“കുട്ടികളുടെയും മുതിര്‍ന്നവരുടെയും ഉള്ളിലുള്ള ഉത്തമാംശങ്ങളുടെ സമഗ്രമായ വികസനമാണ് വിദ്യാഭ്യാസം കൊണ്ട് ഞാനര്‍ഥമാക്കുന്നത്.അതായത് ശരീരവും മനസ്സും ആത്മാവും ഒന്നിച്ചുവളരണം. സാക്ഷരത വിദ്യാഭ്യാസത്തിന്റെ അവസാനമോ തുടക്കമോ അല്ല” ~എം.കെ. ഗാന്ധി

Thursday, August 18, 2016

Sugathakumari

Sugathakumari (born 22 January 1934) is an Indian poet and activist, who has been at the forefront of environmental and feminist movements in Kerala, South India. She is an established writer in Malayalam with a unique voice of her own emotional empathy, humanist sensitivity and moral alertness. Most of her poetic works had a special place for Mother Nature and some of them dwelved on human relationships and emotional traverse of the mind. She played a big role in the Save Silent Valley protest. She is the founder secretary of the Prakrithi Samrakshana Samithi, an organisation for the protection of nature and of Abhaya, a home for destitute women and a day-care centre for the mentally ill. She was the former chairperson of the Kerala State Women's Commission. Sugathakumari is an Indian poet and activist, who has been at the forefront of environmental and feminist movements in Kerala. Her parents were the poet and freedom fighter Bodheswaran and V K Karthiyayini, a Sanskrit scholar. She played a big role in the Save Silent Valley protest. She formed Abhayagrama, aka Abhayagramam, a home for destitute women (Athani) and a day-care centre for the mentally ill. She was the former chairperson of the Kerala State Women's Commission. Her husband is Dr K. Velayudhan Nair and her daughter is Lakshmi. Sugathakumari has won numerous awards and recognitions including Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award (1968), Kendra Sahitya Akademi Award (1978), Odakkuzhal Award (1982), Vayalar Award (1984), Indira Priyadarshini Vriksha Mitra Award (1986), Asan Prize (1991), Vallathol Award (2003), Kerala Sahithya Akademi Fellowship (2004), Ezhuthachan Puraskaram (2009) and Saraswati Samman (2012). In 2006, she was honoured with Padma Shri, the country's fourth highest civilian honour.

Sugathakumari's very first poem which she published under a pseudonym in a weekly journal in 1957 attracted wide attention.[6] In 1968, Sugathakumari won the Kerala Sahithya Akademi for her work Pathirappookal (Flowers of Midnight). Raathrimazha (Night Rain) won the Kendra Sahitya Academy Award in the year 1978. Her other collections include Paavam Manavahridayam, Muthuchippi, Irulchirakukal and Swapnabhoomi. Sugathakumari's earlier poetry mostly dealt with the tragic quest for love and is considered more lyrical compared to her later works in which the quiet, lyrical sensibility is replaced by increasingly feminist responses to social disorder and injustice. Environmental issues and other contemporary problems are also sharply portrayed in her poetry.

Sugathakumari is perhaps the most sensitive and most philosophical of contemporary Malayalam poets. She is regarded as having given a fresh lease on life to Romantic lyricism in Malayalam poetry. Her poetry makes an odyssey into the very essence of womanhood. She journeys into the psychological subtleties of man-woman relationship. Sugatha Kumari shows a conscious quest for women's identity and integration in her writings. She follows the traditional writing style and has not leaned much towards the modernism in Malayalam poetry. Her poetry has always drawn upon her sadness and unhappiness. "I have been inspired to write mostly through my emotional upheavals; few of my poems can be called joyous. But these days I feel I'm slowly walking away from it all, to a world that is futile or meaningless," says Sugathakumari. Sugathakumari's most famous works include Raathrimazha, Ambalamani(temple bell) and Manalezhuthu. Sugathakumari has also made contribution to the field of children's literature. In 2008, she received an Award for Lifetime Contribution to Children's Literature, instituted by the State Institute of Children's Literature. She also has several translated works to her credit.

She has won numerous other awards for her literary works, including the prestigious Vayalar Award and Ezhuthachan Puraskaram, the highest literary honour by Government of Kerala. In 2004, she was given the Kerala Sahithya Akademi Fellowship. She won the prestigious Saraswati Samman in 2012, being only the third Malayalam writer to do so. She was the principal of Kerala State Jawahar Balabhavan, Thiruvananthapuram. She is the founder chief editor of Thaliru, a children's magazine published by Kerala State Institute of Children's Literature.