THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Poets Kadammanitta Ramakrishnan and O N V Kurup have influenced people to a great extend, said film director Adoor Gopalakrishnan. He was speaking after presenting the first-ever Kadammanitta Ramakrishnan award to O N V Kurup here on Thursday. The programme was organised as part of the 80th birth anniversary celebrations of Kadammanitta.
In the speech, Adoor recollected that Kadammanitta could be called a role-model on keeping personal bonds. “On his way back from office, Ramakrishnan used to pay a visit to my home. If he had a smile on his face, it meant that he had a new poem in hand and would recite it that night. Maybe I would be the person who listened to many of his poems, after his wife,” he said.
Adoor reminisced an incident when he made the poet translate the play ‘Waiting for Godot’ for the first time in Malayalam presented under his direction. The play was staged only once so far. “I directed it when I was back from the film institute. We could be called amateurish as we hardly thought about taking a snap atleast to keep a memoir of that,” he said.
In his presidential address, M A Baby MLA, said many would sometimes think that both Kadammanitta and O N V were parallels in their creatively-rich realms of poetry. “No poet follows the same route of another poet. But both these poets stood for the oppressed and used it for the freedom of the most deprived sections of society,” he said.
The scroll of honour was read out by writer A Meerasahib. In the commemorative speech, poet and social activist Sugathakumari remembered the loud timber of Kadammanitta’s voice during the poets’ campaign for Silent Valley. “Then we used to sing to save the forest. Kadammanitta was one among the poets who first came out along with O N V, Ayyappa Panicker, Vishnu Narayanan Namboothiri and D Vinayachandran. We sung not to destroy our forests, mountains, rivers and fields. His was the most resounding voice amongst us,” she recollected.
In his reply speech which was read out on the occasion, O N V Kurup said Kadammanitta’s was the most glowing face in the age of modernism. “His poetry is not something germinated from the west, they are the poems of the soil. He even dared to argue with the gods for the rights of the oppressed,” he said.
The award ceremony was organised by Kadammanitta Ramakrishnan Foundation, Pathanamthitta, in association with Natyagriham here. The programme was also attended by B Ekbal, former Vice-Chancellor of Kerala University and president of Kadammanitta Ramakrishnan Foundation, poet Prabha Varma and Santha, wife of Kadammanitta.
