Fracas of Free Speech 

The irony of the alleged lack of free speech in Modi India lies in the absolute freedom of its uninhibited propagation in its subsidiary media. In so far as the right-wing blowback in the social media, the left-libs fall short on the idiom that ‘people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones’. When it comes to the ‘agencies’ knocking at free speakers’ doors, the legal dictum paraphrased as ‘one must go to town with clean hands’ has to be borne in mind by one and all. Be that as it may, it’s not as if it was all hunky-dory in the Nehruvian order of yore that nurtured the Modi-aggrieved of the day, and this is not an essay of its dark shades but an attempt to reach the roots of the self-defeating Hindu mindset, passing through my life and times. 

I was born on 27 Aug 1948 and that means I was conceived after India became free but yet in colonial hangover for by then, the century-old Macaulay method to divest the Hindus from their “false history, false astronomy, false medicine, in company with their false religion” with the right western education so as to ‘form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern, - a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect’ worked well enough though the Musalmans avoided his ‘Indian education’ like a plague for the fear of Islamic pollution. But let me at the outset vouch for Macaulay’s success for somehow I feel embarrassed to sport tilak, and on occasion when it becomes obligatory, I would be itching to erase it from my forehead as soon as I possibly could. Surely, I should alter my mindset for it is my restrained Hindu rearing in it that makes India’s constrained story.

It’s thus at the dawn of independence, India’s politically dispirited and culturally disoriented Hindus needed a leadership to raise their ancestral spirits in the wake of the calamitous partition of their ancient nation. Sadly though, their continuing ill-fate had ensured that the Gandhi-Nehru duo was at the helm of the transition process to their eternal hurt. Gandhi, who managed to become a false messiah of the Hindus, had professed that “they should not harbour anger in their hearts against Muslims even if the latter wanted to destroy them. Even if the Muslims want to kill us all we should face death bravely. If they established their rule after killing Hindus we would be ushering in a new world by sacrificing our lives.” So, as if to politically finish off the Hindus, he bestowed the power of the Indian State upon Nehru, who unabashedly claimed “I’m English by education, a Muslim by culture, just born a Hindu by accident” but also conducted himself accordingly.  It’s no wonder then that he anointed Maulana Abul Kalam Azad as India’s education minister as if to redress his fears that post-partition, the Muslim minority in the Hindu majority India would be disadvantaged. Sadly, as Sardar Patel too failed to see the dichotomy of a Muslim education minister in the predominantly Hindu India that too after millennia of alien order, Azad had a decade at his disposal to add on the Muslim modules to the Macaulay minutes to further enervate the Hindu psyche. And that speaks for the naivety of the then Hindu intellect and that which followed for four more Musalmans were given a free rein for nine more years to continue where the wily Maulana had left that is to mould the Hindu minds in the Islamic moulds!  

Thus, what with the plethora of Sultanates not to speak of the Mogul era, it was as if the roller coaster of Indian history was no more than the Islamic rule over medieval India. So as not to make the Hindu kids privy to Islam’s idol-braking ways, the destruction of the Hindu temples by the Ghaznis and the Ghoris was pictured as a case of looting for their riches. When it came to the beginning of the end of the Muslim dominance in the Battle of Plassey, the fall of Siraj ud-Daulah was attributed to the perfidy of Mir Jaffar but not sourced to the revenge of Jagat Seth, whom the brash Nawab had insulted, for that would have made Hindus feel good for having avenged the Musalmans. Well, as for the British Raj, it was all about railways, ports etc. with no word on how it had ruined India’s economy and looted its wealth. It’s thus was drummed into the impressionable Hindu heads that they should not begrudge their Islamic and Christian rulers but must feel beholden to them.

In so far as the freedom struggle went, it was Gandhi all the way with Nehru in tow, never mind, as it transpired later, that it was the prospective rebellion by the Indian men-in-arms, courtesy Netaji’s legacy that made the British retreat in haste. While Azad’s Muslim agenda augmented Nehru’s cynical opposition to Hindu resurgence that both saw as detrimental to the interests of the Indian umma, it was Godse’s foolhardy in slaying the spent force of a Gandhi that gave the latter the political stick to beat Savarkar’s Hindutva with. That my grandfather forewarned me not to be enamoured of the rashtriya swayam-sevak sangh in our remote small town as that would hamper my later-day career prospects would exemplify the Nehruvian hurdles the Hindu nationalism had to contend with.

In juxtaposition, the Muslim galaxy in the cine field and the musical world not to speak of the worthies in the public life created a communal euphoria, evocatively but falsely called as ganga jamuna tehjeeb, in the rarified Hindu intellectual zone. So, it was a given that the Good Samaritans in the Indian cinema had to be either a Christian or a Musalman and never a Hindu. If the finesses of the Muslim Nawabs graced the silver screen it was the crudity of the Hindu loan sharks that was on show. While the long-buried Hindu social evils got resurrected on the celluloid, the umma’s live religious ills were deliberately kept away from the arc lights. So on and so forth and what with Indira Gandhi too walking in her father’s ideological footsteps, India’s political culture came to be pegged to the Islamapologic pole endorsed by the intellectual class, and that reduced the Hindu right to the electoral fringe.

Nevertheless, madrasas were allowed to take care of the Muslim minds with Allah’s ayats and Muhammad’s exploits to sustain their exclusivist credo that, on and off, had erupted in communal riots. Well the Muslim clerics who hold sway over the umma wouldn’t complain much for it’s a small price to pay to uphold their Islamic exclusivity. At the same time, while the secular politicians felt no need to bridge the communal divide that sustained its Muslim vote-bank, the intelligentsia, as well as the media, Islam-naïve both, were bereft of an idea to address the national debility. So, it’s but natural that the Hindu masses too saw nothing amiss in this secular mess, and thus an all-round silence became the norm amidst the periodic communal mayhem.

But the vexatious rama-janmabhoomi movement picked up momentum to  eventually bring down the Babri structure that 6 Dec 1992, and that brought about a tectonic shift in India’s electoral dynamics to the hurt of the Nehruvian politics. But it was the Godhra-Gujarat communal flare-up that changed things in the long-run, in more ways than one, once and for all. Sensing another Godse moment to push back the surging Hindutva political tide, Sonia’s Congress pulled all stops to castigate the Hindu right and cajole the sulking Musalmans back into its electoral fold, of course aided and abetted by a compromised media that amplified the Muslim victimhood and falsified the Hindu culpability. Besides, notwithstanding the unprovoked Godhra train carnage by the Musalmans (never mind the secular narrative of accidental fire in that S-6 coach of Sabarmati Express on that fateful 27 Feb 2002) as the maulanas took the floor to proclaim that ‘Islam is a religion of peace’ and indeed it is Bhagavad-Gita that incites violence, it became apparent that the Hindu intelligentsia had no clue on either count to confront.

So, I set out to find out the role religions play in fomenting human discord and came up with Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal Strife (A critical Appraisal of Islamic Faith, Indian Polity ‘n More) that I submitted to Popular Prakashan for its perusal. And its rejection slip of 03 Feb 2003 - I enjoyed reading the book. But I suggest you read Dr. Zakaria’s ‘Communal Rage in Secular India’. Your book is a bit Strident and could prove dangerous in the wrong hands (Hindu fundamentalist) – sums up Nehruvian India’s allergy to any Hindu critique of Islam. It’s another matter though that the book has been in the public domain as free e-book ever since, and whether or not it could help Hindus develop an Islamic grasp, its intended purpose, it certainly did not set the fundamentalist Hindus at Muslim throats as feared by the publishers. But come to think of it, though Islam was around in India for over millennia, save Chamupati’s 1924 pamphlet Rangila Rasool and Sita Ram Goel’s 1986 book The Calcutta Quran Petition, which is about Chandmal Chopra’s petition to ban Quran, earlier there were no other Hindu works on and about Islam! And that’s about the Hindu intellectual apathy in free India.  

But the moot point is, even though the Husains, the Aamirs et al, have all along been abusing their artistic freedom to denigrate Hinduism, Popular Prakashan chose to deny me my literary liberty for a critical appraisal of Islam. However, to the chagrin of the Musalmans all that has changed in the Modi era what with the Sanjay Dixits, the Ranganathans of the Hindu world with a Nupur Sharma or two in tow have been quoting the inimical Quranic ayats and reciting the embarrassing Hadithian anecdotes through the electronic media. All the same, as the saying goes, “To understand Islam is to understand Muhammad” the Hindu intellectuals may look around for a book or two so as to acquaint themselves with the character of the man whom every Musalman seeks to imitate, which by the way, is far easier and more fetching than emulating Rama, the Hindu Maryada Purushottama.  

Be that as it may, what’s the intellectual fracas of free speech in Modi era all about? It can be expected that the politicians who lost power and their hangers on their pelf would cry hoarse. It’s also understandable that Musalmans too would be sore over losing their political veto and what’s worse have to bear the ignominy of having to live in a Hindu Raj. It’s also okay for the Christian world to resent their hitherto unhindered evangelical drive has to navigate the anti-conversion hurdle. So, for whatever the Hindu intelligentsia is cribbing about, the Hindu masses, at long last, have begun to feel proud being Hindus. If that’s an objection for those who have no issues with the Islamic republics and the Christian democracies that abound world over, then so be it.

 

 

 

 

 

Manu’s Shadow on Gita’s Path          

By BS Murthy

When I thought I am done with the study of interpolations in the Gita after my critique, Inane Interpolations in Bhagvad-Gita (An Invocation for their Revocation) I was tempted to turn my attention to the seldom read but much maligned Manu Smriti*. While I found that that testament is Incongruent and its motivated castigation is nothing but flogging a dead horse riding a blind donkey (an eponymous essay is due on this aspect), nevertheless, I could discern Manu’s shadow on the Gita’s path that is sought to be placed here for a public view.                     

It is worth noting that at the end of each of its eighteen chapters, it is asserted in the Gita that it is the quintessence of the Upanishads and the Brahmasutrās, and as argued in my critique supra, one-hundred and ten verses in it are latter-day interpolations bereft of the Upanishadic and Brahmasutric connotations. What is more, while some of those smear its inclusive philosophy with sectarian postulations, which echo Manusmritic caste discriminations that are inimical towards some sections of Hindus to their chagrin, the others are ceremonial exhortations that are irrelevant to the subject matter of Gita’s philosophical discourse and thus are seemingly out of place.

Moreover, in the ‘in vogue’ Bhagvad-Gita’s philosophical discourse are found some ritualistic postulations in chapter 3, titled karma yoga, which, are nothing but innovations of Manu’s stipulations in that regard.

It may be noted that it is postulated in the Manu Smriti that -

3.74. Ahuta (not offered in the fire) is the muttering (of Vedic texts), Huta the burnt oblation (offered to the gods), Prahuta (offered by scattering it on the ground) the Bali offering given to the Bhutas, Brahmya-huta (offered in the digestive fire of Brahmanas), the respectful reception of Brahmana (guests), and Prasita (eaten) the (daily oblation to the manes, called) Tarpana.

3.75. Let (every man) in this (second order, at least) daily apply himself to the private recitation of the Veda, and also to the performance of the offering to the gods; for he who is diligent in the performance of sacrifices, supports both the movable and the immovable creation.

3.76 An oblation duly thrown into the fire, reaches the sun; from the sun comes rain, from rain food, therefrom the living creatures (derive their subsistence)

3.117. Having honoured the gods, the sages, men, the manes, and the guardian deities of the house, the householder shall eat afterwards what remains.

3.118. He who prepares food for himself (alone), eats nothing but sin; for it is ordained that the food which remains after (the performance of) the sacrifices shall be the meal of virtuous men.

Now turning to the Bhagvad-Gita ‘As It Is’, it can be seen that the following verses are reflective innovations of the above that can be taken as inane interpolations.

3.9. Man is not attached to his actions performed in ritualistic sacrifices but all other actions bind him. 

3.10. The Creator wanted mankind to prosper through sacrifices, which shall be the milch cow of man’s desires.

3.11. Foster the gods through sacrifices 

3.12. Fostered by sacrifices, gods would bestow desired enjoyments, but they are thieves who do not return anything to them (gods).

3.13. Those that partake the remnants of sacrificial food are sinless.

3.14. Food that sustains mankind comes from rains, which are but the outcome of sacrificial ceremonies.

3.15. Brahma is seated in sacrifice.

3.16. Who follow the above regimen would attain moksha.

Besides, as can be seen hereunder, Gita’s Cycle of Creation, in chapter 8, akshara parabrahma yoga, follows Manu’s course.

Manu’s Creative process has it that –

1.52. When that divine one wakes, then this world stirs; when he slumbers tranquilly, then the universe sinks to sleep.

 1.57. Thus he, the imperishable one, by (alternately) waking and slumbering, incessantly revivifies and destroys this whole movable and immovable (creation).

1.67. A year is a day and a night of the gods; their division is (as follows): the half year during which the sun progresses to the north will be the day, that during which it goes southwards the night.

 1.68. But hear now the brief (description of) the duration of a night and a day of Brahman and of the several ages (of the world, yuga) according to their order.

1.69. They declare that the Krita age (consists of) four thousand years (of the gods); the twilight preceding it consists of as many hundreds, and the twilight following it of the same number.

1.70. In the other three ages (Treta Yuga, Dvapara Yuga, and Kali Yuga) with their twilights preceding and following, the thousands and hundreds are diminished by one (in each).

1.71. These twelve thousand (years)* which thus have been just mentioned as the total of four (human) ages, are called one age of the gods. (*ten-thousand normal and two-thousand twilights)

1.72. But know that the sum of one thousand ages of the gods (makes) one day of Brahman, and that his night has the same length.

1.73. Those (only, who) know that the holy day of Brahman, indeed, ends after (the completion of) one thousand ages (of the gods) and that his night lasts as long, (are really) men acquainted with (the length of) days and nights.

Here’s the Gita’s Cycle of Creation in Manu’s track supra-

8. 17

Wise all realize days Brahman 
Ages thousands make with nights.

8.18

By day as He brings beings
Un-manifests He all by night.

8.19 

It’s all rebirths through His day
But with nightfall cease they all 
As He wakes up puts He back.

(Above verses are excerpts from the author’s Bhagvad-Gita: Treatise of Self-help)

 *The Laws of Manu by G. Buhler, Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1886, available at Internet Archive 

My ‘Novel’ Account of Human Possibility 

Whenever I look at my body of work of ten books, the underlying human possibility intrigues me no end, and why not. I was born into a land-owning family in a remote village of Andhra Pradesh in India that is after the British had folded their colonial tents from there, but much before the rural education mechanism was geared up. It was thus the circumstances of my birth enabled me to escape from the tiresome chores of the primary schooling till I had a nine-year fill of an unbridled childhood, embellished by village plays and grandma’s tales, made all the more interesting by her uncanny ability for storytelling. As my maternal grandfather’s grandfather happened to be a poet laureate at the court of a princeling of yore, maybe their genes together strived to infuse the muses in me their progeny. 

However, as the English plants that Lord Macaulay planted in the Indian soil hadn’t taken roots in its hinterland till then, it’s the native tongues that ruled the roost in the best part of the vast land, and in Andhra it was Telugu, the Italian of the East that held the sway.  No wonder then, leave alone constructing a sentence on my own in English, whenever I had to read one, I used to be afflicted by stammer. Maybe, it was at the behest of the unseen hand of human possibility or owing to his own foresight that my father in time had shifted our family base to the cosmopolitan town of Kakinada to put me into the missionary McLaren High School in Class X. With that began my tryst with English, which, courtesy one of my maternal uncles, eventually led me to the continental fiction in translation that engaged me more, far more than the technical subjects I had to pursue for a career as a mechanical engineer.

While the Penguin classics inculcated in me a love for English language that is besides broadening my outlook of life, my nature enabled me to explore the possibilities of youth, and given that letter-writing was still in vogue then, I was wont to embellish my letters to friends and loved-ones with insights the former induced and emotions the latter infused. Clearly, all those letters that my novels carry owe more to my impulse to write them than to my muse’s need to express itself through them. Even as the fiction enabled me to handle the facts of life with fortitude, as life, for its part, chose to subject me to more of its vicissitudes, I continued tending my family and attending my job.

Fortuitously, when I was thirty-three, my mind and matter combined to explore the effect of the led on the leader, and when the resultant “Organizational ethos and good Leadership” was published in The Hindu, I experienced the thrill of, what is called, seeing one’s name in print. Encouraged, I continued to apply my mind on varied topics such as general management, materials management, general insurance, politics, and, not to speak of, life and literature resulting in some thirty published articles. But fiction was nowhere in the sight, nor I had any idea to turn into a novelist for Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, Emily Zola, Gustav Flaubert et al are literary deities (I hadn’t read Marcel Proust and Robert Musil by then),  were, and are, my literary deities, and how dare I, their devotee, to envision myself in the sanctum sanctorum of the novel.

But when I was forty-four, having been fascinated by the manuscript of satirical novel penned by one Bhibhas Sen, an Adman, with whom I had been on the same intellectual page for the past four years then, it occurred to me, ‘when he could, I can for sure’. It was as if Bhibhas had driven away the ghosts of the masters that came to shadow my muse but as life would have it, it was another matter that as he didn’t want to foul his novel by dragging it to ‘publishable length’, it remained in the limbo.

With my muse thus unshackled, I set to work on the skeletal idea of Benign Flame with the conviction that for fiction to impact readers, it should be the soulful rendering of characters rooted in their native soil, not the hotchpotch of local and foreign caricatures sketched on a hybrid canvas, the then norm of the Indian writing in English. Yet it took me a fortnight to get the inspiring opening sentence - “That winter night in the mid-seventies, the Janata Express was racing rhythmically on its tracks towards the coast of Andhra Pradesh. As its headlight pierced the darkness of the fertile plains, the driver honked the horn as though to awake the sleepy environs to the spectacle of the speeding train.”  

From there on, it was as though a ‘novel’ chemistry had developed between my muse and my characters’ psyche that shaped its fictional course, and soon, I came to believe that I had something unique to offer to the world; so, not wanting to die till I gave it to it, I used to go to lengths to safeguard my life till I finished it with a ‘top of the world’ feeling. What one Spencer Critchley, an American critic, thought about my contribution – “It’s a refreshing surprise to discover that the story will not trace a fall into disaster for Roopa, given that many writers might have habitually followed that course with a wife who strays into extramarital affairs” - made me feel vindicated, though there were no takers to it among the Indian publishers and the Western agents.

So, I had no heart to bring my pen to any more paper (those were the pre-keyboard days) though my head was swirling with novel ideas, triggered by an examined life lived in an eventful manner.  Sometime later, that was after I read a book of short stories presented to me; I had resumed writing due to a holistic reason.  While it was the quality of Bhibhas’ satire that set me on a fictional track from which I was derailed by the publishers’ indifference, strangely, it was the lack of it in that book that once again spurred me onto the novel track to pursue the joy of writing for its own sake, and that led me to the literary stations of Crossing the Mirage and Jewel-less Crown. But in the wake of the hotly debated but poorly analyzed Godhra-Gujarat communal rioting in 2002, as I was impelled to examine the role religions play in social disharmony, my fictional course had taken a non-fiction turn with Puppets of Faith.

Then it was as if my muse, wanting me to lend my hand to other literary genres led me into the arena of translation, pushed me onto the ‘unknown’ stage, put me on a stream of consciousness, took me to crime scenes, and dragged me into the by-lanes of short stories. However, it was Michael Hart, the founder of Project Gutenberg, who lent his e-hand to my books in search of readers. Who would have thought that life held such literary possibilities in English language for a rustic Telugu lad in rural Andhra even in post-colonial India? The possibilities of life are indeed novel, and seemingly my life has crystallized itself in my body of work before death could dissipate it.

 

 

 

 

 

An ode to the Muse (Cināre)

 

This is BS Murthy’s English rendition of Dwana Sastry’s nānēs tribute in Telugu to the Jnānpēth ascendant, Dr. C. Narayana Reddy (Cināre), on his 75^th birthday   

 

1                                              

So to savour                                           

Cināre’s verse,

Goes Jnānpēth

To Hanumānjipet.

 

2.

Hi, Sastryji

Cināre greets,

Brings that warmth

To Dwana’s heart.

 

3

Beckons as Dwana

Ever he grants,  

Cināre’s love

It’s Dwana’s pride.

 

4

Takes he mike

It sings his tune,

Glued to seats

All sit spellbound.

 

5

‘Rise as thou    

Cavils if world

‘Grow sky-high’,

Is Cināre quote.

 

6

Instant scale 

As gives printout

So his reply

Comes post-haste.

 

7

Grace Golconda

So Tank-bund,

Made Cināre the city his own

Hath which charms of Charminar.

 

8

As it shapes

He spots talent,

Pats he backs

Of rising stars.

 

9

Sees he far ‘n

Wide as well,

Nurses he all

Regions three.

 

10.

Burn in envy

At his back,

Face to face

They show their teeth.

 

11

Where leads envy,

Cināre, those?

Stay they put

At alphabets best.

 

12

Find in Cināre

Small-timers,

Mother-like love

That sooths them all.

 

13

Hold on old

Eye for new,

Holds he ever

Young ‘n old.  

 

14

Break its back

As score gathered,

Stage sans Cināre

Seems empty.

 

15

Wraps he ghazal

In Telugu garb,

Lends that charm

To both of them.

 

16

Speaks as he

In sonorous tone,

Out of tune seem

Speaks who next.

 

17

Count on Cināre

Doth he have

Dig at false airs

Thou put on. 

 

18

Oratory is but

State of the art,

Log into Cināre

Dot com quick.

 

19

With his muse

Of all seasons,

Makes he tango

With mod verse.

 

20

Ever he reaches 

One and all,

Share thee dais

And seem so small.

 

21

Words in rhyme 

With rhythmic force,

Horse-like trots

His flow of verse.

 

22

On the seat

Of power he sits,

Cascade like he

Holds his sway.

 

23

Sees he moon

In broad daylight,

Takes his muse 

All worlds in stride.

 

24

Sung to tune

In soulful tone,

Lyrics his grace 

Well silver screen

 

25

It’s with buds of sannajaji

Pōlamala he came to weave,

Blossoms that for times to come

Fragrance of it never to wane.

 

26

Discourse his

On modern verse,

Treatise it makes

On rules of muse.

 

27

Wit his sparkles 

Telugu phrase,

Gives its cutting

Edge his pun.

 

28

Nook ‘n corner 

Of mother earth,

Travelogues of his

Spread his word.

 

29

Of the parishad

That he built,

Suravaram et al

But make pillars.

 

30

Helps his verse

Peripheral press

Rub its shoulders

Mainstream with. 

 

31

Land-line his

In Hyderabad  

Brings to ear

His hallowed tone.

 

32

Podium high

Of art itself,

Cināre sans

Seems artless.

 

33

It’s no joke

To ever compile

Works of writers

He unveiled.

 

34

Brings he Midas

Touch to verse

Gave his village

House to books.

 

35

To aver that one

Never espied him,

Akin to saying

Saw none clouds.

 

36

Runs as stream

Of verse in him,

Makes his muse

Flood world of word.

 

37

Sweet is Vennelavāda verse

Savours one but to the end,

Words that sculp in Ramappa 

Ajanta as well move no end.

 

38

Surname his

Well, Chaitanyam,

Hath it traits

Of high wisdom.

 

39

Verse his metre

Desi true,

Shows the way

To rhyme itself.

 

40

Apart fragrance of his love 

Acquaintance with Cināre

Accrues to one benefits of

Aspects life of uprightness. 

                        

41

Not for him

Ever nit-picking,

Makes him that 

The revered One.

 

42

Withers not age

Nor stales custom,

Shakespeare could’ve

Said of him.

 

43

Turns he deity

On the stage,

Casts he spell

On one and all.

 

44

Roots with his 

In Telangana.

Rose he high   

In poetic world.

 

45

In the school

Of Hindustan,

Stands he tall

As Headmaster.

 

46

On the plots

Of time he owns,

Builds he blocks

Of disciplined life.

 

47

Curly hair that

Crowned his head,

Passed since reign

To bald eminence.

 

48

Takes he note

Of all to note,

Prone not to miss

Pros and cons.

 

49

Saintly though 

He’s worldly too,

As it comes

He takes his life.

 

50

Stumps he all

Who leave the crease,

Irks all those 

Who bear witness.

 

51

Muse as rooted

In grassroots,

Verse his covers 

Worlds all there.

 

52

Shapes he life

To suit his needs,

Tread occult his

Science footprints.

 

53

It’s in poetry

Lays he store,

Well, if mimicry

God save thee.

 

54

For the soul

Of common man,

What a feel doth

Hath this man!

 

55

Warmth of his

For tinsel world,

Gummadi’s demeanour

Shows the world.

 

56.

How I wish

It’s I, who owned,

Gopi’s slot

In Cināre heart.

 

57

Hard to please

Was N.T.R,

But won Cināre

The former’s heart.

 

58

Cināre’s lyrics

Or celluloid reels,

Bestowed which

To which glamour?

 

59

It’s by folk touch

Which he gave

Got such verve 

The Telugu song.

 

60.

Alien though are

Bhajans Mērā’s,   

Imparts pen his

Telugu touch.

 

61

Of the innate

Child in him,

Power ’n position

Couldn’t rob him.

 

62

Taught in Telugu

Schooled in Urdu,

Feathers he adds

To both their caps.

 

63

Forewords his

To books of theirs,

Help all authors

Make their mark.

 

64

No great deal to

Guess it right

Makes who face

Of Andhra arts.

 

65

End eras

To bring new ones,

Ends not time

His poetic hold.

 

66

Pelt ’n see

Stones at him,

Turn they pearls all

As he smiles. 

 

67

Fatherly love

That he bears,

Fills the heart

Of Ms. Ganga.

 

68

Won he laurels 

Others he lauds,

Get bluestockings 

Share their due.

 

69

Takes the cake

Late better-half his,

It’s in her name

He hands out.

 

70

Ever he values 

Fair sex more,

Proved he siring

Girls all four.

 

71

Looks his belie

Passed he through,

Years all those

Full seventy-four.

 

72

Not for him

Is writer’s block,

Ever he pens 

The verse he breathes.  

 

73

Why not Cināre

Take fresh guard,

And get going

For thy ton.

 

74

When that happens

Won’t Gibbon

Come down to note how Telugu

Muse so rose high in years all those.

 

75

Look ye forward

For that day,

But for now have

Dwana’s nānēs.