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Book Review
Collection of poems
KULOTHUNGAN KAVITHAIKAL: Kulothungan;Bharathi Pathippagam, 126-108, Usman Road, T. Nagar, Chennai-600017. Rs. 320.
AFTER THE passing away of Subramania Bharati, there has been no single poet to dominate the Tamil poetry scene and stamp it with his name. We are still in the Bharati Age.
He has given the poets of the post-independence generation like Bharatidasan, Triloka Sitaram and Kannadasan several strong leads. Kulothungan leads the poets who have drawn strength from Bharati's social consciousness. He has been writing steadily for the last 40 years and more and it is now time to have a collected volume of his poems.
Introduced by Dr. Karthikesu Sivathambi who finds critiques of contemporary life in ancient Tamil poetry that might have given the author the lead, this work reveals an intellectual at work.
The eminent poet avoids violent diction, he does not care to nurse rancour in verbiage and certainly his poems do not flash forth to attract crowds. Nor has he any use for verbal gimmickry. Yet his poems often hiss forth like marbles from a catapult speeding towards the target. His love of Tamil is transparent:
How can life be ever bitter
After quaffing the tasty drink
Given by Mother Tamil?
But he has no wish to apostrophise Tamil with extravagant verbal embroidery. It is not practical to spend our time praising our glorious yesterdays. Our eyes must be turned to the noons of the future.
If we wish to achieve anything substantial in the future, then we must take a critical look at our present. What does this critical look reveal to us? Ah, it is all a Slough of Desperation! Moral turpitude has become a licensed way of life and casteism rules the roost with bared teeth. It has even taken over education and we have institutions now emblazoning the names of castes:
We brought to being
Educational institutions
As an army to defeat
The forces of inequality;
How can we accept the same colleges
Work on the principles of caste?
What a shame? Are reforms
Meant to poison the fields
Where the seedlings grow?
Kulothungan's admiration for E.V. Ramaswamy Periar's pure rationalism is ubiquitous in his poems, though the poet avoids any confrontationist strategy on this score.
Drawing upon the image of Vamana from our cultural heritage, he sets up this image as a magnet for man to become an achiever. This is the age of knowledge. Knowledge is power. The Tamilian (Indian) should learn to draw out the potentialities embedded in him by sheer will power. If one has will power, nothing can be a hurdle to his progress:
Nothing is impossible for those
Who have assurance; the Himalayas
Cannot be a hurdle for one who stands up.
The aspiring man will gain the end.
Though he loses at first,
He ends up victorious.
This work is witness to what an intellectual can do in such critical times. Kulothungan has done well to reformat his poems under 13 headings so that we can browse into them often with the focus on a particular subject, whenever the mood is upon us to dissect ourselves and the world around us. For these poems are not for recreation, though the traditional rhythmic movement leaves a pleasant feeling in us as we read them. He compels a high seriousness on our part through his sincerity of utterance.
The author's thoughts are actually sparks gathered from the fire of life. He has been a researcher, educationist and administrator, leaving a mark of success in all the fields. Thus the inspirational tone of his work also carries the voice of experience making it doubly valuable for the coming generations.
PREMA NANDAKUMAR
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