Mahakavi’s birth anniversary commemorated across the state

With the poet having played a significant role in the country’s freedom struggle movement, Governor Banwarilal Purohit and others visited Bharathiyar’s manimandapam at Ettayapuram and paid tributes by garlanding his statue to mark the poet’s birth anniversary. Later, the Governor took part in a programme at Ettayapuram, where Ilasai Manian, secretary at the Raghunathan Library in Bharathi Research Centre, was conferred with the ‘Mahakavi Bharathi’ award in recognition of his contribution to Bharathi literature. A sum of Rs 1 lakh was also awarded.

During the event, scholars recalled the poet’s significant contribution to literature and his role in journalism, sources said.

Clad in black jacket, white dhoti and turban on head, several students in the guise of the late poet took out a procession that passed the thoroughfares of Ettayapuram and ended at the Ettayapuram Maharaja’s palace.

Participating in a programme organised by the Bharathiar Memorial Trust, Kovilpatti in association with Kovilpatti Rotary Club, the students also spent time at the late poet’s house in Ettayapuram. The students also took pledge to stop crime against women and abolish child labour.

P Muthu Murugan, coordinator, Bharathiar Memorial Trust, presided over the programme. Students also staged folk dance as part of the programme. Over hundred students from various schools took part in the event, sources said.

In Madurai, scores of students at Sethupathi Higher Secondary School, where Bharathi served as teacher, also celebrated the poet’s birth anniversary.

Floral tributes were also paid to revolutionary poet on his birth anniversary in the Union Territory on Wednesday.

Puducherry Speaker Sivakozhunthu and Parliamentary Secretary to the Chief Minister, K Lakshminarayanan, garlanded the statue of the poet in the Bharathi park on behalf of the territorial administration.