Sugathakumari: Voice of the voiceless

If there is one poet who has so much relevance in contemporary Kerala, post floods, and whose verses are often quoted these days in public forums and debates, it would be Sugathakumari, undoubtedly.
For over five decades, the poet remained as the state’s overarching matriarch, speaking to its muted conscience as a poet and as a social activist, even as criminal misdemeanors and ecological plunders went unnoticed.

Though her contemporaries penned immortal poems blending nature, folklore and local myths, it was Sugathakmari who gave environmentally-themed poems a contemporary significance, beginning from the famous anthem ‘Ode To A Tree’ a soulful song decrying the destruction of 850 hectares of forest in the Western Ghats for the proposed Silent Valley hydel project.
While many writers led compartmentalized lives, letting their works speak for themselves and kept their ideological moorings hidden, especially in hyper-political Kerala, where public statements have the potential to destroy the literary careers of fledgling writers, Sugathakumari was an exception.
Though she was a progressive poet it came as a surprise for many when she criticized the Supreme Court order allowing entry of women into Sabarimala temple.
When this writer met her in September last year at her home in Thiruvananthapuram, a year after the Kerala floods, I asked her about her stand. The 85-year-old ailing poet smiled for a moment and said: “I do not want Sabarimala temple, situated in the Periyar Tiger Reserve, turn into a mega family pilgrimage centre, violating all norms. I do not want more concrete resorts and sewage dumping sites to come up there.’’ Her childhood memories of Aranmula, a green heritage village along the banks of Pamba, proved a decisive inspiration in her poems on nature, bio-diversity and dying traditions. Though the poet lived in Thiruvananthapuram, the village remained close to her heart, and she returned to her ancestral home, time and again, to light a lamp at her family serpent shrine and lovingly preserved the Tharavad as a wild green haven.
It was no wonder then that she played an active role in the protests against the proposed Aranmula airport that would have destroyed 500 acres of wetlands.
She would always say there is no greater joy than listening to bird songs in the morning or seeing a plant growing in a barren land. She planted trees and founded Krishna Vanam in Attapadi, a rains shadow region haunted still by tribal malnutrition deaths.
Creative work took a back seat over the years, as she allotted more time for social and green causes, though it never bothered her in the first place.
Pathos loomed large in all her works, beginning from the first collection of poems, Muthuchippi, published way back in 1962. In works like Gajendra Moksham, Ambalamani, and Radha Eviday, she explored the many aspects of love, from romantic to motherly and mystical to spiritual.
But the ethos of Sugathakumari’s later poems was dominated by concern for ecology, destruction of rivers and forest, and the habitat loss on birds and animals. In one such haunting poem, One More Song, the poet sees a forest bird with a broken wing, struggling to sing a song for her mate who had vanished forever.
Sugathakumari was at heart a romantic who was deeply influenced by her father Bodheswran’s Gandhian principles of nonviolence and Kumaranasan’s poetry.
Like P B Shelly who wrote, ‘Our sweetest songs are that of the saddest thought’ Sugathakumari too felt that it was only when she felt extremely sad that she could pen a poem. In her Ode To A Tree, she compares a tree to Lord Shiva and writes: “I pray to you, Neelakanda Swami, who consumes poison and provides us 'Pranavayu', the life-giving air.”
"Her works, which render full justice to the Indian poetic tradition, reflected her love for nature and a genuine concern for the abused and deprived sections of society," says Kerala governor Arif Mohammed Khan.