The prayers of the soul are, at times, beyond our comprehension. And it is from such prayerful experiences that a work of creation is born, transcending time. When he shared a few such experiences on the concluding day of the Mathrubhumi International Festival of Letters 2025 (MBIFL’25), veteran writer T. Padmanabhan himself was visibly moved. This emotion spread to the audience as well, leaving them spellbound.

One day, while stepping out of the National Book Stall outlet in Kottayam, having stopped there on his way back from Thiruvananthapuram, someone grabbed his shoulder from behind. A furious Padmanabhan turned around. It was a Capuchin priest!

“Hope you are T. Padmanabhan!” said the priest with a polite smile.

“If yes, what do you want?” the writer asked arrogantly.

But the priest, still smiling, said he had read all of Padmanabhan’s stories and requested him to sign a book he had just bought from the bookstall.

The priest’s approach and words melted the writer, who realized that he was a genuine reader. Padmanabhan took the book and, with an apologetic expression, admitted that he was not in a position to write anything of his own in it. “Instead, I wrote a biblical quote from Anna Karenina - ‘I am the life and the resurrection’. But I could not bring myself to sign under such a quote,” I apologetically told the priest.

Then the two of them stepped out and walked to the nearby bus stand, with the priest carrying the writer’s briefcase, though he had never been asked to do so.

“It was drizzling at the time, and he was talking about religious faith. I told him I had no faith in any organized system. But the priest replied that he never wanted me to have faith in anything. ‘But your stories are the divine prayers of the soul,’ he told me. Now, looking back, those words resonate deeply with me.” Incidentally, Padmanabhan’s session at the festival was also named Prayers of the Soul!

Then there was another touching experience, which came in the form of a letter. It was from an educated elderly man, writing about a friend who had lost his dear wife to cancer.

“He had requested me to read the entire letter, and as I started reading, it flowed, pulling me along,” Padmanabhan said.

The letter described how this friend had fallen silent after the passing of his life partner and had stopped responding to anything. One day, the writer of the letter read a story by T. Padmanabhan to him. This story-reading continued for a few days, and gradually, the grieving man began to respond. Slowly, he started asking for more stories and books, engaging in discussions about them. He was walking back to life.

“I am writing this letter to you as a mark of gratitude - not only from me but also from my friend,” the letter concluded.

“These are the experiences that touch our souls, and I still consider this letter one of the greatest recognitions I have received,” Padmanabhan said, deeply moved by the moment.

Yes, the world of a humane writer blooms from such experiences. Who knows from where the seeds of stories take root in a writer’s imagination!