K. Pottekkat on the occasion of his birth centenary in the form of two books on him. ‘Ezhuthinte Chandrakantham,’ a compilation of studies on the Jnanpith winner, edited by U.K. Kumaran, and a pocketbook ‘S.K.Pottekkat’ by T.V. Sunitha, published as part of the series ‘Arivu Niravu’ by the institute, were released on Friday by Minister for Culture K.C. Joseph here.
The books were received by novelists M. Mukundan and C. Radhakrishnan, respectively.
The Minister, who also inaugurated the institute’s S.K. Pottekkat birth centenary celebrations, said SK was an indispensable part of the history of Kozhikode. SK, though mostly known as a travelogue writer, had penned several novels, poems, short stories and essay as well.
Many of his works had a stamp of Kozhikode in them. In fact, he had written a whole novel on the S.M. Street, without ever mentioning the name of the street in question, Mr .Joseph said.
How ‘Arunan’ struck
Writer T. Padmanabhan in his keynote address said that he would not have been a writer if not for SK.
He spoke on various incidents that proved the broadmindedness of SK and the way some of his works instilled nationalism in his generation. He pointed out that SK’s criticism under the penname ‘Arunan’ had even raised the wrath of poet G. Sankara Kurup, another Jnanpith awardee.
Director of the institute M.R. Thampan, member of the Kerala Sahitya Akademi P.K. Parakkadavu, Administrative Officer of the Institute S. Sajini and president of the S.K. Pottekkat Cultural Centre T.V. Ramachandran were present on the occasion.
