CHENNAI: Makizh Aathan: I like Jesus very much. But Amma does not take me to church often.
Father: Does Jesus talk to you? How can he talk?
Makizh: How can he talk? He is not real, he has been drawn. We have been drawn too. Someone drew us and sent us here.
Father: Who?
Makizh: Spiderman.
A conversation between a four-year-old and his father on an unremarkable day, amidst the mundanity of everyday routine. A conversation — despite the quirkiness that only a child’s curious mind can muster — that would have been forgotten if not for the fact that his father, Asaithambi, is a man of words himself. “Kavithai maathiriye pesariye!” had been Asai’s reaction. Little did he know that Makizh was just getting started. Six years later, Makizh has just had his second book of poems published, titled Kaalaththai Thaandi Varum Oruvan.
A way of life
This book, too, was born out of a conversation with his father. Seeing the latter reading the book The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli, the young poet was prompted to ask the mother of all questions: “What is time?” When Rovelli himself had declared that ‘time’ was not easy to define, Asai too was not able to find an easy answer for his son. Instead, he suggested that the boy look for answers himself. Soon enough, Makizh was scripting poems about it.
Of the more than hundred poems he produced in the months to follow, 50-60 of them turned out to circle around the question, “What is time?” The book envisages time as a dream, a statue, a cave, his brother’s smile and many other muses and valuables that fill his life. Now, does he have an answer to the question? “Kaalam na ellam nu solluven,” he says. It takes a little more questioning for him to agree that his understanding of the concept has grown over time. This, even while he is distracted by the television running on low volume in the background. For what more can you expect from a 10-year-old child who considers poetry to be a part of his unstructured playtime.
“He doesn’t consider this — poetry — to be a big deal,” begins G Sindhu, his mother. “This year’s book fair is the first since he has published both his books. So, we tried to encourage him to come and see how his books were doing. But, he had no interest. Even when someone appreciates his poetry, he acts like it is meant for someone else. While poets usually ponder over their work (or future work) even outside the working hours, he does not seem to spare a thought for it outside of the few minutes he comes up to me and recites his new poem. Otherwise, he is as much a child as any other,” she shares.
Of interest and inspiration
So, how does a child create poetry? Even as he is playing or working on his homework or watching television (he loves Chutti TV, he tells me), he would run to his mother or father and recite a poem that popped into his head. As soon as it was done, he would run away, back to the task that had occupied him before inspiration struck. His parents, realising the pattern, took to recording these outbursts of verses. That’s how his first poetry compilation, Naandhan Ulagaththai Varainthen, came to be.
People might think that the child was forced into picking up this pursuit, given that his father is a writer, but that is far from reality, says Sindhu. “We had first put him in Montessori school, where they asked us to not ‘teach’ him anything (children’s natural interests and activities are encouraged over formal teaching tools). So much so that he didn’t even write these poems.
Of the over 450 poems he has written so far, half had been poems he had just recited orally; it was later that he started writing. Not bound by the constraints that we adults are used to, he found his own expressions. For example, he says nenju ezhuthu where we say thalai ezhuthu. Such is his imagination; so, he begins with such word combinations and builds line after line from there. Where he becomes a professional is when he takes the effort to better his poems when we suggest that a line or two does not read well,” she elaborates.
A child still
While his parents describe the journey he has had over these tender years, he is busy playing on the bed. When asked about his hobbies, he says, “I like to play, I tell stories (the stories came before the poems, tells Sindhu, for he was tired of hearing the usual ones), I read story books.” On their part, his parents take him birdwatching, spend time stargazing. These activities, often, prompt a series of deep questions from him, they say. Like: where did the universe come from? What came before that? Before that? Before that? And so it goes. Makizh wants to grow up to be a scientist. His favourite subject is Mathematics. Meanwhile, the poems keep coming.
‘Naanthaan Ulakaththai Varainthen’ is available on noolvanampublisher@gmail.com and ‘Kaalaththai Thaandi Varum Oruvan’ is on ethirveliyedu@gmail.com