People's poet Ayyappan found dead

According to the police, the 61-year-old poet was brought to General Hospital here on Thursday night after he was found unconscious in front of a theatre near the Thiruvananthapuram railway station. Without recognising the poet, the police took him to the hospital where he died at 11:40 am, police sources said.

After his identity was ascertained, politicians and general public made a beeline for the hospital to pay their last respects to Ayyappan, known as Kerala’s “people’s poet”.

Ayyappan’s poems were noted for their intensity, meditative beauty and pungent romance. He was a bachelor whose Bohemian life and anarchic poetry won him numerous admirers. Born in Balaramapuram on the outskirts of the city in 1949, he started writing poems when a student. He later joined the Communist party and worked with the CPI mouthpiece Janayugom for a short period. A close friend of late film-maker John Abraham,  Ayyappan was a regular presence at international film festivals held in the state.