“Come and shoot here!”said and
bared his chest , the fiery man
A gentle man who makes even a person
like Brahma to stand still
A man of compassion who blesses
Even those disciples who cheated on him
A Somayaji who gave his all
at the altar of freedom struggle
He is the leader unique worshipped by
The folks three crores
Our Prakasam, our gem of a minister chief
Matchless man , Andhra Kesari
I would give pleasantness to heart
And food for thought
You’d turn land fertile and raise cattle and crops
And nourish the folks
I teach universal brotherhood
As a herald and an awakener
You serve mankind entire
Through producing food
I am a man of compassion, You are a worker hard
I am a letter , you are a bar of gold
Ours is kinship everlasting
Between a poet and a cultivator.
( Translated from vyjayanti of Sudhansu)
The most wretched couple are they
Rags on their bodies
Hang like tongues of fierce goddess of death !
The roadside tree their palace
The clay pot by the trunk
Is their vessel of life
The dust left behind by car their face powder1
The mother earth rises
To embrace them affectionately
Shroud of dust over their beings
Throughout day and nights!
The affluent angels on the shire
The blood-suckers of the labour
The pot-bellied nourished by five-course meal
Won’t throw a glance at them!
Neither the speeding cars in the bazaars
Nor the line of stars moving above
Or the great sun or the moon
Won’t bother to offer half a glance!
The refined man throws a copper coin
Most grudgingly- that’s their all
The dry philosopher gives a fierce look
Interpreting it as their karma from past life!
Though the world is sans mercy
Not an iota of sorrow in the couple
Eternal satisfaction is their creed
They are most blessed!
Llosa, the Nobel prize winner in 2010 tells how reading has expanded his imagination and enriched his life. He was not happy with the endings of stories he read as a boy and tried to give different endings. Literature helped him create a parallel world where adversity , chaos, ugliness, the present gave way to rich imagination, order, beauty and the eternal. He has learnt a lot from Flaubert, Dickens, Balzac, Tolstoy, Sartre and Malraux etc. To him, no literature means no critical spirit, the engine of progress. Writing and reading are protests against inadequacies of life. After a brief stint with Marxism, he turned away from the authoritarian streak of Cuban, Russian and Chinese revolutions towards reevaluation of democracy under the influence of thinkers like Raymond Aron , Karl Popper etc. He opposes nationalism and religion which hide racist or ethnic prejudice. Patriotism is a generous feeling that gives memories of places, peoples and warmth towards one’s culture. Literature has saved him from the edge of despair and story telling has been his means of treading on that road. He thinks that literature is a false representation of life that makes us understand life better, bearable and to be skeptical before topics like transcendence, individual and collective destiny, the soul, and the meaning of history. Fiction is a bulwark against savagery, mechanical modern life, lethargy and increase of violence and moderates our human condition.
