Poet’s plaza.

[Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Poets light but lamps, themselves go out—wrote poet Emily Dickinson. One such poet whose lamp continues to light our world was “Mahakavi” Subramania Bharathi, who died way back in 1921. He also guides us along a particular pathway, literally. A Delhi road is named after him. The road is frequented daily by the city’s fashionable set, for it goes past the fashionable Khan Market. It also passes by another road called Maharishi Raman Marg. On this road lies a little plaza. In this plaza stands a statue. It is of Subramania Bharathi.

The plaza mostly remains deserted, with a handful of benches dispersed about the poet’s statue. One bench is placed under a tall frangipani tree. At night, the white frangipani flowers shine brilliantly under the moonlight.

This late afternoon, the plaza does have a handful of men, but it nevertheless is exuding solitude. One barefoot citizen is lying sprawled on a bench, seemingly asleep. Another bench is claimed by a citizen sitting cross-legged, eating his lunch. The third bench, the one under the frangipani tree, is occupied by a smoker with a blue pithu bag; the swirls of his cigarette smoke are going up into Delhi’s smoggy air.

Elsewhere, two men are playing cards under a tree. This is a saptaparni in blossom, covered with pale green flowers, many of which are falling frequently on and around the card players.

It must be noted that not a single of these men is looking towards the poet’s statue. A marigold garland is placed diagonally across the sculpted figure. The marigolds have dried, their yellow colour lost.

In all, Delhi bears statues of three poets. Alexander Pushkin, installed at Mandi House, would write in Russian. Mirza Ghalib, installed at Jamia Milia Islamia University, would write in Urdu and Persian. Subramania Bharathi would write in Tamil. An accompanying plaque dates the statue’s installation to 1987, informing that it was unveiled by the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in the presence of the then Tamil Nadu chief minister M.G. Ramachandran, who would die that same year.

This moment, a crow is perched atop the statue’s head. In some time, the poet’s plaza receives a new visitor. The black cat walks up to the poet, curling up by a side of the plinth, whose face is inscribed with this quote by the poet:
Long live chaste Tamil
Long live the good Tamil folk
Long live our Bharat land

Now, one more citizen enters the plaza. After communicating through sign language, he stations himself by the statue, and starts throwing pieces of dry rotis on the tiled floor, for the neighbourhood birds and squirrels. See photo.