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“Poovai Amuthan” (1934) is the pen name of Mr.S.R.Govindarajan, who after 36 years of teaching Tamil in schools, is now a freelancer. For the past four decades he is continuously contributing Tamil poems, publishing them in various literary journals. He has brought out seven volumes as compilation of his poems.
His versatility is unquestionable. To his credit there are hundreds of titles. He has authored hundreds of books, which can be classified in 9 categories. To be brief,I will give the categories and the number of titles he has authored.
1. POEMS—7 Volumes
2. Novels-24
3. Compilations of Short stories-38
4. Biographies-18
5. Exponential approaches to Literature-9
6. Compilations of essays—23
4. Prose works—9
5. Dramas—2
6. Children’s Literature—118 Books(All categories)
The total books authored by him number247.He is also a prolific lyric-writer and he has composed more than 600 songs. Almost all the leading play-back singers of South India have rendered mellifluous music for his lyrics and 58 cassettes have been released so far.Poovai Amuthan is the first poet to write an epic on ‘Aids awareness’ titled, “Uyir uravu” which had won an award from Tiruppur Tamil sangam.His drama for children,”kiraamaththup paiyan”(The Village boy”) had won him a gold medal as the first prize from A.V.M.Trust.If we begin to enlist the laurels and accolades he had gained for his books, we will need a separate book for it.
Abolition of caste and communal feelings is not a virtue to be loudly shouted in stages but to be followed at the house itself.Poovai Amuthan has a noble heritage of a broad outlook, neglecting communal feelings and he acts as a role model for us to shun communal differences.
He advocates for Humanism and his poems plead with the readers to adopt humanism as their religion.
Poovai Amuthan has always a soft corner for the underprivileged and the have-nots. He does not aspire to be the poet laureate but he sincerely wishes to be a poet for the down-trodden and a song-composer for the working class.
