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After an illustrious tenure as secretary of the Sahitya Akademi here, K. Satchidanandan is set to bid adieu to the institution he has served for over 13 years. A Malayalam poet, English professor and four-time Kerala Sahitya Akademi award winner, Satchidanandan is all this and much more. At the Sahitya Akademi, India's apex body for literature, it has been quite a balancing act for him, continuously juggling the poet in him and the almost-bureaucratic secretarial post. "While I tried to break the traditional bureaucratic nature of the post, I think my creative side helped me network better," Satchidanandan, who turned 60 Sunday, told IANS in an interview. He may be retiring, but his effervescent mind is already abuzz with future plans as a full-time litterateur. "I hope to devote more time to poetry, contribute to literary columns and research on scholarly projects." One of them, he says, is a book on the great Indian epic "Mahabharata". "It will be a contemporary work, something like an interaction between the past and the present." Having grown up in Pullut village, Kodungallur in Kerala's Thrissur district, Satchidanandan started writing poetry at the age of 11. After pursuing an M.A. in literature, he went on to teach English at Christ's College, Irinjalakuda, for over 20 years. He began publishing his poems in college itself and his first widely acclaimed poem was "Anchu Sooryan" (Five Suns). Like many academics, Satchidanandan too was greatly influenced by the ideals of Marxism and the New Left Movement that took shape in the early 1970s. "We were a group of poets and we did street theatre, poetry, addressed public gatherings. I went back to our folk traditions and wrote songs called 'Pularipattu', patterned on folklore but the content was contemporary and radical," he said. However, disillusionment soon set in with Marxism and the New Left Movement. "They didn't recognise the importance of basic democratic rights and that was the time changes were taking place in the Soviet Union, leading to its ultimate collapse. "What remains with me of Marxism is its basic sense of justice," he said. A prolific writer, Satchidanandan's creativity is multidimensional. Besides publishing more than 20 volumes of poetry in Malayalam, he has several plays, translations and research papers to his credit. Talking about his favourite subject - poetry - Satchidanandan said, "We are passing through a very unpoetic time with the rise of globalisation and cultural standardisation." Despite this, he believes, p0oetry has not entirely lost its social role. He said marginalised groups like Dalits, women and tribals were expressing their experiences and views through this medium. Satchidanandan's association with the Sahitya Akademi, Delhi, began in 1992 as an editor. He became the organisation's secretary in 1996. Under his stewardship, the Akademi's programmes acquired a fresh approach as he initiated seminars like the All India Women Writers' Conference and All India Dalit Writers' Conference. He introduced "Antaral", interdisciplinary lectures by intellectuals from different fields across the country. He also launched "Mulakat", a platform for young writers; "Kavi-Sandhi", interactions with poets; and increased the number of publications from 90 to about 300 per year. Most importantly, he was the brain behind the launch of the "Encyclopaedia of Indian Poetics, Modern Indian Literature-IV". Satchidanandan's achievements at the Akademi and elsewhere are almost endless. He is indeed a rare combination - a poet-administrator.
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