Believed by many to be one of Kerala's greatest writers, Ayyappa Paniker is the pioneer of modernity in malayalam literature. He is also considered as one of the foremost Indian poets and crictics to emerge in the post independence era.

K. Ayyappa Paniker's (1930 - 2006) influence has been quite profound and far-reaching in the entire cultural and intellectual life of the Malayalee. If in poetry Paniker could be seen as the harbinger of a new voice, in the field of literary criticism he ushered in a paradigm shift towards a radically newer awareness.

Ayyappa Paniker has come to be regarded as an icon of modernist culture and thinking. A widely travelled scholar and poet of international renown, he is a unique instance of creative and intellectual genius.

EPITAPH

Here lies the body of Mister Paniker
Who at the end of his panicking days
agreed to lie still for a while.
It’s not known what happened to his soul
if indeed he ever had one.
He wasn’t quite unlike any of us while he lived;
his flesh to tell the truth often revolted
and upset his delicate sensibility.
Space he could never control to his liking;
his sense of time you know wasn’t strong either.
He had of course in his wallet many a theory;
the things he could touch however

told him a different story.
All his life he was patiently
learning how not to live at all.
Who knows perhaps
given another chance
he might do a better job of it than before.

And you who pass by
do not stop here for long
but move on quietly to the nearest graveyard
that may be waiting for you.