Leelavathi comes down on Punathil

KOCHI: In her inaugural address at the two- day seminar on ONV, writer and critic M Leelavathi came down heavily on Punathil Kunjabdulla for his comments on ONV and her.“ONV is one of the best poets in the history of Malayalam literature. Just his two works, ‘Ujjaini’ and ‘Swayamvaram’ justify the bestowal of the Jnanpith award to him. But  writers of Malayalam must evaluate the spirit with which they received the news of the award,” she said. The writer pointed to Punathil Kunjabdulla’s comment stating that Leelavathi teacher’s criticism and ONV’s poetry are of the same quality.Reacting to the statement she said, with this  Kunjabdulla would have intended to strike a blow at both the writers. Because of various circumstances I have not been able to do any in-depth study on the works of Kunjabdulla, so his reaction to my works is understandable, what wrong has ONV committed?”, the writer said.The seminar ‘ONV Sargathmakayude Sancharangal’ was jointly organised by the Department of Malayalam of Maharaja’s College and Ernakulam Cluster of College. Principal S Vishwambaran presided over the function. Head of the Malayalam Department Margeret George and representative of the cluster Rafeeq Ahmed also spoke.