Madura deshpande biography of william hill
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On writing: Seeking Kodhai (In Srivilliputtur & Beyond)
Among the 12 canonised Tamil Vaishnavite poets known as Alvars, Andal is the only woman. In her own lifetime, she was known by the name Kodhai. It is Kodhai, the teenaged author of the Tiruppavai and the Nachiyar Tirumoli, who is the subject of my novel, The Queen of Jasmine Country.
Standing on a railway platform on a night in February, afraid to board even five minutes before the train departs due to a confusion over unconfirmed tickets, my travel companion and I, her toddler sitting on her shoulders, have no way of knowing if we will arrive in Madurai at the break of dawn. Over the previous few weeks, I’ve been writing a manuscript set in medieval Tamilagam, at a time when the city of Madurai was the capital of the Pandya empire. My main destination is just a little to the South, to a town now called Srivilliputtur, but known to my protagonist — a poet — as Puduvai.I want to go to the places where she had been, where she had lived and longed for something more than what her life had given her. I’d read and re-read Andal’s poetry for years. I’d murmured her lines to myself on bleak mornings when it had felt like my own vocabulary had seeped out of my veins. She’d come to me in dreams, and a story about her
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Rabindranath Tagore
Bengali poet, philosopher, writer and novelist (1861–1941)
For the film, see Rabindranath Tagore (film).
"Tagore" redirects here. For other uses, see Tagore (disambiguation).
Rabindranath ThakurFRAS (Bengali:[roˈbindɾonatʰˈʈʰakuɾ];[1] anglicised as Rabindranath Tagore; 7 May 1861[2] – 7 August 1941[3]) was an Indian Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter of the Bengal Renaissance.[4][5][6] He reshaped Bengali literature and music as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of the "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful" poetry of Gitanjali. In 1913, Tagore became the first non-European to win a Nobel Prize in any category, and also the first lyricist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Tagore's poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; where his elegant prose and magical poetry were widely popular in the Indian subcontinent. He was a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society. Referred to as "the Bard of Bengal",[10][5][6] Tagore was known by the sobriquetsGurudeb, Kobiguru, and Biswokobi.[a]