Sri Sri’s tribute to Mahatma

Sri Sri made the poems from his anthology ‘Suptasthikalu’ a part of many abstract voices, and produced a fitting tribute to Mahatma Gandhi, within two days after his assassination. This year being the 70th martyrdom year of Bapu, the tribute paid by Sri Sri through AIR Madras definitely acquires special significance

Mahakavi Sri Sri was known by his full name Srirangam Srinivasa Rao in his formative period. He was a youth with poetic talent and was already a founder member of Kavita Samithi, at Visakhapatnam. His first poetry book ‘Prabhava’, came out in 1928 when the poet was hardly eighteen years old.

This anthology contained the poems he wrote in his early teens, and the robust promise the budding poet held in lacing out imagery and maintaining the grip on presentation in this first book of verse, are quite noticeable.

This anthology ‘Prabhava’ incidentally is also the name of the first year in the sixty year cycle of Telugu Years (the list goes on Prabhava, Vibhava and so on for this traditional calendar, on which our Telugu Ugadi (New Year) is based. Srirangam Srinivasa Rao, the collegiate youth did his graduation from Christian College, Madras, and by 1931 he was a Bachelor of Arts.

After some initial stints at Visakhapatnam, he again left to Madras in the mid-1940s, and continued the friendship with likeminded Kompella Janardhana Rao, and Kalluri Narasimha Rao. In the times of Prabhava anthology, in 1928 this young poet wrote a most unconventional poem ‘Suptasthikalu’ (Hibernate Bones).

This poem was rejected by ‘Bharathi’ a literary monthly magazine of repute, but later on, this poem remained the path-breaking signal, for the budding poet and the twentieth century Telugu literature as well. Incidentally, this year is also the ninetieth year of publication of ‘Prabhava’, at Visakhapatnam, in 1928, with a foreword by Puripanda Appalaswami, who often claimed quite seriously that he has first discovered Sri Sri.

In his foreword Puripanda said that after writing every poem young Srinivasa Rao used to come to him and gave him the honour of becoming the first listener. He termed the poems by young Sri Sri as “Lalitha Bhava Viyadvahini” (Celestial river of gentle thoughts).

The significance of the poetic play ‘Suptashikalu’ written and presented through All India Radio, Madras on February 1, 1948 is that, after passing away of Mahatma in an assassination, Sri Sri readied this tribute within no time, since the death took place on January 30, the broadcast history of the ‘Suptasthikalu’ states that it was broadcast on the third day of martyrdom of Gandhiji.

For this Sri Sri used poems from his earlier ‘Prabhava’ period and pieced together a marvelous tribute, in which abstract characters like “Declaration”, “Poet”, “Tragic Voices”, “Dusk” “Darkness” “Star”, “Voices” “chorus” deliver the lines and complete a glorious tribute to the messiah of non-violence.

The narrative technique is an audio play, for which he used the poem ‘Suptasthikalu’ prominently, including making it the caption of the poetic play and other poems from Prabhava used by Sri Sri for this interlacing are Dusk, Darkness, and Star.

These poems penned down by the poet thirteen years back, for the first edition of poetry, were used by young poet Sri Sri, in 1948, on the occasion of paying tribute to Mahatma. Such was the creative velocity of Sri Sri, he made the poems a part of many abstract voices, and produced a real time tribute to Mahatma, just within two days after his assassination.

This year also being the 70th martyrdom year of Bapu, the tribute paid by Sri Sri through AIR Madras, and later published in the same month in Abhyudaya monthly, acquires special significance. The AIR's play was presented for the first time in English, marking the 107th birthday (April 30) of great poet Sri Sri, and also extending the significance to the observations linked to Father of Nation, in his 70th year of martyrdom.

By: Rama Teertha
The writer is a bi-lingual poet, translator, literary critic and an orator.