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Malayalam, the musical language

Scenic land of Kerala itself is poetry.

The southernmost state of India, Kerala, is blessed with beautifully strewn evergreen verdure dales, dunes, dense forests, hundreds of miles long sprawling sandy beach dipping into the Arabian Sea and equally poetic language, Malayalam

Malayalam is descendant of Sanskrit, language of the divine. Parasu Rama, the legendary sixth incarnation of the almighty, Maha Vishnu, reclaimed this strip of land out of Arabian sea by casting his hatchet from Gokarnam in Karnataka, towards south, which landed in Kanyakumari. He immigrated Sanskrit speaking Arya Brahmins from the north into the reclaimed strip of land. People from adjoining Karnataka and Tamil Nadu moved in to the new land of new people in search of job and they were entertained by the Brahmins, called “Namboothiris”, to keep on the manual and intellectual functions maintaining life in the society go uninterrupted while they could engross themselves in the study of Vedas and propitiating the gods and goddesses in the 108 nos. each of Durga and Shiva temples installed by Sree Parasu Rama for them to worship.

In the beginning, difficulty was experienced in communication between the masters and servants as Sanskrit and Dravidian languages were dissembling but, in course of time, they started understanding each other and, as years passed by, none knowing it happens, the three languages got mixed up to deliver a new one, Malayalam, and it became the language of this Parasurama’s land.

Vedas and Upanishads, the scriptural pillars of Hinduism, are composed as poetic hymns in Sanskrit because poetry is easy to learn by heart, remember and hand down to the next generation. Verses recited in resounding voices vibrating to the metrical beats are the innate qualities of Sanskrit literature. Malayalam treaded its trail.

Rich poetic compositions known as hymns were composed in metrical beats of Sanskrit for Prayers and temple liturgy whereas the common man sang his own simple compositions defying the tough standards and rules of Sanskrit poetry but with definite beat to render his and his team’s work a pleasing ritual. As a result, two types of poetry were born in Malayalam, the Sanskrit meter and Malayalam meter with conscious efforts not to inter-mingle Sanskrit and Malayalam words in the two.

After some time, a third one was given birth to: a cautious, sensible and compatible mixture of Sanskrit and Malayalam words which was later known as “Manipravalam”.

Starting with singing paeans to gods and goddesses and reaching out to social themes, Malayalam poetry was enriched with hundreds of thousands of poetic works by gifted poet laureates, beginning from Thujath Ramanujan Ezhuthachan, acclaimed as the father of Malayalam poetry, spanning out to social themes.

Kerala and Keralites grew imbibing an alien culture and language and gained the audacity to declare, as a status symbol, that they don’t know Malayalam. This has axed the growth of Malayalam literature, especially that of poetry which has become French and Latin to them, with a result that the publishers wouldn’t touch the work of budding or unpublished poets even with a long handled tongs.

Known poets are fortunate as publishers chase them for copy rights of newer compositions as and when they come out. There are, of course, real talents writing poetry with golden imageries, pant chasing a publisher and, unable to make the book see light of the day¸ burn them.

I endeavor to help such hapless writers through PoeticKerala