sinAre viswamBara
Ramarao, Ram (Ram_Ramarao@tri.sbc.com)
Thu, 14 Aug 1997 14:18:06 -0500
I know that a large fraction of people acquainted with kavita literature
dislike / hate / put down / make fun of sinAre's works. In fact, I don't
have a good opinion either: I believe that some of his film lyrics are
far better than most of his "declared to be serious" works. Not
withstanding any of this, he has been quite successful in being
recognized as a national-level poet through the gnAna pITa award. Also,
I have seen a number of Ph.D. theses where the authors provide glorious
descriptions of him and his works. While it is tempting to say that all
this is due to his political acumen, cultivation of the right contacts,
and being in a powerful job, I wonder if there is more to it - some
really remarkable stuff in his works that the nay-sayers are missing.
So I recently read his "viswamBara," praised to be his seminal work. It
also got him several awards including the one mentioned above. I am
sorry to say that I felt sad after reading it. While the attempt he
makes there to celebrate human spirit is laudable, the way he does it is
laughable (couldn't resist it!). Since I am certain there have been
discussions on this work previously on scit / telusa (I remember seeing
a post by someone on the first couple of pages from viswamBara), I am
not going to say any specific things about the contents of this work.
But as I alluded to above, my intention is to know what is good about
this work than what is not. I found a book on this subject, "viswamBara
- anuSIlana" by Sri G. rAmaSEshayya. While this author clearly is
awe-struck by the work, I find him lacking in expressive power to say
convincingly why he likes it so much.
Some questions I keep asking myself: are we "on the other side" using
very high standards in judging cinAre's works unfairly? are the
so-called critics who praise, doing it for polical / selfish reasons
rather than using neutral literary standards? are his works so distinct
from others that they need unconventional standards to measure? is he so
great (say, standing above the other stalwarts of recent Telugu
literature like SriSri, Tilak, Arudra) that we are not even equipped to
fully appreciate his work? For instance, I see no depth in this "Modern
Epic (Dr. AmarEndra), "Contemporary epic" (Dr. Siv K. Kumar), "itihAsa
mahAkAvyam" (Dr. G.V. Subrahmanyam). What do they see that I don't?
Hence, my call to all cinAre fans out there (hope this is not a null
set): please tell me if you can, are there any critical, unbiased
reviews of this work either on the net or outside? if they are on the
net, post them to telusa but if it is a common knowledge article, then
simply email to me. Thanks in advance.
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** K.V.S. Ramarao **
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