A. Satyanarayana -- where is he?

Aravinda Pillalamarri (ap191@columbia.edu)
Wed, 29 Nov 1995 22:35:46 -0500 (EST)

Hello,
I am very grateful for all the help and references I am getting on
the topic of telugu dalita sahityam. Now I shall continue to count on
you for suggestions and criticism as I find my way through this literary
and social/historical terrain. I have just finished reading the
article by A. Satyanarayana, which reviews this literature in historical
perspective. I thought I read on this list that Jaasuva did not really
treat caste topics. A. Satyanarayana cites many of his poems which do
treat these topics, such as "The Bat" and "The Orphan". Jaashuva seems to
have written other prose pieces on the Dalit condition as well.

I would like to write to the author, and plan to do so care of
the journal. If any of you happens to know with which institution A.
Satyanarayana works, I would very much appreciate it, as it would be
easier to correspond with him. One tension which appears in the
literature he discusses, but which he himself does not appear to address,
at least not in this article, is this: in Dalit Literature there is at the
same time a protest against the caste distinctions, and discriminations;
and a need to claim a heritage in which the Dalit can take pride. If
caste is annihilated, is this sense of heritage also lost? For example
Jaashuva says that he has two gurus, one is poverty, and one is the caste
discrimination, which gave him the power of resistance. Even the author
I quote in my signature, Kumud Pawde, says that she is grateful to the
sense of disgust she experienced in her childhood because it
motivated her to seek education with more determination.

I think this is common to narratvies of oppression, in any case I
have heard, in discussions with my classmates that it has something in
common with American slave narratives. As I read more I will be able to
discover the particular forms it takes in the Dalit context. Kumud Pawde
cites a phrase "kartumakartumanyatakartum" -- to do, not to do, or to
do otherwise. I think one of the themes of Dalit literature is to find
ways of "doing otherwise" which will address this problem of identity.

-- Aravinda

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"Waiting for a job, I passed the first year of an M.A. in English
Literature. It was just an excuse to keep myself occupied. " -- Kumud
Pawde, "The Story of my Sanskrit" http://www.columbia.edu/~ap191
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