Akkitham receives ONV Award

Thiruvananthapuram: Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan presented the ONV Literary Award to Mahakavi Akkitham Achuthan Namboothiri on Monday. The programme was organized as part of the 87th birth anniversary celebrations of late poet ONV Kurup. Young Malayalam poet Anagha J Kolath bagged the Youth Literary Award.
For Pinarayi Vijayan, the evening brought back fond memories about ONV. “ONV contributed immensely to Malayalam literature and would have further made plenty more cultural and literary contributions to Kerala had he still been around. An ONV Museum, modelled on Thunchanparambu, will be set up at Rs 5 crore,” he said.
Vijayan also recalled Akkitham’s close friendship with EMS. “In one of his interviews, Akkitham was seen with teary eyes when he recalled his memories with EMS,” Vijayan said.
According to Akkitham, even though both he and ONV were poets of the same era, ONV was junior to him. “I have witnessed the love he ushered upon his friends. Both of us had the same opinion when it came to the format of a poem. There is a ritual on the eve of Thiruvathira festival and ONV beautifully portrayed the ritual in one of his poems. As a ‘Valluvanadan’ poet I thought, shouldn’t I have been the one to write this poem, but then again, I always knew that I could never replicate the grace and charm ONV had in his lines,” said Akkitham.
The event, which was attended by many noted poets, had the ONV memorial lecture delivered by poet K Satchidanandan. Prabha Varma and S Sreedevi read out citations and author C Radhakrishnan introduced the winners. Film maker Adoor Gopalakrishnan, poet Sugathakumari and ONV’s wife Sarojini Kurup attended the event.