Narayana Babu (Spin-off from Tilak, Telugu Poet)

[RRavella]

A couple of days ago, I wrote: >A netter commented (I lost the posting and went back to >to SCIT to retrieve it for reference but to no avail - >I apologize) that there were many discussions in those >days about Srirangam Narayana Babu, Arudra and Sri Sri. >One favorite topic in the 60's in literary magazines and >in coffee house quarrels was: who was the intellectual heir >to Sri Sri - Narayana Babu or Arudra? (It so happened that >both were related to Sri Sri - Narayana Babu was a distant >relative and Arudra his nephew.) It was a meaningless >question, of course. I have an update to this. Yesterday, I chanced upon the July 11 issue of Andhra Prabha daily (Bangalore edition) at the Indian Embassy library. (I live in the Washington area.) Amazingly, there was an article on Sri Sri - Narayana Babu-Arudra triumvirate. Actually, it was an interview with Arudra. Apparently, the controversy still continues. There was an editor's note giving the background for the interview with Arudra. The note said that literary critic Chandu Subba Rao wrote an article on Sri Sri/Narayana Babu/Arudra in the June 20 issue of Andhra Prabha. In it, he criticized Narayana Babu's poetry and made a comment that in the old days 'Sri Sri - Arudra' names were jointly mentioned (as Dvanda samAsa). Andhra Prabha asks Arudra: It was alleged that you put Narayana Babu at a higher pedestal than Sri Sri. Is it true? Arudra: Sri Sri and Narayana Babu didn't need anyone to put them on pedestals. Chandu Subba Rao says "Sri Sri-Arudra" was a dvanda samAsa. In the old days, it used to be "Sri Sri-Narayana Babu". And then Arudra went into a monologue on Narayana Babu's poetry, especially his book "Rudhira Jyothi". He quoted extensively from Ronanki Appalaswami, a literary critic and an authority on Sri Sri and Narayana Babu. * * * To understand the comment about Arudra putting Narayana Babu on higher pedestal than Sri Sri, I refered to Arudra's "Samagra Andhra SAhityam" Volume 13 on Adhunika Yugam. ((*** Aside: Arudra started Samagra Andhra Sahityam in the 60's, wrote 12 volumes by 1968. His 12th volume brought the history upto the end of 19th century. He couldn't complete volume 13 then due to illhealth. The series also went out of print long time ago. When Arudra toured the U.S. in 1987 many of us encouraged him to complete the 13th volume on modern poetry and also to bring the whole series back into print. (By that time, encouraging Arudra to complete Volume 13 became a literary movement by itself. Andhra Jyothi daily editor Nanduri Ramamohana Rao and weekly editor Puranam Subrahmanya Sarma, to cite a couple of examples, wrote editorials in 1985 on the occasion of Arudra's Shasti Purthi exhorting him to complete Vol 13). When Arudra's novelist/writer wife K. Ramalakshmi visited the U.S. in 1988 we encouraged her too to bring the series into print. I told her that I would take personal responsibility to help sell the series in the U.S. Sure enough, Arudra completed Vol 13; the series was reprinted; Arudra and Ramalakshmi both visited Atlanta TANA convention in 1991 with copies of the the 13-vol set; the series was released at the at the convention by Mrs. Abid Hussein, the wife of the then ambassador Dr. Abid Hussein; we set up a booth there to sell Arudra's series; and we sold 150 sets of the 13-vol series at $150 each set. (My good friend and fellow netter Ramakrishna Pillalamarri helped me in setting up the booth and he manned the booth for much of the time at the convention.) All the money raised through selling those books went to Arudra. Without TANA's help, the republishing of the series and 13th volume would not have been possible.***)) Anyways, getting back to the comment in Andhra Prabha that Arudra gave more importance to Narayana Babu than to Sri Sri in his analyses, I referred to my copy of Samagra Andhra Sahityam Vol 13. Sure enough, there was a whole chapter on Narayana Babu - a whole chapter before a chapter on Sri Sri. Blasphemy! :-) There was also an excellent critique on Tilak's poetry in that volume. Ramesh P. Ravella