Writer M.T. Vasudevan Nair has said that K. Jayakumar, former Chief Secretary and Vice Chancellor of Malayalam University, is the most appropriate candidate for the award instituted in memory of the late lyricist P. Bhaskaran.
“P. Bhaskaran and K. Jayakumar are two people who truly define the term multi-talented,” M.T. said in his address after presenting the third P.Bhaskaran award to Mr. Jayakumar here on Tuesday.
Multi-talented
Recalling that Bhaskaran had penned over 3,000 songs, he criticised those who belittled lyricists and did not consider them as being on par with poets. Bhaskaran was a lyricist, composer, filmmaker and actor, besides being a poet, M.T. said.
“It is not difficult to make the lyrics of a song look like a poem, but not vice versa”, he said, pointing out that noted American lyricist and composer Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize and nobody batted an eyelid, while O.N.V. Kurup receiving the Padmasree was frowned upon by many in Kerala.
He said that even Rabindranath Tagore was a lyricist and composer who created his own genre of music.
M.T. said that Mr. Jayakumar’s prose writings, including his translations, were deep and beautiful like his poems and lyrics.
“He, like P. Bhaskaran, has penned songs that have become part of the lives and culture of a generation of people, the exact reason why Bob Dylan was given the Nobel Prize”. Mayor Thottathil Raveendran presided over the event. Writer V.R. Sudheesh, who is known for his research on the works of P. Bhaskaran and the influence of his poems in the Kerala society, delivered the P.Bhaskaran commemoration lecture on the occasion.
