Mahakavi Bharathiar (Birthday: 11 Dec. 1882)

Mahakavi (Supreme Poet) Subramania Bharathi, the patron saint of modern Tamil literature was born 139 years ago on this date.
His death two months short of his 40th birthday was not marked by a grand funeral worthy of his hefty contributions to Tamil literature and Indian Independance two decades later.
He was constantly hounded by the bloodthirsty British Raj and other ruthless Western colonial forces that were running riot in India then.
His only crime was his writings prolific in volume and soul stirring with fire breathing fervour.
His poetry referred to in Tamil as ‘paattu’ (song) reverberated across Tamil Nadu kindling the spirit of freedom and religious fervour in the people.
This success was due to the utmost simplicity of his writing style that was capable of touching the hearts of even the simple rural folk.
His style differed vastly from the scholarly literary tradition of the time – nurtured in the royal courts and ashrams – intelligible or appealing mostly to the learned.
Sadly his innovative writing style that embraced the social fabric of the common folk has been grossly abused by Tamil Nadu’s writers of political dogma, atheist/Marxist propaganda and Tamil cinema song lyrics.
Not much follow up of Bharati`s innovative ideas and revolutionary social experiments is there even in Tamil Nadu, what to speak of the Tamil diaspora in Malaysia.
Tomorrow is Tamil cinema actor Rajinikanth`s birthday and the two Tamil radio stations Minnal FM and THR raga played songs from the actor`s movies from yesterday.
For Bharathiar who lived and wrote for the betterment of Tamil language and people it is customary for the two radio stations to run a short token programme in passing that too featuring cinema songs based on Bharathiar`s sublime poetry.
Truly a sad state of affairs showing how ungrateful we Tamils have become and are the lesser for it as seen by our current situation.

ends