Editorial
Poet has a lot of clouds in his heart while the stupid has a some sand in his palm; we reread the lines of Gibran in every possible moment of our life. Poets see, foresee and farsee. And he says , too. So, poet is a visionary and a sayer. He says things in possibly the most beautiful way. Again Gibran in his two poets has distinguished the beautiful poem and great poem. Beautiful poem will be read again and again while the great poem might be adorning the shelves of libraries and universities.
Poets dream, too. In fact any art is the result of a dream; may it be the rock-cut temples of Ajanta and Ellora, or the paintings of Picasso or M. F. Hussain or even the little poem of Dr. M. P. Salila entitled "Chottanikkarayamma" published in one community in orkut. Persecutors and executioners of faiths and religions have always intimidated the artists, writers and scitentists. We in Kerala are a special genre running after poets of far away places like Crete or Greece where writers of the range of Kazandzakis has described the last temptations of Jesus Christ. What Kazandzakis has done is to picture only his dreams. Greeks are a tolerant people when it comes to poetry and art. The freedom of expression had its efflorescence in Greece of the ancient world and itr continues till date.
But we, in India, have now started issuing Fatwas that such and such should not be written or atleast read; remember the arch Catholic king of Spain was asked by the Pope to introduce the Index of non-readable heresies in his realm; the king replied that the best way to defeatbad books is to write better ones. Had there been that much intolerance in Turkey as we express, Orhan Pamuk could not have published his Snow with the freedom and independence; he won the Nobel not at the cost of his liberty, but was acclaimed well by his country-men too.
We have a thousand and odd versions of Ramayana; Kamba's version depicts even the demon with as much kindliness and sympathy as he described Sri Rama. By this he was able to transcend the enminty between the demon and the God.
At the same time there is a tendency to portray poor poetry as good; publishers and editors vie on this. Each finds its own brain child and provide it fodder of publicity when the so-called poetic calf is not capable to digest what is provided as fodder. The resultant calamity is that good writers are often writen off to oblivion while shallow waters ememrge as oceans.
So, let me caution everyone to beware of poor poetry appearing as good lest it should destroy culture.
[2]
The UPA govt has come to senses by presenting the bill for the reservation of woemn. We don't think this is a result of its sincerety. It is rather a marriage of convenience; the anti-people budget naturally necessitated some sop ; and also the education bill empowering the unaided sector to an unlimited extent was in store.
So, a sop is provided to feminists. Still , it is a good move. We congratulate the govt. Even the bare minimum it can give to any category of people is welcome because it is the most anti-people govt; foregin capital is assured a place in Education. Let us pray for the future of our country as Father Penelope did while the people of Oran were suffering from plague.
[3]
Thanalonline.com is going to be uploaded by me from this issue onwards. Now the site is fully database oriented one. We hope the readersd and writers would welcome this change.