Author: P. Ravikumar
Translator: M. Dakshinamurthy
Pages: 86
Year of Publication: 2025
Price: Rs 350
ISBN: 978-81-985733-9-1 (9788198573391)
 
About the Author
Born in October 1952, P. Ravikumar has written three long poems in Malayalam and many articles on music and literature. His first poem, M. D. Rāmanāthan, appeared in 2004, his second, Nachiketas, in 2009, and his third, Pattināthar, in 2024. M. D. Rāmanāthan has been translated into Hindi, English (both in 2014) and Tamil (2019). Nachiketas has been translated into English by M. Dakshinamurthy, into Hindi by D. Thankappan Nair, and into Polish by Dr Hanna Urbanska. It is prescribed for detailed study for the MA degree in Malayalam by Calicut University. Ravikumar is also a music critic and journalist and was on the editorial board of the Kerala Kaumudi daily. He received an award for the best editorial.
 
About the Translator
Born in January 1944, M. Dakshinamurthy obtained his MA in English from Maharaja’s College, Ernakulam (Kerala). He writes poems and essays in English, Malayalam and Tamil and has translated from and into these languages. He won the Ulloor Award of Thiruvananthapuram Tamil Sangham in 2008. His published works include English Kālpanikatā, a critical work in Malayalam explaining the literary theories of the English Romantics; Jnān Janichittilla, a journey into the self in Malayalam; and Divyadarsanam, a collection of poems in Tamil. His translation of P. Ravikumar’s M D Rāmanāthan was published by Writers Workshop, India, in 2015, and Nachiketas, in 2019.
 
Teaser
In his preface, Ravikumar writes:
“My mother’s relatives used to visit my house and stay with us for a few days during my childhood. They were quite ordinary elderly people. They would sit outside the house after supper, sing Tamil songs and tell stories. The stories were about the lives of Saiva saints like Sivavākyar, Pattinathār, Rāmalinga Swāmikal and others. It was their songs that the elders sang. Pattinathār’s songs and his life left a deep impression in my mind. My mother, too, used to tell me stories about Pattinathār quite often…
Thus, in my seventieth year, I wrote my poem on Pattinathār, whose songs and life had become part of my blood right from my childhood.”
 
Review
An excerpt of a review by Shibu Natesan is given below:
Seeing One’s Own Self
“When a poet portrays the life of an individual who has influenced him deeply and filled his mind in his waking state and dreams, it becomes the poet’s own autobiography. It is basically the poet’s vision of himself. We can see this in all the poems of Ravikumar. We experience this self-vision in M. D. Rāmanāthan, Nachiketas and Pattinathār.”
 Shibu Natesan