Kerala is on a mission to retrieve its status as the most literate State in the country through AKSHARA PERUMA, the one of its kind literary festival in India. The Festival of Letters observed during June 19 to June 25, to coincide with the death anniversary of P N Panicker, Father of the Library Movement, has succeeded in bringing back the new generation to the world of reading, according to Prof K N Unnikrishnan, noted writer and critic, based at Perumbavoor.
President Ram Nath Kovind had unveiled in December 2021 the statue of Panicker at Thiruvananthapuram as a mark of respect to the man who had made “Read and Grow” the message of his life. Over the last five years, Kerala has become a hub of gold and narcotic smugglings as well as a centre of human trafficking while books and reading became alien to the new generation.
This years Festival of Letters saw a week-long action packed event at Perumbavoor under the patronage of T M Zakir Hussain, chairman, municipal council that incorporated a myriad of items like memorial meetings, book releasing, discussions and debates on books, cultural events like Chakiyar Koothu (designated as Kerala’s oldest art form) and poetry session that drew hundreds of participants including students, teachers and parents.
The initiation to the world of knowledge saw the participants registering themselves as life members of Perumbavoor Municipal Council, a treasure house of books. Zakir Hussain, who shifted his camp office from the municipal office to the venue throughout the festival, interacted with all the participants exhorting them about the importance of books and the impact of reading. “Books are our trusted and dependable friends. You can communicate with the books till you are exhausted. Whenever you feel tired, put down the book. It will be waiting to communicate with you once you are back to normal,” said Hussain, himself a voracious reader. The seven day event also featured sessions for youth, students, parents, connoisseurs of art, culture and literature and women. “Many of the participants were hearing the names of Prof Kuttipuzha Krishna Pillai and Puthezhathu Raman Menon the titans of Malayalam literature for the first time and expressed their desire to read their works. That way, this festival has done wonders,” said Prof Unnikrishnan.
The interregnums during the events marked the municipal councillors, self help group members and students performing songs, dance and traditional events like Kaikottikkali. “More than Onam and Vishu, we will wait for next year’s Akshara Peruma because of its live nature. This is the only event where politics took a back stage,” said Anita Prakash, a councillor and livewire of the week-long event.
Experts used the occasion to convince the parents not to pressurize the children to excel in topics in which the latter do not have any interest. “Please understand that there are professions other than medical doctors and engineering in this world. Each profession has its own dignity,” Zakir Hussain told the parents with a request that children should be given creative freedom and the right to choose their area of interest.