on poet vaidheeswaran
THE HINDU Online edition ofIndia
THE HINDU Online edition of
Monday, June 18, 2001
Master of many arts
V. R. DEVIKA
WONDERING WHAT to do with your
restless ward after school hours? Here is a creative option. Kids Central, at
No. 7, Arunachalam Road
A MODERN poet in Tamil. That
is how one can describe S. Vaidheeswaran . He is considered a pioneer
of modern Tamil poetry, a movement that began in the 1960s and was nurtured by
small literary magazines.
Vaidheeswaran has many facets
to his personality... apart from being a poet, he is also a painter, stage
actor, museologist and a keen enthusiast of classical music and dance concerts
of Chennai. Not just that, he used to work (retired now) as a flight manager
for Indian Airlines!
"That job fed my
stomach", says Vaidheeswaran, when this writer met him at his Kodambakkam
residence. "The 30 years that I worked for the airline gave me aviation
experience and security, but the demands of the job left me with very little
time for creative pursuits."
Yet, Vaidheeswaran has to his
credit, an impressive collection of modern Tamil poems, quite a few paintings
and even lyrics that have been featured in All India Radio's morning programmes.
The poet grew up in a very
creative atmosphere. His uncle was the famed theatre person S. V.
Saharsranamam, who left home early to eke a living out of theatre. The little
nephew would join him during holidays on Waltax Road
It was but natural that
Vaidheeswaran took to acting. His role as Arjuna in his uncle's
"Therotti", and a few others are noteworthy. But, the boy would slip
out often and go to the American Library to read the poems of Robert Frost and
T. S. Elliot. Soon, he began to feel the momentariness of theatre, where one
had to repeat the same words over and over again, with not much originality.
It was around this time that
artist Kalasagaram Rajagopalan advised him to look for a more permanent form of
expression. "That advice left a deep impact on me. After my B.Sc., I
wanted to study something connected with the arts", recalls Vaidheeswaran.
He went to Baroda to study museology and presented a paper on re- organising the National Art Gallery in Madras
In 1960, Vaidheeswaran wrote a
poem which was published in Ezhuttu magazine. Soon other magazines like Nadai,
Gnanandam and Kaniyaali published his poems. These poems, along with works of
other poets, paved the way for a new movement of modern Tamil poetry.
"Whatever was written between 1959 and 1963 in this genre is of great
value today," says Vaidheeswaran, whose first collection was published in
1970.
Vaidheeswaran's meeting with
K.C.S. Panikkar, who was leading the modern art movement which was gaining
momentum around the same time, led to his joining the art club. In 1993, his
Nagara Suvargal was published, along with other short stories. His poems,
incidentally, have been translated into other languages and are included in the
ICCR anthologies.
He had already written several
songs for the Kaalai Malar programme on AIR when Brhhadhvani's K. S.
Subramaniam approached him to write simple lyrics for Carnatic music exercises
of Sarali Varisai, to introduce music and the language of Tamil to children.
"I consider that a major achievement," says the poet.
Vaidheeswaran has been hailed
as a significant imagist. "On the surface", says writer Ashokamitran
in his foreword to Vaidheeswaran's book, "The Fragrance of Rain",
"his language seems a formal literary language but as one goes from line
to line, the reader will realise that the poet is unfolding a new world in a
totally new pattern of words. Metaphor never has been utilised so fluently,
abundantly and so tellingly as in his creations."
"Imageries do not have
similarities," is how Vaidheeswaran puts it.
