Seven Gems (Sri Narayana. Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Satyasai Baba, Sri Vivekananda, Sri Meera, Sri Buddha, Sri Krishna)

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I have just skimmed through the script of the poems written by a lawyer whose mind has not been stained by the labyrinthine intricacies of legalities. The poems are more from the heart than the intellect. It is refreshing to note that the surge of ideas overshadows the conventional designs of poetic expression.

It is a rare phenomenon that a lawyer should turn a poet philosopher with a religious bent of mind in these days of skepticism, agnosticism, atheism and materialism. One hopes that this budding Indian poet writing in English will put forth more flowers in the garden of poetry. The tit1es of all the poems relate to saintly personalities and I do hope that this venture is only the beginning of more to come.

In my school days, I had occasion to read and study some sonnets. Sonnets being small poems of fourteen lines, I used to think, why I should not make an attempt to write poems of this sort. But never, in the wildest of my dreams had I thought it would ever materialize, that too writing poems in English. I am conscious of the fact that if I do not note down immediately the words that strike the mind, it would vanish, never to come back again. Therefore, on many an occasion I had to jump up from bed or had to run from the bathroom or from the dining table to note down words on scraps of paper or whatever was available at hand, lest the words should escape my memory. Incidentally, I would like to mention a fact that my grandfather, an Ayurveda Physician, had a poetic bent of mind and had written a few poems in MalaaIem.

I began writing poems at the age of 21 or so, while I was reading for LL.B. Interestingly, my de’but as a poet Is with the birth of twins titled “My Almamater” and “Hippies”. The inspiration to write the poem was quite accidental. One of my younger brothers happend to write a short story in Malayalam and got it published in a Malayalam daily and that prompted and inspired my poetic sensibilities. Soon I began to write one or two line once or twice a day and succeeded in composing the poem. “My Almamater” within a fortnight. Certain lines of the poem, found unsuitable were deleted and a few more lines were added to those deleted lines and thus my second poem “Hippies” took birth along with the first poem. Thereafter, there is a lapse of about twelve years during which period not even a single line was written.

1983 is a turning point in my life as a poet, in that my first poem “My Almamater” was published in the Souvenir brought out by the Chavakkad Bar Association It was well received and that induced me to publish the second poem “Hippies”. It also got good reception which inspired me to write more poems and in all about 20 poems weêe written the same year, dealing with both spiritual and materisimatters of which one poem was titled “Sri Vivakanmnds”. I brought this poem to the notice of Revered SW**$akrananda, the President of the Sri Ramekrishna Puranattukara, Trichur Kerala, who asked me tQ ee. . the ALl India conference held at the “Bharatiya Wysbhavan Auditorium, Ernakulam, under the auspices of the “Sri Ramakrishna Vivekananda Movement”. At the conference I read the poem titled “Sri Vhiekananda”. The publisher of “Chinmaya Jyoti” was very much impressed by my poem and came forward to publish my poems one after the other. Three of my poems have already been published in “Yoganadam” a weekly published from Quilon. I am thankful to both the publishers.

I make use of this opportunity to express my heartfelt thanks towards Revered Swami Sakranandaji who readily agráed to help me in the printing, Publication and distri— bution of the book. I remember with gratitude Prof: V. G. Naraysnen, Sri. N. Damodara Menon, Advocate, and late Prof: N. K. Sheshan for having been kind enough to go through some of my poems and express their opinion regrdlng my work and also for the necessary suggestion given to me.

Prof. P. Sreedharan Nair M.A. PhD. was gracious enough to go through my work and write a short but grand foreword. I am most grateful to him for his kind words.

Last but not the least important is my thanks to the workers of the Kohinoor Printers, Kokkalai, Trichur,, but for whose sincere co-operation this book would not have come out so well.

A word about Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. Before the incarnation of Sri Ramekrishna, Hindu religion was divided into Vaishnavites, Saivites, and a plethora of other sects. Sri Ramakrishna brought about the unification of the Hindu society. So also, violence among religions was the hallmark of the era before his birth, Sri Ramakrishna realised one and the same God observing different religious practices and thus brought about changes in the outlook of different religions. The era of violence gave way to an era of mutual trust and respect among different religions.

The saintly personalities dealt with in this book are all my ideals. They are the guardian angels of our culture and civilization. It is they who bind together the people of India as a nation. But, for their teachings based on the human values like SATYAM, DHARMAM, SHANTI, PREMAM and AHIMSA, the country would have been shattered to pieces. When most other civilizations were buried in the annals of history, the civilization of “Bharata” still persists. It is because, the teachings of these saintly personalities are of eternal value arid we lndians hold aloft these values even to this day in spite of onslaught of the present day western culture which pays scant attention to these eternal human values.

“Hate the sin and not the sinner” is the spirit that guides me when I express strong sentiments against Caste System in some of my ‘works. Personally, I have nothing against the so called high castes, as I treat them as equals. Let me make it clear that I do not at all believe in Caste. System as it is practiced today, since it is riot births but vocation that decided Caste if there is any Caste System and If it has any relevance at all.