Attingal Remembers A. Ayyappan

A group of poets and poetry lovers in Attingal remembered A. Ayyappan, the most bohemian of all the wayward clouds that hovered in the horizon of Kerala poetry, a year after his anonymous, roadside demise. ABHIDA, an organization of poets in the town, conducted the function at Town UPS, Attingal, on the Deepavali day. It was an informal function - more like an amalgam of remembrance speeches and poetry recitals.

Noted playwright and dramatist, P.M. Antony, no less an iconoclast himself, was the chief speaker of the function. He lived up to his bill with a scathing criticism on the poetic ways of the man whom he remembered. He summed up that Ayyappan the poet took no social responsibilities and had no political direction. He compared Ayyappan unfavorably with the more politically conscious poets of his era and earlier eras, like Vayalar, Sachithanandan, Kadammanitta, and even Balachandran Chullikkad. In his brutally frank speech, he also found time to criticize the methods of the communist parties for the present state of Kerala society, which by his reckoning is almost deaf to the cultural movements and initiatives.

P.M. Antony's speech was in stark contrast to the earlier eulogizing of A Ayyappan by the young and less known poets. Most of the speakers had had some personal memoirs to share about Ayyappan. Some of them recited their own poems, while some others chose to recite some well-known poems of Ayyappan.

The function was reasonably well attended for a poetry function. The young poets enthralled the crowd their fresh, yet raw imagery.

“On the blood of George Bush's,

Obama's shaving blades,

Lies the hapless map of my nation”, lamented a young poet.

Another poet paid tributes to Ayyappan through sarcasm, “Why my son should not be like Ayyappan”. Judging by the present state of Kerala society, nobody's son is likely to become another Ayyappan. But it is certainly worthwhile to remember the poet whose poetry is yet to be properly appreciated in our literature.