Kekavali of Moropanta: A Series of Peacock’s Screams

Kekavali is the most popular work of the great Marathi poet Moropanta (1729-94). He was the most prolific writer of the period having to his credit thousands of verses comprising of about seventy-five thousand couplets in ‘Ovi’ metre on various mythological themes. He is, however,

specially remembered for his outstanding poem Kekavali composed in ‘Prthvi’ metre. Even after a long span of two centuries the lure of Kekavali is still on the public mind and the poem continues to be read widely even today.

A vivid portrayal of the sense of mental agony of the poet for his frailties, of his acute longing for emancipation, of his heartfelt implorings to the Almighty for His grace and the ingenious way in which he has pleaded his case for early liberation quoting chapter and verse from mythological anecdotes in his support, have all gone to make Kekavali a truly great poem!

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