An Apostle of Humanism

Vaa.mu.Sethuraman, popularly known as Vaa.Mu.See. and respectfully called as "PerungKavikko" (Great among Poets), is one among the rare kind of poets. Through his poems he wishes to propagate and attain universal brotherhood in the global village. Wedded to lofty maxims and committed to sublime values, he always craves for peace and international solidarity.

For a period of more than four decades, his pen is busily engaged in the fight against atrocities committed on the economically weaker section of society and exploitation of the downtrodden. To his credit he has produced 65 volumes of poems which consist more than one hundred thousand stanzas of poems whose essence is nothing but humanism.

Born in a tiny village to an agriculturist, it was considered as an achievement of Vaa.Mu.See, when he became a schoolteacher. But he did not contend with this.
The trials and tribulations of the middle-class family did not prevent him from spending money for further education. His consistent efforts got him the postgraduate degree and thereafter Ph.D. could have become a lecturer in a college thereby improving his financial status. But he never thought to earn wealth or to acquire prestigious posts. As a schoolteacher, he found more freedom to run a magazine, to bring more volumes of poemsand to organize agitations for noble causes.

Many a time V.M.Sethuraman courted arrest and was imprisoned. When he was at the age of Ten, he wanted to associate himself with the freedom movement, and served as a volunteer moving closely with the Indian National Congress leaders of his region. His thirst for freedom went to such an extent that he refused to attend English classes during his school days. Now after attaining freedom, he is striving for the four decades to remove English and replace Tamil as the medium of instruction.
For this cause he had convened Hundreds of conferences and organized several agitations.

V.M.Sethuraman has dedicated his whole time and energy for the upliftment of Tamil and he is meticulously working for the past four decades, for its modernization in all disciplines.
V.M.Sethuraman is not only a Tamil savant but also a poet who envisages the whole world as a family. He is the only poet who has flown around the world for more than thirty times. He considers the whole mankind as his kith and kin. He longs for a world without war.
Poverty prevails in all countries
Ill thoughts rein their sway
Wisdom dawn
Is not yet born
(Buddha's Tears)
He shuns religious fundamentalism. The teachings of Jesus, Buddha and Mohammed Nabi were unable to change the war-mongering nations who mercilessly indulge in ruthless genocide of the innocent people.

"Buddha's Tears" is a play written by V.M.Sethuraman as a spontaneous response to the genocide committed on Eelam Tamils by the then Jayawardhane government
in Srilanka.The anguish and agony of the innocent people infuriate the poet who angrily questions thus:
Why kill innocents?
Why rape lovely belles?
Why crush baby flesh?
Why all these holocaust?
Unable to find any suitable reply these questions tour around the world. Be it Chechneya, Serbia or any other place where genocide and bloody massacre occur
These questions have to be asked in a suitable way to put an end to the mass-hysteria aroused by racial discrimination.

When the poet sympathetically cries in a desperate mood after seeing the plight of the helpless creatures, massacred mercilessly, the outpour has a universal appeal. The following lines not only depict the empathy of the poet but also bring to the reader's mind, the cry of the mankind suffering everywhere.
What harm they did
To court this deadly end?
What harms maids did?
To have their limbs madly raped?
They are struck dumb
Speechless in pain
All solitaired
And ignobly orphaned.
The poet appeals to the people who remain as silent witnesses to these atrocities committed in the name of religion, race and ethnicity.
See their blood rolling in rills
See your cities entombed in dark
You have lost all.
Lost all my sympathy.
The poet longs for a noble soul to come forward to wipe their tears.
Cries and shrieks
Sieve your skies
Agony...agony...agony everywhere
Not a noble soul to wipe their tears!
Poets are unacknowledged legislators of the world. V.M.Sethuraman functions as an active legislator of the mankind and an advocate for the oppressed. The poet is optimistic and at the same time is conscious of his mission when he declares thus:
A thousand gates, with wide-open arms
Have gladly welcomed me;
But I have come to sing and spread over
World's thought- rays of verse.
Most of his poems are metaphysical and are a proof to his philosophical outlook. He is a dedicated devotee of a saint, by name Sadhu Gurusamy.The ascetic nature of the poet is clearly expressed in the following lines:
The garlands that fall around my neck
Are thorns that prick my frame:
The arrows that are shot at me
Are soft as petals of a flower.
V.M.Sethuraman who has visited U.S. many times to attend various conferences, is very much attracted by the individual freedom existing there.
Individual freedom
Exists unimpaired, unparalalled!
It is for all eyes to see!
"All for All" is practiced
With an eagerness to help those in want
Could behold - Freedom and Liberty
Keeps all hearts happy!
As a poet Vaa.Mu.See.is overjoyed to see the individual freedom existing in an unparalleled state in U.S. and he wishes to share his feelings with his readers.
Degrading meanness
Never crosses their mind of thought!
Rule of the mind
Not that of fate
But one deep thinking
Removes all cares and worries from them
Moral obligations rule their hearts
Strength of convictions in American's might!
V.M.Sethuraman has got a clear and open mind and appreciates various countries with a view to exhibit their special characteristics. He has written many poems on almost all the countries he has visited and he is the only poet who has written travelogue in verse.
Of course it needs an elaborate volume to illustrate the poetic genius of V.M.Sethuraman.Briefly speaking he may rightly be called as "An Apostle of Humanism."
He works for the emancipation of mankind from the clutches of oppression, religious fundamentalism and racism. Not only India but also the entire mankind should be proud
To have such a poet who always acts as a missionary with a zest and zeal to redeem the mankind from all sorts of evils.
(Translations of the poems: Dr.Krishna Srinivas)