Sparrow Literary Awards
SPARROW LITERARY AWARD 2020
(Instituted by R Thyagarajan, Founder, Shriram Group)
SPARROW Literary Award, instituted by R Thyagarajan, Founder, Shriram Group, was announced in December 2020. The award function is usually held every year in December but due to pandemic we had to cancel the SPARROW Literary Award function but SPARROW hopes that sometime in the future we will be able to meet the awardees in person.
This year for consideration for the SPARROW-R THYAGARAJAN Literary Award 2020 was the genre of translation. In the category of translation, translation from Tamil to another language and another language to Tamil and direct translations into Tamil from non-Indian languages were taken into consideration. The languages chosen were Sanskrit, and Kannada in Indian languages and French in non-Indian language. The SPARROW Literary Awards are normally given for a woman and a man in Indian languages and either a woman or a man for the non-Indian language category. The SPARROW panel of judges this year were D I Aravindan and Ambai for the Indian languages. For the French language award we consulted many including Nagarathinam Krishna who kindly suggested many names. The final award decisions were taken by D I Aravindan and Ambai in the panel of judges. This year SPARROW decided to award three persons instead of two in the Indian languages category and one person from the non-Indian languages category.
The awardees this year are K Nallathambi for translation from Tamil to Kannada and Kannada to Tamil, Krishangini for translation from Hindi to Tamil, Madhumitha for translation from Sanskrit to Tamil and S A Vengada Soupraya Nayagar for translation from French to Tamil and Tamil to French. The awardees have honoured SPARROW and the panel of judges by accepting the awards.
The award citation for K Nallathambi was:
K Nallathambi is a poet and a writer who has also taken upon himself the mission of translating the best from Tamil and Kannada. In the last six years he has translated a wide range of fiction, non-fiction and dramas from Kannada to Tamil and from Tamil to Kannada. He has not only brought P Lankesh, S Diwakar, Vasudhendra, Jayanth Kaikini, Nemichandra and G N Nagaraj to Tamil but also taken to Kannada from Tamil Sundara Ramasamy, Perumal Murugan and Sangam literature. His translation is simple and evocative. In recognition and appreciation of his significant contribution to Tamil literature through his translation efforts SPARROW has great pleasure in giving K Nallathambi the SPARROW Literary Award 2020.
The award citation for KRISHANGINI was:
Krishangini is an acclaimed poet, writer, publisher and translator in the Tamil literary world. She is also an active documentalist of not only women’s life and expression but also that of others. She has been working quietly on translations of plays, poems, short stories, novels and non-fictional writing from Hindi and English to Tamil for many years now. Her tireless translation efforts have brought to Tamil from original Hindi and Hindi translations the works of Bertolt Brecht, Ambedkar, Mridula Garg, Indira Goswami, Ismat Chugtai, Omprakash Valmiki, Leeladhar Mandloi, Mohandas Naimishrai and Amarkant. Her monumental work has been to translate into Tamil B R Ambedkar’s Grammar and Dictionary of the Pali Language. In recognition and appreciation of her committed translation efforts, SPARROW has great pleasure in giving Krishangini the SPARROW Literary Award 2020.
The award citation for MADHUMITHA was
Madhumitha is a poet, lyricist and a translator who can translate from Sanskrit, Telugu and Kannada. Although her mother tongue is Telugu she feels at home in other languages she has mastered. Along with her own creative work she has taken up translation as a labour of love. She has brought to Tamil Barthruhari’s “Niti Sataka” on polity and ethics and his “Subhashitha Trishati” encompassing the entire human life and Kalidasa’s “Meghaduta” and “Ritusamhara”. Along with translations from Telugu and Kannada her taking up the immense task of translating from Sanskrit needs to be celebrated and recognised. In recognition and appreciation of her efforts to translate from Sanskrit SPARROW has great pleasure in giving Madhumitha the SPARROW Literary Award 2020.
The award citation for DR S A VENGADA SOUPRAYA NAYAGAR was
Dr S A Vengada Soupraya Nayagar teaches French in an institute for post-graduate studies and research in Pondicherry. He is a rare trilingual translator who is at ease translating in English, French and Tamil. He has translated Sangam literature into French and introduced Tamil readers to French writers Hiner Saleem, Le Clézio, Michaël Ferrier, Hubert Haddad and Tahr Ben Jelloun and many French short stories. His translations into Tamil from French perform the miracle of bringing a totally different language and its culture into Tamil in a simple, smooth, clear and uncluttered language. In recognition and appreciation of his immense contribution in bringing to Tamil the best from French literature SPARROW has great pleasure in giving Dr S A Vengada Soupraya Nayagar the SPARROW Literary Award 2020.
In his acceptance speech K. Nallathambi’s spoke how After his retirement there was a big vacuum. He was wandering for a year or two not knowing what to do. Just to pass my time, he started translating P Lankesh’s Kannada poems into Tamil but had no intention of publishing them. The credit goes to his wife Mallika, at whose behest and great persuasion, he decided to publish the manuscript, though after a lot of difficulties and from there his journey back to the literary world began.
Literary Award 2019
SPARROW-R Thyagarajan Literary Award 2019 event on 21st December 2019, was as usual a quiet, intimate function celebrated among friends and well-wishers.
The theme this year was poetry and the awardees for Tamil language for 2019 were senior Tamil poet and writer Yuvan Chandrasekhar, who writes poetry in the name of M Yuvan and is a prolific writer and a much acclaimed and interviewed writer, poet and translator who has been a prominent writer in the Tamil literary scene for the past thirty years, and young poet and translator Geetha Sukumaran, a poet and also a translator who has brought out books which are both historically relevant and important contributions to Tamil and world literature. The non-Tamil language chosen this year was Punjabi and the awardee this year was the poet Simrat Gagan, a poet, novelist and educationist and a well-known voice among young aspiring Punjabi writers. The judges on the panel for Tamil were Ambai, a Tamil writer and currently the Director of SPARROW and D I Aravindan who was Executive Editor of Minnambalam.com and who is now Editor for the Tamil web section of Times Internet Limited of the Times Group. Poet Sukumaran Narayanan who was one of the judges on the panel in the previous years kindly agreed to be a consultant and helped in short listing the poets. The judge on the panel for Punjabi language was Dr Charanjeet Kaur, Retd I/C Principal and Associate Professor and Head, Department of English, Smt. Chandibai Himathmal Mansukhani College, Ulhasnagar, Dist. Thane, Contributing Editor, Indian Writing in English. Muse India and Associate Director, SPARROW.
Maithreyi Yagnik compeered the event and began by welcoming the writers and the audience. On this occasion all of us remembered our friend and associate, Kannada writer Tulasi Venugopal, who succumbed to cancer and passed away in April 2019. After introducing the awardees the award citations were read out and the awards given to them by former trustee, patron, friend and well-wisher Dr Divya Pandey, The award citation for Yuvan Chandrasekhar was:
The literary journey of Yuvan Chandrasekar, who is known as a short story writer and a novelist, began as a poet writing in the name of M Yuvan. It could be said that his other works, in a way, have been extensions of his poetry. The poetry of M Yuvan, who has been writing for the past three decades, has a grammar of its own. Its language is modern. Seemingly simple but with complex inner spaces, his poetry goes beyond his times in its content. It tries to portray the modern mind’s weariness and its peace in one unbroken thread. His poetry inspires us to know, feel and see the unknown in the known, the inexperienced in the experienced and the unseen in what is seen. In appreciation of his poetry whose words get loaded with each reading with entwined thoughts and emotions and in recognition of his immense contribution to contemporary Tamil literature, SPARROW (Sound & Picture Archives for Research on Women) has great pleasure in giving Yuvan Chandrasekar the SPARROW Literary Award 2019.
The award citation for Geetha Sukumaran, whose award her father accepted was:
Geetha Sukumaran works quietly without much affectation at her poetry, containing entirely different images and with words embedded with silences that burst out striking you unawares. In Geetha’s poems women from the Sangam land to diasporic land walk hand in hand as if there is no time to be traversed in between. Her poems effortlessly enter through doors hitherto not entered. In appreciation of her poetry that changes the way women’s poetic language must be seen, taking it to many different directions spreading everywhere and in recognition of her poetic efforts SPARROW (Sound & Picture Archives for Research on Women) has great pleasure in giving Geetha Sukumaran the SPARROW Literary Award 2019.
The award citation for Simrat Gagan was:
Simrat Gagan is a fresh young voice in contemporary Punjabi poetry who claims that it is not she who writes the poetry, rather it is the poetry that writes her. With her first collection of poems titled Panj Ishq (Five Love Affairs) published in 1997, she distinguished herself as a poet with fresh imagery and style. Her later book Tasbi (A Rosary, 2006) entrenched her position in the Punjabi literary world. Simran’s poems are celebrations of grief, pain and sorrows and her poetic thoughts mostly spring from the space beyond mind, according to her. In appreciation of her poetry that has chartered new roads in Punjabi literature and in recognition of her contribution to contemporary Punjabi literature SPARROW (Sound & Picture Archives for Research on Women) has great pleasure in giving Simrat Gagan the SPARROW Literary Award 2019.
In his acceptance speech in Tamil, Yuvan Chandrasekhar spoke extensively about what it means to write both poetry and fiction and the ways in which he arrives at poetry. He said that sometimes an entire poem could come to him in a dream and that at times, stray lines of a poem could come to his mind and then he had to wait for other lines to appear to complete the poem. The wait for a poem to be completed could take even several years, he said.
Geetha Sukumaran’s acceptance speech which was sent to us, beautifully brought out her diasporic existence and how poetry is her way of coming to terms with living in a country “bearing the form of a woman and the inheritance that comes with it from another land.” She explains that she realised that poetry to her was “this negotiation with her inner conflicts” and the “dichotomy between turmoil and tranquility, discord and serenity” and that it was this “tussle between the two ends” that she identified as poetry.
In her acceptance speech in Punjabi, Simrat Gangan said: “I don’t write poetry: poetry writes me.” She elaborated on how and why she writes poetry: “My poetry has been shaped by my life experiences, but the importance of poetry could never diminish in my life. Like mud—which you may knead, bake, disperse in the wind, beat, sink—its fertility never ends, no matter what you do with it.” Speaking about what inspired her to write poetry she said that being a Sikh, she believed that the 10 Sikh Gurus—all writers of a high order—had inspired Punjabi women writers to read and write. Quoting Sahir Ludhiyanvi’s lines, Duniya ke tajurbat aur havadist ki shakal mein/ jo kuch mujhe mila, lauta raha hoon main. (In the form of experiences and mishaps, whatever the world/ Has given me, I am giving it back) she said that sensitive souls like her record what they experience or what they see happening around them.
The award event ended with Krithika Sreenivasan’s lecture-demonstration on the subject “Contribution of Women to Indian Classical Music.” From the Bhakti movement to present times Krithika detailed women’s contribution to Indian classical music in terms of singing and composing. It was an inspiring session with interludes of Krithika singing the songs of some of the women composers.
Literary Award 2018
The SPARROW panel of judges (N Sukumaran, Kannan Sundaram and Ambai) decided to take up contribution to literature in general this year for consideration for the SPARROW-R THYAGARAJAN Literary Award 2018. Two awards are normally given for Tamil writers and one for a non-Tamil writer. This year for the first time we decided unanimously to award three Tamil writers and two non-Tamil writers. In Tamil, two awards for acknowledging and honouring writers who have been in the field for many years and one award for a younger writer for literary work done in the recent past. The SPARROW-R Thyagarajan Literary Award 2018 for Tamil was given to S Thenmozhi for her excellent contribution to fiction and poetry and non-fictional work, Ba Venkatesan for the wonderful literary work he has done for the past many years both in terms of fiction and poetry and S Senthilkumar for the promising work he has done in fiction and poetry. This year the non-Tamil writer award was shared by two writers: Varsha Adalja, a feminist novelist and playwright, who won the 1995 Sahitya Akademi Award for Gujarati language for her novel Anasar, who is also a dramatist who has acted and written several stage plays, screenplays and radio plays and Aruna Dhere, a Marathi writer, who has written over forty books in different genres including personal essays, short stories, novels, poems, travelogues, children’s stories, bhakti literature, folk literature and social history.
Former Trustee of SPARROW, Dr Roshan Shahani, gave away the award and spoke eloquently about her association with SPARROW and SPARROW’s work and also about how Indian language literature needs to be taught and studied as diligently as English literature is, for India is a land of diverse languages and diverse cultures all of which contribute to what makes India.
The award function is normally an informal event which we organise in collaboration with RCWS (Research Centre for Women’s Studies). Our association with RCWS is a long one and it is always a pleasure to work with Dr Putul Sathe who is generous with her time for this event. This is an annual event when everyone who is a friend of SPARROW comes to support and cheer us up. This year too our regular friends Dr Divya Pandey (former trustee and friend in whose love and support we thrive), Dr Chhaya Datar, Vijaya Dass, Dr Kunjalata Shah and writers Pudhiya Madhavi, Urmila Pawar and of course, our own Vishnu Mathur were there. It was a pleasure to have Ila Arab Mehta, the legendary Gujarati writer, with us and she came quietly as her sister Varsha Adalja’s guest.
Apart from the usual Mumbai features like traffic jams this time there was a little bit more of problems in coordination for the Tamil writers had decided to stay in different places. Ba Venkatesan was staying with his daughter-in-law’s family, S Senthilkumar was staying in the SNDT University Women’s Hostel guest room and S Thenmozhi came with her extended family and was put up at the SRP Guest house at Goregaon East (arranged by the enterprising and ever helpful Anuradha Krishnaswamy in her official capacity).
S Senthilkumar came the previous evening and looked a bit disconcerted for he was the only one in the entire third floor of the hostel. He said that 24 days in a month he stays away from his family in Thiruvarur in a room amidst books as editor of a journal and is with his family only six days in a month. He was hoping his Mumbai trip would mean being with other writers and here he was all alone once again! But he said staying in a girls’ hostel and eating at the mess hall with them will be a new experience and he welcomed it. We cheered him up with some tea and chakli and left him in his room with some more snacks to munch and sonpapdi to keep him happy.
Ba Venkatesan kept his promise of wearing the maroon shirt he had worn in the photograph which we all liked but he did not know about the Mumbai traffic and came half an hour late with his wife, daughter-in-law and grandson. Although he had told us that he did not want his age mentioned we did mention it in the PPT we did on each writer but he took it sportingly and did not complain for we had forgiven him for coming late.
S Thenmozhi’s problem was different. She arrived at 6 a.m. on the morning of the event and had told us there was no need to receive her at Dadar station. We assumed someone else would receive her. But when she rang us up at 6 a.m. and said that no one had come to receive her I panicked for she did not know Hindi and she was with a family of eight people. But the ever efficient Pooja Pandey handled it with her characteristic calmness (after all, she is the cool one who stood outside the Operation Room before going in for a Caesarean section to tell me the Annual Report was complete and that she had mailed it to me) and told them to take cabs and she instructed the drivers over the phone on what route to take. We wondered how they would make it in the evening for the SRP Guest House is in the interior area and it is difficult to book cabs to come inside the campus. Aarti Pandey and Sayali Balekar who can practically deal with all such hurdles brought the family of eight in autos and a taxi just a little before 5 p.m.
Fortunately Varsha Adalja and Aruna Dhere are both familiar with Mumbai and Mumbai traffic and came on time.
The evening’s programme was compeered by Maitreyi Yajnik who was doing it for us for the first time but she did a thorough job of it and managed to pronounce all the Tamil names as if she knew Tamil! The acceptance speeches were inspiring and dealt with many different aspects of literature. S Thenmozhi spoke about how and why she writes and about women writers, especially Dalit women writers, evolving a language of their own and why it was important to make this a universal language. Ba Venkaetasan was of the opinion that awards alone would not do and that organisations like SPARROW must also translate the writers they award. It is a tall order considering he writes novels of thousand pages but well taken. S Senthilkumar’s acceptance speech was a story by itself. He spoke about Bodinayakkanur passenger train that brought cardamom bags to Mumbai at one time and gave a picturesque description of his town and its gods and how humans become gods and become part of his stories. Aruna Dhere spoke about her writing and what it means to her and why it is important to write if one wants to change the society and also keep what is precious in our culture. Varsha Adalja spoke just two lines accepting the award as she was keen to give more time for the evening’s music performance.
The evening’s programme ended with Mandar Katti enthralling us with Puriya Kalyan played on his sitar. He was ably accompanied on the tabla by young Shreeraj Tamhankar. Sharmila Sontakke had organised the evening’s music programme. Manik Sonkar saw to the projection arrangements and also took the responsibility of receiving and dropping S Senthilkumar at the airport. Asmita Deshpande took charge of exhibiting the books of the authors and SPARROW and other similar arrangements. Priya D’souza was, as always, the official photographer of the event. Pradeep Surve saw to it that we got enough cups of tea and all of us ate enough and more of the snacks.
As we gathered later to have tea and snacks we shared stories and joked and laughed and took photographs. Thus ended another wonderful Literary Award event.
Literary Award 2017
SPARROW Literary Award, instituted by R Thyagarajan, Founder, Shriram Group, was organised by SPARROW in collaboration with the Research Centre for Women’s Studies (RCWS) SNDT Women’s University, on 9th December 2016, at the Mini Auditorium of the Juhu Campus of the University. The SPARROW panel of judges (N Sukumaran, Kannan Sundaram and Ambai) decided to choose the category of autobiography and biography for award this year. Two awards are normally given for Tamil writers and one for a non-Tamil writer. The SPARROW-R Thyagarajan Literary Award 2017 for Tamil were given to Lakshmi M and Stalin Rajangam and the non-Tamil writer award was shared by two writers: Kalyanai Thakur Charal and Ashalata Kamble. The awards were given with the following citations:
LAKSHMI M
Lakshmi M is an activist who has been associated with the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Thamizh Thesiya Periyakkam (Tamil Nationalist Movement) and various women’s struggles. She is currently the Central committee member of the women’s wing of Thamizh Theesiya Periyakkam. Her autobiographical work Latchumi Ennum Payani is a truthful account of her life and that of women around her both in the movement and outside it. In appreciation of writing a genuine document which draws attention to the lives of women in politics and their attitude towards family, marriage, motherhood and relationships with other women, SPARROW has great pleasure in giving her the SPARROW Literary Award 2017.
STALIN RAJANGAM
Stalin Rajangam has brought a new perspective to socio-historical research done so far on Dalit history. His painstaking research to reveal biases in writing history and to find hidden historical truths has brought contemporary relevance to Dalit history. By bringing to the public sphere the rare lives and experiences of those who are lost in the annals of history, he has done the important and much needed work of documenting not only the life stories of Dalit personalities but also that of those who have fought for the rights of the Dalit community. For his untiring and meaningful work of documenting Dalit history SPARROW has great pleasure in giving Stalin Rajangam the SPARROW Literary Award 2017.
ASHALATA KAMBLE
Ashalata Kamble, an activist, writer and a staunch Ambedkarite, has been working with the Dalits for the past 35 years. Her books on the history of women and her poems have been an inspiration to many young aspiring writers. Her lifelong work has been to make visible the works of women like Bahinabai and Savitribai Phule and their literary contributions which have inspired her to be a writer, teacher and also an activist. Her biography Amachi Aai on her mother is a continuation of this work and an elaboration of her efforts to redefine motherhood in the context of the lives of women of the working class and their struggles to be mothers. In appreciation of her lifelong work for the Dalit cause and her biographical work Amachi Aai published in 2010 depicting what motherhood means to a working class woman SPARROW has great pleasure in giving Ashalata Kamble the SPARROW Literary Award 2017.
KALYANI THAKUR CHARAL
With her poems, essays, stories, biography and now an autobiography Kalyani Thakur is the leading Dalit voice from West Bengal and her name stands out among the Bengali writers. Through her writings which voice the pain, suffering, oppression, struggles and achievements of the Dalit community and as editor of two magazines Neer Writupatra and Chathurtha Dunia Kalyani Thakurhas worked tirelessly to draw attention to the life experiences and history of her disadvantaged community.Her autobiography Ami Kano Charal Likhi documents the life of a Dalit woman in rural and urban Bengal and records her views on feminism in India and its stand on Dalit women and Dalit feminism. For her vigorous and tenacious work in making the Bengali Dalit voice heard and for her autobiographical work which is a historical document of her life and times SPARROW has great pleasure in giving Kalyani Thakur the SPARROW Literary Award 2017.
Literary Award 2016
SPARROW Literary Award, instituted by R Thyagarajan, Founder, Shriram Group, was organised by SPARROW in collaboration with the Research Centre for Women’s Studies (RCWS) SNDT Women’s University, on 10 December 2016, at the Mini Auditorium of the Juhu Campus of the University. This year the awards were for translation from an Indian language to Tamil and for translation from a foreign language to Tamil.
Eminent Tulu writer, Dr Suneetha Shetty gave away the awards to Kulachal M Yoosuf for his translations from Malayalam to Tamil, Gowri Kirubanandan, for her translations from Telugu to Tamil. Payani (Sridharan Madhusudhanan) for his translations from Chinese to Tamil. We missed Payani (Sridharan Madhusudhanan) an Indian diplomat currently posted in Beijing, who could not attend the function. His award was sent to him later. The well attended literary evening concluded with a very enjoyable music session by Reshma Gidh. SPARROW congratulates the awardees and thanks them and Dr Suneetha Shetty for their gracious presence at the function.
Literary Award 2015
The SPARROW Literary Award Event on 12th December 2015, was a warm event with friends and well-wishers who came to demonstrate their appreciation for all that we do. And to give away the awards this year we had our own Neela Bhagwat, the well-known Gwalior gharana musician, whose music has kept many of us going in the last several years of struggle and celebration.
This Literary Award has been instituted by Mr. R Thyagarajan, co-founder, Shriram Group. This year we had a few more friends who came forward to support additional expenses. SPARROW trustees Dr Divya Pandey, Dr Usha Thakkar and friend and supporter from the US, Aravindan Kannaiyan and our well-wishers from Chennai, Bharathi Chandru and Chandru contributed to the event. The panel of juries this year were the same as last year: Publisher of the literary magazine Kalachuvadu, Mr. Kannan Sundaram, poet and editor of Kalachuvadu, Mr. N Sukumaran, and Dr C S Lakshmi (Ambai). The event was held in collaboration with the Research Centre for Women’s Studies, SNDT University.
The awardees this year are writers we admire a great deal.
Anandh is a psychotherapist and is a writer whose poetry has inspired many and whose poetry has given a new dimension to contemporary Tamil poetry.
Anar, comes from the Eastern province of Sri Lanka and writes about what it is to be a Muslim woman in a war-torn country and her poetry is about how a language can alter life.
Vimmi Sadarangani is one of us and we tend to take her for granted but we also know about the great work she is doing as a writer and lover of Sindhi language and we respect and love her for that. She is a poet who keeps Sindhi language alive and whom Sindhi poetry has kept alive.
The acceptance speeches of all the three writers traced their writing careers and spoke about how close poetry was to their everyday life and its happenings. Awards have come their way but much more than that, poetry has kept them going through the highs and lows of life.
SPARROW had arranged for them to stay at a service apartment and the writers and their partners Sashi Anand and Mohammed Azeem and Vimmi’s sister Bharti had enough time and space to interact. Vimmi, as usual, took over the task of taking them around and Bharti was clicking away with her mobile phone almost every occasion and every movement of all of them. They enjoyed a film together and got introduced to pav bhaji, chole bhature, sev puri, kesar falooda and the famous sev barfi of Chandru’s. Unfortunately they went to the Versova beach in the morning when the slum colony there uses it as an open air toilet! Other than that they had lot of fun.
The event ended with the soulful music of Neela Bhagwat who explained and sang the poems of Soyarabai, Muktabai, and Kanhopatra saint poets of Maharashtra. The venue then shifted to Dr C S Lakshmi’s small flat with the awardees and a few friends. Anar and her husband had to leave
Literary Award 2014
On 27 December, 2014 we started Literary Award event to become an annual event of SPARROW. SPARROW Literary Award was instituted by R Thyagarajan of Shriram Groups. The jury members were Ambai, N Sukumaran and Kannan Sundaram.
Su Thamizhselvi, K N Senthil and Meghana Pethe honoured us by accepting the 2014 SPARROW Literary Award. Well-known writer, Shanta Gokhale, gave away the awards and spoke warmly about her relationship with SPARROW.
In her acceptance speech, Su Thamizhselvi introduced herself as a young scion who has come in the tradition of women writers like Avvaiyar, Velliveethiyar, Vennikuyathiyar, Nachellaiyar, Karaikal Ammayar and Andal. She spoke about the rural background she comes from and how it has made her familiar with the pain, poverty and hard work that is part of a woman’s life. “As a woman, I can clearly feel the pain experienced by women. As someone who has held in her palms the tears of women, I am sensitive enough to understand the intensity and heat of those tears,” she said. Describing her literary journey as one involving “search, reaching and perplexity,” she said that the award and the occasion will remain one of the greatest moments of her life.
In his acceptance speech, K N Senthil remembered with warmth Sundara Ramasamy and N Sukumaran, two writers he considers his teachers. Speaking of writing and the award, he said, “Writing is made possible through continuous practice but it is a bird that does not obey its master. It wants to measure the entire sky with its small wings…. I believe that the reward of writing is reaching somewhere. An award is its recognised form. There are many new generation writers in Tamil who are working hard and are leaving their imprints on literature. I am happy to receive this award as one of them, on their behalf.”
In her acceptance speech Meghana Pethe said that she was happy to receive the SPARROW award because she was the first recipient of this award. She added that the joy of receiving the award was “almost equivalent to being the first love of a worthy lover” and that the “honour of being the first has a sanctity which holds good even today, although some other sanctities have been rightly questioned and declared debatable as of now by women all over the world.” She spoke of writing being a lonely and painful journey and how often the process of writing is excruciatingly boring. Accepting an award from a panel of writers, she said, made the award all the more valuable. She ended by saying that this award would prove to be a trigger for her second cycle as a writer which was “likely to commence anytime now.”
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