Ettiyapuram (Tuticorin District), TAMIL NADU :
His 1,000 literary works will be added to library
Tuticorin :
Speaker R. Avudiappan inaugurated the memorial constructed for Umaru Pulavar, great Islamic poet, at Ettayapuram near here on Monday.
Official sources said that it was built by the Public Works Department on an outlay of Rs.22.5 lakh.
The monument would be maintained by the Department of Information and Public Relations.
The memorial, a two-storied edifice, has a tomb and prayer hall in the ground floor with a library on the top floor.
A collection of 1,000 literary works of Umaru Pulavar would be added into the library in a phased manner. The works would include poems like ‘Seerapuranam’, ‘Muthu Mozhil Malai’ and ‘Sethakathi wedding poems’, among others.
The access to the library would be free.
Sources said that the memorial was a tribute to the poet, whose ancestors had chosen Ettayapuram in Tuticorin district as their ‘home away from home’ since they descended from Arabia.
The forefathers of the poet came here to sell perfumes and settled in Nagalapuram, before moving to Ettayapuram where the poet was born in 1642.
Umaru Pulavar’s literary talents flourished under Kadikai Muthu Pulavar, court poet of the Ettayapuram Zamin. At the age of 16, Umaru Pulavar stole the national limelight by winning a literary debate with Vallai Varundhi, a renowned poet from North India. Umaru Pulavar was then made the court poet of the Ettayapuram Zamin.
“Seerapuranam,’ considered to be one of the best works by him, depicts the history related to Prophet Mohammed Nabi, and it contains 5,027 poems in three ‘Kandams’ (parts), which are Vilathathu Kandam, Noobuvathu Kandam and Hijurathu Kandam.
“Each of the ‘Kandams’ narrates various stages of the life of Nabi,” sources said.
Ministers Geetha Jeevan, Parithi Ellamvazhuthi and T.P.M. Moideen Khan, Collector R. Palaniyandi, District Public Relations Officer S.R. Sarathy and senior revenue officials were present.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> National> Tamil Nadu / by Staff Reporter / October 30th, 2007