Thiruvananthapuram: Noted poet, writer and environmentalist Sugathakumari passed away here on Wednesday due to COVID-19 related complications. She was 86.
She breathed her last at 10.52am at the Thiruvannathapuram Medical College Hospital here.
Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala, Kerala Pradesh Congress chief Mullappally Ramachandran, Union Minister of State V Muraleedharan, and BJP state President K Surendran mourned the death of the renowned poet.
A former Kerala State Women’s Commission Chairperson, Sugathakumari was honoured with ‘Padma Shri’ in 2006. Many accolades she won in her lifetime included the Sahitya Akademi award, Kerala Sahitya Akademi award, and the Ezhuthachan and Odakuzhal literary awards.
Sugathakumari was a major voice in the coastal state on environment-related activities and social actions and would not allow even a single tree to be felled. She led several mass agitations against the destruction of environment.
Sugathakumari shot to fame during the 80s while leading a major agitation against the Silent Valley hydroelectricity project. The government had to cancel the project, as the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi directly intervened in the matter.
While she had many critics due to her style of functioning during the early days of environmental activities, recurring floods and climate changes even led her ardent critics to come out in support of her environmental activities.
Sugathakumari can be described as a person who walked the extra mile to preserve and protect the environment.
She also established ‘Abhaya’, a centre to house deprived women and children. Under the network, Abhayabala set up for the deprived, children are imparted education and housing until Class 12 and thereafter housed at Athani, another unit under Abhayagramam for woman and children. Many Abhayabala inmates have become engineers, lawyers, teachers, and even a doctor.
Early days
Born as the second daughter of freedom fighter and poet, Bodheswaran and wife Karthiyayini Amma on January 22, 1934, Sugatha entered the world of poetry in 1960 with her first collection of poems- Muthuchippikal.
Since then, she had captured the Malayali consciousness through her soft but hard-hitting verses in a handful of poetry collections including Pathirapookkal, Krishna Kavithakal, Ratrimazha, Ambalamani, Radha Evide and Thulavarshapacha.
Though her early works concentrated more on subjective themes and personal quests, her poetry, in course of time, broadened its peripheries assimilating social concerns and philosophical voyages into it as its themes.
