Google celebrates the birthday of Amma on the Google Doodle to honor her. In this article we will take a look at Balamani amma’s age, date of birth, date of death, husband’s name, son’s name, daughter’s name, some famous poem names, and awards she received.
Balamani Amma or Nalapat Balamani Amma was an Indian poet. Her writing language was Malayalam. On 19 July 1909, she was born in Punnayurkulam, Ponnani taluk, Malabar District, Madras Presidency, British India.
She never got any formal education. But, under the guardianship of her maternal uncle and reading his collections of books, Amma became a versed writer. By Nalapat Narayana Menon and the poet Vallathol Narayana Menon, she was highly influenced in writing.
At the age of 19, Amma got married to V. M. Nair. Her husband V. M. Nair was the managing director and managing editor of a Malayalam newspaper named ‘Mathrubhumi’. After her marriage, she came to Kolkata with her husband to live there. Together, they had 4 children.
Among the four children, they had two daughters – Kamala Surayya, and Sulochana and two sons – Mohandas and Shyam Sunder. In 1977, her husband passed away.
“Kooppukai” is the first poem of Amma which was published in 1930. She got her popularity after receiving the Sahithya Nipuna Puraskaram. There are more than 20 anthologies of poems, many prose works and translations published by Amma.
She was honoured with many awards including – Padma Bhushan, Sahitya Akademi Award, Saraswati Samman, Asan Prize, Ezhuthachan Award etc.
Her daughter Kamala Surayya is also a famous poet. Kamala Surayya is also known as Kamala Das. She translated one of Amma’s poems in English as ‘The Pen’. ‘The Pen’ is about the loneliness of a mother.
Before her death, Amma suffered from Alzheimer’s disease for five years. She breathed her last on 29 September 2004 in Kochi, Kerala, India. At the time of her death, she was 95 years old. With full state honours, her cremation was completed.
In the honor of Balamani Amma, The Kochi International Book Festival Committee started the Balamani Amma Award for writers.