The Egyptian king Ozymandias in the popular sonnet by English Romantic poet PB Shelley on the same title is still a metaphor for the fleeting nature of power, global or local. The poem, which was published in 1818, offered an ironic commentary on how the feats of the once- great king Ozymandias were turned to dust by the impersonal, indiscriminate destructive power of history. This idea of Shelley is reflected even in a short verse penned by Pazhaman, a Coimbatore-based writer, as he speaks of a local leader.

The Egyptian king Ozymandias in the popular sonnet by English Romantic poet PB Shelley on the same title is still a metaphor for the fleeting nature of power, global or local.
The poem, which was published in 1818, offered an ironic commentary on how the feats of the once- great king Ozymandias were turned to dust by the impersonal, indiscriminate destructive power of history. This idea of Shelley is reflected even in a short verse penned by Pazhaman, a Coimbatore-based writer, as he speaks of a local leader.
“…Showing his might in the native,
he flaunted himself as a local leader
Alas! When death knocked him, he fell like a log of wood”
Thus writes Pazhaman in his book of poems Desert Flower – Tribute to Omar Khhayyam.
The short verses in the book had originally been written as Tamil conventional poems in the traditional metre. They later came out in English, as Kaniyuran, another Coimbatore-based author translated them.
The poems in Pazhaman’s Desert Flower sound similar to the ones in the Rubayat of Omar Khayyam, the Persian mathematician, astronomer, and poet. Like Khayyam, Pazhaman too expresses the mystic attitudes of life in many of his verses. And one such poem reads thus:
“…In search of gold mines my old belongings I lost.
who knows what is written on the leaves,
where one’s fate is inscribed as cryptic words.“
Pazhaman is well-known for his novels Kallikenna Veli, Thalaichumai, Othai Panai, and Nadhiya Vattam, which portray life in the villages of the northern Kongu region. However, his new book of poems reveals a poet in the novelist.
The Kovai based novelist, hailing from the village Keeranatham, is a farmer and retired school teacher.
“I am glad that I have been writing the rustic life of the rural folk in the language, which I have known “avers Pazhaman in his typical Kongu Tamil dialect.
The author began his literary journey by writing verses in the famed Tamil magazine Thendral which was edited by eminent Tamil poet Kannadasan. Pazhaman’s novels Nandhiavattam and Kallikennaveli bagged the Tamil Nadu Kalai Ilakkiya Perumandram's award and Ilakkiya Peedam's award respectively.
Having worked as a teacher in schools at Sarkar Samakulam and Kovilpalayam in the northern rural pockets of Coimbatore, Pazhaman does not want to give up agriculture, which is his ancestral occupation. However, cultivating the land for a good harvest is no easy job for this farmer cum writer.
“At a time when Coimbatore is caught in the clutches of speedy urbanization, agriculture is a “do or die struggle“ he rues.
Though many cultivable lands in the western Coimbatore have now taken the new avatars as posh residential areas, software companies, and shopping malls, Pazhaman has registered the struggle of several agrarian families, as he had seen them when the townships of today were once rural pockets of Coimbatore.
Pazhaman’s novel Kallikenne Veli - Documenting Coimbatore of the 1950s
They alone live, who live by agriculture;
All others lead a cringing, dependent life
-Thirukural
Despite the couplet honouring men, who live by agriculture, the occupation in the rural pockets of Coimbatore, started to experience its setback even before half a century. Besides the dearth of labour and failure of monsoon, some landowners even getting addicted to liquor and gambling led members of their family to leave their traditional occupation and move to cities to be employed in mean jobs.
One such member was Chandran, the protagonist of the novel “Kallikenna Veli” penned by Coimbatore based writer Pazhaman. The 140-page short novel is a portrait of the Coimbatore in the late 1950s as seen by the octogenarian writer.
The novel, which bagged the “ Ilakkiya Peedam“ award in 2008 in its manuscript form, was published into a book by “Ilakkiya Peedam Pathipagam” itself.
Writer Pazhaman begins the plot of the novel from the death of a gambling husband, who leaves his widow and son in poverty after losing all his agricultural lands in gambling.
As his father’s death leads Chandran to discontinue his studies and look for a job, he works in an arrack brewing unit at the village and later moves to another job, which demands his labour of leading a landlord’s cattle to the shandies of Thudiyalur and Puliyampatti. With that too gone in a few months, Chandran moves to Coimbatore town with his widowed mother and gets himself employed as a bicycle mechanic at “Baby Cycle Works“ on Jail Road.
As the novel revolves around the famous spots of Coimbatore like Lucky Café, India Coffee House, Raja, and Diamond cinemas, it takes the reader a trip down memory lane into the city. Sadly, the spots, which were once frequented by students of Government Arts College for sipping cups of coffee, puffing cigarettes, and watching movies, are no more today.
Being a cycle mechanic, conductor in BMS Motor Service, and at last a lorry owner, Chandran has spent most of his life toiling hard in Coimbatore. However, he finally returns to his village after the lorry, which he bought spending his hard-earned money, was set on fire during a hartal.
The new world in Coimbatore brought sea changes in Chandran’s life.
Coming here as a boy, he worked in Chinnasamy Naicker’s bicycle repairing shop and married Ponni. The couple toiled hard to bring up their only daughter Kanmani as a graduate. However, with Kanmani’s disrespect to Chandran in a controversy over her marriage with a man of her choice, the novel attempts to prove the relationships in the city as unreal.
The Egyptian king Ozymandias in the popular sonnet by English Romantic poet PB Shelley on the same title is still a metaphor for the fleeting nature of power, global or local.
The poem, which was published in 1818, offered an ironic commentary on how the feats of the once- great king Ozymandias were turned to dust by the impersonal, indiscriminate destructive power of history. This idea of Shelley is reflected even in a short verse penned by Pazhaman, a Coimbatore-based writer, as he speaks of a local leader.
“…Showing his might in the native,
he flaunted himself as a local leader
Alas! When death knocked him, he fell like a log of wood”
Thus writes Pazhaman in his book of poems Desert Flower – Tribute to Omar Khhayyam.
The short verses in the book had originally been written as Tamil conventional poems in the traditional metre. They later came out in English, as Kaniyuran, another Coimbatore-based author translated them.
The poems in Pazhaman’s Desert Flower sound similar to the ones in the Rubayat of Omar Khayyam, the Persian mathematician, astronomer, and poet. Like Khayyam, Pazhaman too expresses the mystic attitudes of life in many of his verses. And one such poem reads thus:
“…In search of gold mines my old belongings I lost.
who knows what is written on the leaves,
where one’s fate is inscribed as cryptic words.“
Pazhaman is well-known for his novels Kallikenna Veli, Thalaichumai, Othai Panai, and Nadhiya Vattam, which portray life in the villages of the northern Kongu region. However, his new book of poems reveals a poet in the novelist.
The Kovai based novelist, hailing from the village Keeranatham, is a farmer and retired school teacher.
“I am glad that I have been writing the rustic life of the rural folk in the language, which I have known “avers Pazhaman in his typical Kongu Tamil dialect.
The author began his literary journey by writing verses in the famed Tamil magazine Thendral which was edited by eminent Tamil poet Kannadasan. Pazhaman’s novels Nandhiavattam and Kallikennaveli bagged the Tamil Nadu Kalai Ilakkiya Perumandram's award and Ilakkiya Peedam's award respectively.
Having worked as a teacher in schools at Sarkar Samakulam and Kovilpalayam in the northern rural pockets of Coimbatore, Pazhaman does not want to give up agriculture, which is his ancestral occupation. However, cultivating the land for a good harvest is no easy job for this farmer cum writer.
“At a time when Coimbatore is caught in the clutches of speedy urbanization, agriculture is a “do or die struggle“ he rues.
Though many cultivable lands in the western Coimbatore have now taken the new avatars as posh residential areas, software companies, and shopping malls, Pazhaman has registered the struggle of several agrarian families, as he had seen them when the townships of today were once rural pockets of Coimbatore.
Pazhaman’s novel Kallikenne Veli - Documenting Coimbatore of the 1950s
They alone live, who live by agriculture;
All others lead a cringing, dependent life
-Thirukural
Despite the couplet honouring men, who live by agriculture, the occupation in the rural pockets of Coimbatore, started to experience its setback even before half a century. Besides the dearth of labour and failure of monsoon, some landowners even getting addicted to liquor and gambling led members of their family to leave their traditional occupation and move to cities to be employed in mean jobs.
One such member was Chandran, the protagonist of the novel “Kallikenna Veli” penned by Coimbatore based writer Pazhaman. The 140-page short novel is a portrait of the Coimbatore in the late 1950s as seen by the octogenarian writer.
The novel, which bagged the “ Ilakkiya Peedam“ award in 2008 in its manuscript form, was published into a book by “Ilakkiya Peedam Pathipagam” itself.
Writer Pazhaman begins the plot of the novel from the death of a gambling husband, who leaves his widow and son in poverty after losing all his agricultural lands in gambling.
As his father’s death leads Chandran to discontinue his studies and look for a job, he works in an arrack brewing unit at the village and later moves to another job, which demands his labour of leading a landlord’s cattle to the shandies of Thudiyalur and Puliyampatti. With that too gone in a few months, Chandran moves to Coimbatore town with his widowed mother and gets himself employed as a bicycle mechanic at “Baby Cycle Works“ on Jail Road.
As the novel revolves around the famous spots of Coimbatore like Lucky Café, India Coffee House, Raja, and Diamond cinemas, it takes the reader a trip down memory lane into the city. Sadly, the spots, which were once frequented by students of Government Arts College for sipping cups of coffee, puffing cigarettes, and watching movies, are no more today.
Being a cycle mechanic, conductor in BMS Motor Service, and at last a lorry owner, Chandran has spent most of his life toiling hard in Coimbatore. However, he finally returns to his village after the lorry, which he bought spending his hard-earned money, was set on fire during a hartal.
The new world in Coimbatore brought sea changes in Chandran’s life.
Coming here as a boy, he worked in Chinnasamy Naicker’s bicycle repairing shop and married Ponni. The couple toiled hard to bring up their only daughter Kanmani as a graduate. However, with Kanmani’s disrespect to Chandran in a controversy over her marriage with a man of her choice, the novel attempts to prove the relationships in the city as unreal.