"Uyir ezhuththukkaLil iRaivan" – "உயிர் எழுத்துக்களில் இறைவன்"

"The Lord revealed through vowels"

I was born in India and my mother tongue is Tamil. Tamil is one of the longest-surviving classical languages in the world. It is stated as 20th in the Ethnologue list of most-spoken languages worldwide. (Wikipedia – March 02, 2018) Though I know Tamil and English, I cannot say I am a scholar in both these languages.

Few years ago, I wrote an invitation in Tamil to one of our church services. It was written in a poetic manner, each line starting with the same alphabet. People who read it encouraged me write Tamil poems. This book is the outcome of those encouragements.

There are 12 vowels in Tamil (அ, ஆ, இ ஈ, உ, ஊ, எ, ஏ, ஐ, ஒ, ஓ & ஓள). I wrote 12 poems, each line starting with the same vowel in each poem. Each line in every poem is a Bible verse with the scriptural reference. Bible verse in each line was written to sound poetic, however the meaning of the Bible verse was not at all compromised.

In this book I have included few other poems written by me and a few of my message notes. When I was on a mission’s trip to India, Mr. Jollee Abraham, the Gospel singer, encouraged me to write a few lyrics in Tamil for his forthcoming music CDs. So far, I have written about 21 lyrics for Tamil worship songs and a few of those lyrics are included in this book.

I am indebted to many who helped me to bring this book to publication. My special thanks go to Ms. J.S. Jemima Jeyapriya for editing the poems and writing the foreword for the book. I am grateful for Mr. Selvaraj of Indira Fine Arts, Sivakasi, India for printing the book.

My prayers are to exalt the name of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ through this book and for the readers to be blessed.