While intertextuality in literature is always fascinating, it is even more so a pleasure to come across writing that is influenced by other writers, and writers who pays homage to the books and authors who inspired them. To contemplate the interconnectedness of writers, books and thereby the readers, a connection of thoughts and ideas that spans continents and centuries, is such a blissful experience.

A related quote from The Reengineers.

“Did you know that Bharatiyar used the pen name “Shelley-dasan”? He admired the poems of Shelley so deeply that he wrote under the name “Shelley’s servant”. Wasn’t that a wonderful gesture of humility by someone who was such a great poet himself? And later, Bharatiyar had his own dasan, the poet Subburathinam, who took the pen name Bharathidasan. Subburathinam’s poetry inspired yet another poet who wrote as Surada, short for Subburathina-dasan. And to think this long chain of inspiration spans centuries, going back to the poets who inspired Wordsworth, who inspired Shelley, who inspired our own Bharati.”

The Reengineers, Chapter 7