Attoor Ravi Varma (27 December 1930 – 26 July 2019)"Poet Attur Ravi Varma passes away"
Chennai: ''The Hindu''. July 26, 2019. Retrieved July 28, 2019. was an Indian poet and translator of

Malayalam literature Malayalam, the lingua franca of the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puduchery, is one of the six Classical languages of India. Malayalam literature comprises those literary texts written in Malayalam, a S ...

. One of the pioneers of modern

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry ( Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam wa ...

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meani ...

, Ravi Varma is a recipient of

Kendra Sahitya Akademi Award The Sahitya Akademi Award is a literary honour in India, which the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, annually confers on writers of the most outstanding books of literary merit published in any of the 22 languages of the ...

Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Poetry The Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Poetry is an award given every year by the Kerala Sahitya Akademi (Kerala Literary Academy) to Malayalam writers for writing poetry of literary merit. It is one of the twelve categories of the Kerala Sahitya A ...

and Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Translation, besides many other honours. The

Government of Kerala Government of Kerala is the subnational government of the Indian state of Kerala. The government is led by a chief minister, who selects all the other ministers. The chief minister and their most senior ministers belong to the supreme decisio ...

honoured him with their highest literary award, the

Ezhuthachan Puraskaram The Ezhuthachan Puraskaram is the highest literary honour is given by the Kerala Sahitya Akademi, Government of Kerala. The award is named after Thunchaththu Ezhuthachan, the father of the Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian languag ...

, in 2012 and the

Kerala Sahitya Akademi The Kerala Sahitya Akademi or Academy for Malayalam literature is an autonomous body established to promote the Malayalam language and literature. It is situated in City of Thrissur, Kerala in India. History The academy was inaugurated on 15 ...

inducted him as their distinguished fellow in 2017.

Biography

Attoor Ravi Varma was born on 27 December 1930 in Attoor, a small village in Trichur district of the erstwhile

Kingdom of Cochin The Kingdom of Cochin, named after its capital in the city of Kochi (Cochin), was a kingdom in the central part of present-day Kerala state. It commenced at the early part of the 12th century and continued to rule until 1949, when monarchy wa ...

(now part of the south Indian state of

Kerala Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South Ca ...

) to Krishnan Namboothiri and Ammini Amma. He joined Zamorin's Guruvayurappan College,

Calicut Kozhikode (), also known in English as Calicut, is a city along the Malabar Coast in the state of Kerala in India. It has a corporation limit population of 609,224 and a metropolitan population of more than 2 million, making it the second ...

for his pre-university course but was expelled from college due to his involvement in

left-wing politics Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in ...

. Later, he continued studies at

Malabar Christian College The Malabar Christian College (MCC), established in 1909, is one of the oldest institutions located in Kozhikode, Kerala, India. History It was established by Protestant Christian missionaries from Basel, Switzerland with the aim to impart educa ...

before graduating in Malayalam with

honours Honour (British English) or honor (American English; see spelling differences) is the idea of a bond between an individual and a society as a quality of a person that is both of social teaching and of personal ethos, that manifests itself as a ...

from the

University College, Trivandrum University College, Thiruvananthapuram (UCT) is a constituent college of the University of Kerala, based primarily in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of the Indian state of Kerala. The college was awarded 23rd rank by National Institutional Ran ...

. Subsequently, he joined

Presidency College, Madras Presidency College is an art, commerce, and science college in the city of Chennai in Tamil Nadu, India. On 16 October 1840, this school was established as the Madras Preparatory School before being repurposed as a high school, and then a gra ...

Malayalam department as a faculty where he had the opportunity to be in touch with

M. Govindan Mancherath Thazhathethil Govindan (1919–1989) was an Indian writer of Malayalam literature and a cultural activist from Kerala, India. He was known for his writings as well as for his efforts in assisting Anand to publish his debut novel, ''Aa ...

, the noted writer, which helped him in the studies of

Tamil language Tamil (; ' , ) is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia. Tamil is an official language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, the sovereign nations of Sri Lanka and Singapore, and the Indian territory o ...

. He started his career as a teacher in

Madras Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

but returned to Kerala to work at

Sree Neelakanta Government Sanskrit College Pattambi Sree Neelakanta Government Sanskrit College Pattambi (SNGS) is a NAAC A+ graded government college located in Pattambi of Palakkad district in Kerala, India. It is recognized as the ‘Centre of Excellence’ in the field of higher educatio ...

before joining the Brennen College, Tellicherry where prominent politicians

Pinarayi Vijayan Pinarayi Vijayan (; born 24 May 1945) is an Indian Communist politician who is the current Chief Minister of Kerala, serving since 25 May 2016. A member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), he is the longest-serving sec ...

and A. K. Balan were his students. Ravi Varma was married to Sree Devi and the couple resided in Trichur. Ravi Varma died on 26 July 2019. He was 88 and was undergoing treatment for pneumonia in a private hospital in Trichur.

Legacy

Ravi Varma's poems ignored the metre and used free verse and he was one among the group of poets who pioneered modernism in Malayalam literature. His oeuvre consists of several poems compiled under three anthologies, translation of four novels from Tamil which include two of

Sundara Ramaswamy Sundara Ramaswamy (30 May 1931 – 15 October 2005) was an Indian novelist, poet, translator and literary critic, widely considered to be a pre-eminent figure in post-Independence Tamil literature. Born in 1931 in Thazhuviya Mahadevan Kovil, a ...

and one of Rajathi Salma, two books of translation of Tamil poetry and an edited work of poems of young writers. It was Ravi Varma who translated the ''Bhakthi poems'' on the Malayalam calendar in vattezhuthu script published by Moozhikulam Sala.

Awards and honours

Attoor Ravi Varma received the

for his poetry anthology, ''Attoor Ravi Varmayute Kavitakal'' in 1996 and he received the Asan Smaraka Kavitha Puraskaram in 1997, the same year as he received the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Translation for ''Oru Pulimarathinte Katha'', his translation of the debut novel by

. The

Sahitya Akademi The Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, is an organisation dedicated to the promotion of literature in the languages of India. Founded on 12 March 1954, it is supported by, though independent of, the Indian government. Its of ...

chose the anthology, ''Attoor Ravi Varmayute Kavitakal'', for their annual award in 2001 and the second part of ''Attoor Ravi Varmayute Kavitakal'' fetched him the P. Kunhiraman Nair Award in 2005. The Government of Kerala honoured Ravi Varma with their highest literary award of Ezhuthachan Award in 2012 and three years later, he received the 2015 ''Vani Samnvay Distinguished Translator Award''. The

inducted him as a distinguished fellow in 2017. He is also a recipient of the

Sahitya Akademi Translation Prize Sahitya Akademi Translation Prize or Sahitya Akademi Prize for Translation is a literary honour in India, presented by Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, given to "outstanding translations of creative and critical works" in 24 m ...

by Kendra Sahitya Akademi, Premji Award, E. K. Divakaran Potti Award and Mahakavi Pandalam Kerala Varma Kavitha Award. ''Maruvili'' is a documentary film made on the life and work of Ravi Varma, directed by Anvar Ali.

Bibliography

Poetry

* * * * *

Translation from Tamil to Malayalam

* * * * * * ''Bhakti kavyam (Translation of Nayanars and Azhvars)''

Edited poems

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Varma, Attoor Ravi 1930 births 2019 deaths People from Thrissur district Poets from Kerala Malayalam-language writers Malayalam poets Recipients of the Sahitya Akademi Award in Malayalam Recipients of the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award Recipients of the Ezhuthachan Award University College Thiruvananthapuram alumni 20th-century Indian poets Indian male poets 20th-century Indian novelists 21st-century Indian poets Indian male novelists 20th-century Indian male writers 21st-century Indian male writers Recipients of the Sahitya Akademi Prize for Translation