The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Bard in Abdul Kalam electrifies congregation of poets

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Sunday, Sep 02, 2007
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Bard in Abdul Kalam electrifies congregation of poets

Special Correspondent

The former President says Krishna Srinivas goaded him to write at least one poem a month

— Photo: K. V. Srinivasan

ALL ABOUT POETRY: Yu Hsi, patron, World Congress of Poets (centre), with the former President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (right), at the 27th World Congress of Poets in Chennai on Saturday. S. Mohan, former Supreme Court judge, is in the picture.

CHENNAI: The bard in the former President, A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, took over on Saturday at the opening of the 27th World Congress of Poets.

Quoting Subramania Bharati and Thiruvalluvar, Dr. Kalam recited lines from ‘What can I give?’ — his last poem as President — to electrify an audience of poets from across the world.

In the poem, set in the Rashtrapathi Bhavan’s Mughal Garden, he uses the metaphors of talking parrots, deer herds and dancing peacocks to denote the virtues of gratitude, radiating cheer and unity.

Dwelling upon the power of poetry, Dr. Kalam quoted from Subramania Bharati’s poems that even presaged interlinking of rivers and Thiruvalluvar’s verse that enshrined a code of conduct for mankind.

He also let the audience into the secret that it was the nonagenarian founder of the world congress, Dr. Krishna Srinivas, who goaded him to write at least one poem every month. Dr. Srinivas was earlier felicitated by the former President.

In his keynote, Chief Justice of the Madras High Court A. P. Shah said that among the diverse streams of Indian poetry, he had been particularly drawn to the works of Dalit poets beginning with the 1960s.

An angry response to centuries-old social, economic and religious oppression, the Dalit poetry merited comparison with the American Black literature.

N. Mahalingam, chairman, Sakthi Group of Companies, released the Tamil translation of ‘The Power of Tranquillity-Gandhi’ by World Congress’ patron Yu Hsi, handing over a copy to N. Murali, Managing Director, The Hindu.

Dr. Mahalingam said poetry, the “pride of humanity as a whole,” had the rare ability to comprehend the infinite.

Mr. Murali said poetry, the “music of words,” was an inestimable universal wealth, the only one that could be distributed evenly.

The former Supreme Court judge and president of the poets’ congress, Mr. Justice S. Mohan, said the organisation of poets was able to pull on because the members shared “one aim, one heart and one indivisible goal.” Poetry was a potential vehicle of world peace, he said.

Ernesto Kahan, Nobel Laureate for Peace, Milan Richter, poet-translator and executive committee member of the World Congress, and Maurus Young, secretary-general, participated.

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