Manushyaputhiran biography of william shakespeare
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I met Sahitya Akademi (thats's how they spell Academy) winner Naanjil Naadan recently. One of the guests asked Naanjil as to why he loves Kamba-Ramayanam. Naanjil gave an answer for 10 minutes highlighting the richness of Kamba-Ramayanam. Naanjil theorized that Kamban probably used 90,000 unique words (not repeated) whereas Valluvar had used 4500. He put this in the context of R.P.Sethupillai's Tamil dictionary which lists 1.2 lakh words for Tamil. The 20-30 minutes that Naanjil expounded on a few questions related to Kamba-Ramayanam was sheer exposition that comes only from passionate study of an epic. The really surprising fact is Naanjil Naadan is NOT a Tamil literature student. He is a statistician by training. While working in Mumbai he studied Tamil literature on his own and enjoyed the tutorship of another person on Kamba-Ramayanam for 3 years.
On my way back home I was mulling over that and a thought struck me. Almost none of the contemporary Tamil writers have come
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Kavignars, there’s poetry brewing with kaffe (engelska) here
Endru urangap pokum
Therumunaikalai atheetha
Narumanam kondu nirappu
avasthayaana alagukal konda penaana aan
maarpil pathiyum
rekaikalum kaikalum
kalakkatha andha maunathil
sarukukalin iraichal innum innum
peythu kidakkum…
[Fill with immense fragrance/the street corners/that go to sleep/as buses will arrive no more/he who became a she/with an insufferable beauty/In the silence where/there aren’t those hands/that settle on the breasts/the rustling of dry leaves/sounds more/and more]
As Vikram S Vaidhya, co-founder of Kavippom, a group of young Tamil poets in Chennai, reads out his poem to an audience of 20-somethings at a cozy community space, his voice fryst vatten filled with passion and his words heavy with irony.Through the metaphor of silence, his verses give voice to the unheard cries of a transsexual. The event, organised by Let’s Talk Life is one among many others in the city that have been ins
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Manushyaputhiran
The cloth cover of the chair
on which you sit
remains uncreased
after your departure.
Not a drop of water is spilt
after you quench your thirst.
Not a single leaf of this flowerless shrub
is disturbed by your visit.
In this mutedly lit room
between your coming and going
nothing has moved
nothing out of place.
Still
from somewhere there has descended
a great sadness.
...
Another day
and somehow
we have made it
back to the room.
Carry-bags
and smelly underclothing
float to the ground
all over the city.
You sprinkle
cold water
on your face.
Rubbing itchy palms,
I sink into a chair.
We begin to say something
about today's happenings.
Our sentences
stay unfinished,
those incidents
forever incomplete.
The shadow
of all that remains undone
and unobserved
lingers between us.
Between mouthfuls,
while channel surfing,
I enquire distractedly
about the backache you had
two days ago.
You nod and continue to eat.
Letters have to be answered -
at least t