Malayalam pledge written under a minute

The Malayalam language pledge written by M.T. Vasudevan Nair.

It was in April 2015 that M.T. Vasudevan Nair visited Vazhuthacaud in Thiruvananthapuram for an interaction with the children of Malayalam Pallikkoodam, an informal school for learning Malayalam steered by a Trust led by poet V. Madhusoodanan Nair.  

At the request of the poet, M.T. instantaneously jotted down a few lines on a whiteboard. At the poet’s request, M.T. revised the lines which were subsequently accepted by the Kerala government as the State’s official language pledge in February 2018. It reads thus: “My language is my home; my sky; the stars I see; the breeze that strokes me gently; the cold water that quenches my thirst; my mother’s caress and rebuke; whichever land I’m in, I dream in my language; my language is myself.”  

“It was instant poetry,” Mr. Madhusoodanan Nair later wrote. “Never before have I read such a succinct exposition of social science, such evocative philosophy, linguistic thought or a political lesson,” he added.  

M.T. has sought to describe poetry as something that transcends genres and forms of art. “When Namboodiri draws, it’s poetry in vivid colours,” he said. Going by that definition, what M.T. wrote casually then was indeed a scintillating piece of poetry.