THIRUVANANTHAPURAM,: A Ayyappan was perhaps the last of the anarchist poets of the present generation of Malayalam poets.
Like P Kunhiraman Nair, he was an ever wanderer who lived a bohemian way of life. It may be a poetic justice that Ayyappan, who lived most of his life in the
streets, lost his life in the street. Like his life, his death had many similarities with that of his bosom friend filmmaker John Abraham, who died falling to the street from the top of a building.
K N Shaji, the editor of Samkramanam, one of the many little magazines which was instrumental in producing a new sensibility during the late seventies and early eighties, remembered Ayyappan as one who was not afraid of death.
Like John, death was always with him, said Shaji who was a friend of both Ayyappan and John. "Once Ayyappan visited my room bleeding.
I asked him what happened.
He replied he fell on a fence’’, said Shaji, who is also an author of a book on John. Prasad, the publisher of Ayyappan’s book Jail Muttathe Pookkal also remembers such an instance.
"Myself and a photographer had asked Ayyappan to walk along the railway line for taking a snap.
Then suddenly a goods train appeared at a distance. But, Ayyappan was unmoved. We were afraid and pulled him off the track,’’ he said. His poetry always reflected a victim complex filled with images of death. In the forward of one of his books, Ayyappan had noted : "I would remain a victim. As someone has to be so for ever’’.
Perhaps, it was his bitter experiences during early childhood that created such a mood. One such incident was narrated by Ayyappan in his article in the book Orma edited by Shelvi. Ayyappan had spoken about the incident to this author also. "I was the leader of the Students Federation. After being elected as the school leader, my friends were carrying me on their shoulders in a procession. Then another procession was coming from the opposite direction. They were carrying the body of my mother". In one of his poems, he wrote: "My cradle and my mother’s coffin are made of the same wood.’’ Such ironies had been the strength of his poetry. "I am eying the five rupee note in the pocket of the man who died in an accident,’’ he wrote in another poem.
His skeptic eye would see through the eye of a little lamb which was seeking the idol of Buddha with a bleeding eye. Though Ayyappan was always seen as a
extrovert, poet Anvar Ali said that in reality he was not so.
In fact, when he was not under the influence of alcohol he was shy and always an introvert.
His anarchic life had turned many of his friends into foes. As poet Anvar Ali puts it: ‘’Being middle class Malayalis who wished to lead an undisturbed life, Ayyappan was some one who we wished would never visit our home.’’