Ullum Puravum (roughly translated as 'Within and Without') is a blog started by a daughter (that's me) to share her father’s poetry. My father, K. T. Krishna Variar (aka K. K. Variar) had a head for engineering and a heart for poetry. He retired as an engineer from the Indian Railway Service and RITES (Rail India Technical and Economic Service) after what was a long and successful career. He started writing and publishing poetry at the young age of 9. (Please read more about his career and his works in the 'About the Poet' section.)
Father was an ardent lover of literature – both English and Malayalam. Though he had equal felicity in both languages, his creative writing had always been in his mother tongue, Malayalam.
Almost all of his poems have been published. Then why this blog? Because these poems were written in the pre-digital era, and no efforts had been made earlier to make them visible in the virtual world. Though a technocrat himself, Father belonged with those people who still loved to flick the pages of a paperback and draw in the smell of the pages. He was among those who believed that the joy of reading wouldn’t be complete if one didn’t go through all the sensory experiences, including seeing, smelling, and touching the book, and listening to the rustle of the book leaves.
However, now, in these changed times, these poems need to be freed from their bindings and let out into the skies of the readers’ vision. As his daughter, I consider it my honour, privilege and duty to take on this responsibility.
Father bid farewell to this world on December 3, 2022. But he continues to be with us in spirit, through his poetry.
This has been a delightful journey for me, as a blogger, as well as for the readers of Father’s poetry. This blog, as you would see, is bilingual, with introductions in English to the poet's writings in Malayalam. Renditions of the poems by poetry lovers (including his daughters too) from various fields, are presented along with the poems. Hopefully, this fellowship of the blogger, the readers, and the reciters will evolve in our love, understanding and appreciation of poetry.
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