Categorical Information Service
KOZHIKODE: “I would like £2,000 to start out the visa course of alone. The full bills I would like for the year-long college programme would come to Rs 29,30,442,” says Chandramohan S, a Thiruvananthapuram-based poet writing in English, knocking on each door potential to mobilise funds to attend a grasp’s artistic writing programme with the College of East Anglia within the UK.
The 35-year-old, belonging to a scheduled caste, is the lone Indian amongst 15 individuals chosen for admission from 115 candidates throughout the globe. To grasp his dream, he has resorted to crowdfunding on the digital platform Milaap. To date, he has obtained solely Rs 5,000 by means of that route.
“The East Anglia College conducts one of the crucial prestigious artistic writing programmes within the UK. I’ve obtained partial fellowship now, which suggests I’m entitled to get Rs 4,11,088. Deducting that quantity, I nonetheless want Rs 29.30 lakh by July 31. Among the many varied bills, tuition price alone involves round Rs 18 lakh,” says Chandramohan.
Residing in Thiruvananthapuram, Chandramohan has many poetry accomplishments to his credit score. He’s the second Malayali poet after T P Rajeevan to have attended the worldwide writing programme as a fellow on the College of Iowa within the US three years in the past.
His assortment Love after Babel had gained the Nicholas Guillen Excellent guide award (2020) from the Caribbean Philosophical Affiliation. One other revealed assortment, Letters to Namdeo Dhasal (2016), was a runner-up on the M Harish Govind Memorial Prize (2017) instituted by Poetry Chain, Thiruvananthapuram. Each collections had been shortlisted for the Yuva Puraskar of the Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi. Apart from, a poem was shortlisted for the celebrated Srinivasa Rayaparol Poetry prize.
“I write from the attitude of a Dalit poet writing in English. I intend to carry into my poems a wealth of expertise from my involvement in varied civil rights struggles,” he says. The poet is striving to transform the partial East Anglia fellowship to a full one.
“If I get cash by different sources, like if the UEA decides to offer full scholarship, the cash raised by means of crowdfunding might be donated to the PK Rosi Basis, TQT (a poetry collective) and to some Dalit artists who’ve requested monetary aid publicly,” says Chandramohan.
