Kaleepatnam Mastaaroo! Congratulations!!
Friends:
Well! I welcome myself back to the Fatherland after a month-long
visit to the Motherland.
I do not want to take away the thunder from my friend
Dr. Chowdary Jampala, who has posted the happy news that of
Kaleepatman Raamaaravu garu being awarded the Kendra Saahitya
Akaademi Award for his short stories. I want to add a few more
words to his excellent and crisp introduction.
In one word, it is the Kendra Saahitya Akaademi that is
honoring itself by this award to Mastaaru.
Twentyfive(25) of Kaaleepatnam short stories came out
in a book form, entitled, "Kaaleepatnam Raamaaravu kathalu"
in 1986(?). As far as I know that is all of the short stories
he wrote. I heard he is going to accept the award, unlike
in the past. I think he has refused the state award as a
protest to the state's brutal, cruel and unconstitutional
handling of some Telugu writers.
A few words on the story (novella!) 'Yagnam.' In 1982,
there was a collection of critical essays on 'Yagnam'
published by the Hyderabad Book Trust. Ms. Ranganayakamma
wrote a couple of critical essays on 'Yagnam.' and published
them as a book in 1983(?) (Whoever that has 'borrowed' this
book and the Yagnam critical essays volume from me, please
please return them to me. I beg you!) Such volumes of critical
discussions, some bordering of course on polemics on one
single short story has not yet appeared in any literature,
East or West. This itself was a great literary event, in deed!
In addition to the prefaces by Raavi Saastry, Kodavatiganti,
and a few modest, chronologically placed explanations by
Raamaaravu gaaru himself in the aforementioned collection of short
stories, a critical essay by Velcheru Narayana Rao, entitled
some what like this:" A Foreword to Read These Shortstories a
Second Time" (my translation of the Telugu title) is worth reading.
In this piece, Velcheru reanalyzes the highly parroted, structured
and almost templated 'Marxist' type of analysis presented by
Ranganayakamma on the story 'Yagnam,' and her reasons why she
did not consider the story as a masterpiece. The lack of clear
class conflict, the naivette of the author (Kaaleepatnam) in his
inability to understand the futility and barrenness of Gandhian
philosophy to solve the problems of the poor, and eventually
the utter lack of class consciousness, or varga chaitanyam(as
Marx-Engels-Lenin-Scholars have been programmed to digest it!) were
her reasons for the failure of 'Yagnam' as a great story.
Narayana Rao clearly sees the flaws in such arguments and
almost 'tutors' Ranganayakamma and the likes in their misguided
application of such dialectics to everything they read, write,
see and smell. (Almost all the neo-converts to Marxism acquire
this uncanny habit of red glass vision, and quite often go to
ridiculous extremes.) In addition, he reanalyzes 'Yagnam,' shows
why it remains as a difficult story to understand (in fact, all
Ramaaraavu gaari stories are difficult to understand in the first
reading!) and why it stands as one of the greatest shortstories
in the world literature, if only one learns to read it, reread it,
and understand it in its proper perspective. (I do not have the book
with me while I am writing this note. I hope I have correctly
conveyed the essence.)
I have nothing more to add but to repeat Dr. Jampala's advice:
Get a copy of Maastaari pusthakam and read it, if you have not
yet done so.
Sorry, I got carried away. I apologize for the length of this piece.
With regards
-- Venkateswara Rao Veluri