Tamil poet Abdul Rahman, master of symbolism, rejected Kollywood

Chennai: Tamil poet S.  Abdul Rahman (79) popularly known as Kavikko, passed away in the early hours of Friday. He had been suffering from urinary infection for some time. He is survived by his son and daughter. The final rites will be held on Saturday.

A Sahitya Akademi winner for his poetry collection ‘Aalaapanai’, he was a master of symbolism and imagery. An undercurrent of philosophy runs through most of his poems, even though the topics are ordinary. The verses usually begin with simple images, moves into symbolism and conclude with a philosophic touch.

He is one of the poets of the ‘Vanambadi’ poetry movement, a pioneer of modern Tamil poetry. But, more than his contemporaries Meera or Na. Kamarasan, poems of Abdul Rahman deal with contemporary political events and come out with strong criticism, marked with irony and skepticism.

The first of his poetry collection ‘Paal Veedhi’ (milky way) was released in 1974 and won accolades from Tamil literary world. He is the author of ‘Neyar viruppam’, ‘Pithan’ ‘Suttu viral’, ‘Muttai Vaasigal’, ‘Karaigaley Nadhiyavadhillai’, ‘Indriravu pagalil’ and ‘Vilangugal illa kavidhaigal’. In 1999, his poetry collection ‘Aalaapanai’ won the Sahitya Akademi award.

Born in Madurai, he served as a professor for 30 years at Islamiah College in Vaniyambadi.  He has also translated the works of the Urudu poet Iqbal in Tamil. He also successfully experimented with Japanese poetic form of Haiku and Urdu Gazhal.

He is a close friend of DMK president M. Karunanidhi. Abdul Rahman was a member of Tamil Language Promotion Board of the Central Institute of Classical Tamil. He always had a complaint that Tamil poetry was not accorded the importance that it deserved at the national level.

He is one of the classical poets who recognised cinema lyrics as a form of poetry. He had high respect for poet Kannadasan and opined that most of his best literary pieces were film songs. However, he refused to write film songs till his death.

In a recent function, music maestro Ilayaraja appealed to him to pen songs for films too. But, the poet said he is ready to write ‘Gnana padalgal’ (songs of wisdom) for a separate album that could be composed by Ilayaraja. The composer also accepted  Abdul  Rahman’s condition and announced that a album penned by Kavikko with Ilayaraja’s music composition would be released in future. But, such an album has become an unfulfilled dream for Abdul Rahman’s admirers and Tamil literary world.