Kerala - Kozhikode   

Plea to save Malayalam from dying

Sugathakumari exhorts children to learn Malayalam poems.

Kozhikode: If the government fails to initiate some deliberate effort to shore up the dwindling habit of reading among school children, Malayalam language will soon have to start its mournful journey towards oblivion, warned poet Sugathakumari here on Thursday.

She was inaugurating a workshop on children’s literature in connection with the book fair and cultural fest organised by the State Institute of Language at the Corporation Stadium grounds.

Speaking on the occasion, Sugathakumari threw feelers to the crowd of schoolchildren gathered at the function, testing their reading habit and familiarity with Malayalam poems.

The response was “depressing” as only four among the 50 schoolchildren present there said that they read some book or the other while hardly anyone could recite even a couple of lines quoting any poet other than film song lyricists.

“Nobody but the government is responsible for this sad state of affairs,” said the poet, who maintained that it was the responsibility of the government to initiate steps to ensure the reading habit of children at school level. “Something is going seriously wrong with our system,” she added.

Sugathakumari, who recited her own poem on Gandhiji at the function, also urged the children to keep at least a couple of lines from it by heart to avoid letting down others in the future and thereby do something to save the language and its literature from dying.

Director of the Institute for Children’s literature Rubin Dicrus presided and Calicut University Syndicate member T.K. Narayanadas delivered the keynote address. The workshop will continue till November 14.

The ten-day long book-fair and cultural fest will witness a whole range of programmes including seminars, workshops, writers’ meets, talks and a variety of concerts and cultural events.

The fair has more than 150 stalls with nearly 100 publishers showcasing their books with a discount ranging from 10 to 70 per cent age. The fair will conclude on November 16.

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