dated September 13, 1951: Remembering Subrahmanya Bharathi

On the 11th in Ettayapuram, Bharathi Day was celebrated with fervour. C. Perumalswami Reddiar, Minister for Industries, Madras, recalled how Poet Bharathi's songs had kindled the hearts of the people and imbued them with patriotism and the lofty ideal of plain living and high thinking. Bharathi was one of the greatest poets of the world. He was different in practising ardently all that he believed in and advocated. The poet wrote in such a simple but eloquent style, that his pieces needed no annotations. Mr. Reddiar emphasised the work of Bharathi in espousing the cause of women, and in according special importance to faith in God, whose presence he saw in practically everything.

Tamizh scholar R. P. Sethu Pillai, who presided, declared that Ettayapuram, the birthplace of Bharathi, had come to be a place of pilgrimage as Shakespeare's was in England. The English called their country `motherland' and the Germans called theirs `fatherland': Bharathi applied both the terms to Bharatha Desa, our country, indicating the importance of maternal qualities like love and affection, and paternal virtues like stern manliness. Bharathi wrote strongly of the need for equality in society without harmful barriers of high and low. His valuable poems constituted the very essence of Thiruvalluvar, Kambar, Elango Adigal and the Saivite saint Thirunavukkarasar.

Knowledge to the People

From the Editorials: ``A meeting held in Madras recently has set up a Committee to prepare a scheme drawing upon library cess finances to house libraries in accessible parts of the city, and to run mobile library vans to serve more readers than at present. ... A Calcutta paper has drawn attention to the unsatisfactory condition of many of our libraries: a municipal library in a district headquarters town in the Circars is housed in a building in the middle of the busiest bazaar, and the latest Government document available there is the report of an old Statutory Commission. Even of the libraries in Madras City, the paper draws attention to their lacking a host of valuable publications. In addition to the antiquated stock on their shelves, library staff are wanting in the right approach...''

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