>
> Naaku Koddo Goppo Rachanalo pravesam vundi at least up to 1990 I have
> not notice VOLGA as a writer with this much name, from the postings I saw
> I noticed one thing
>
Things change a lot in 6 years, don't they?
vOlga was a member of the 'paigambara kavulu' in late 1960s, but
she began writing seriously around 1985, and she was already gaining a
lot of fame by 1989-90. When I was in AP in 1989-90, I heard several
people talking about her novels, sahaja and maanavi. If Sri Prasad was
not familiar with vOlga in 1990, it is not because other people have not
noticed her at that time.
The last 6 years are to be described as the 'feminism and daLit'
era in Telugu literature. With her leadership of both feminism and feminist
literature (two separate, but related entities) in AP, vOlga has become a
lot more famous now.
Her 'intro' to the 'neeli mEghaalu' anthology, her poetry
-particularly the poem relating to mehindipaTnamu, her novels and her
short story anthologies published in the last 5 years were critically
acclaimed. The yearly anthologies of best short stories published in
Telugu (edited by SivaSankar and Naveen) regularly contain her short
stories. So, she is clearly a lot more famous now than in 1990.
I think tODu is one of the best short stories published in Telugu
in the last decade.
(About the rest of the original post talking about a specific topic of
one of vOlga's stories: it does appear that the comments arose out of only a
superficial familiarity with the title of the story, but not out of even
a superficial reading of the story. So, I do not see much point in
discussing it further at this stage).
>... I am still at loss why we are reacting so much to VOLGA's US trip.
>
She is here and some of the frequent posters got to meet her.
So, it is not unusual for that to result in a series of posts (remember
vempaTi's koochipooDi tour a couple of years ago?).
She is the leader of both a social and a literary movement
- one with whose details many of us are not fully familiar with and are
curious to know more about.
She has impressed some of us -both with her literary
talent as well as her thoughtfulness about some important issues.
Some of us are also impressed by her commitment to the cause she
passionately believes in.
Even if some of us disagreed with her views, that would also
give rise to a few posts. Then there are some of us that post about why
we she should talk about her. That gives rise to a few more posts.
Those are enough reasons, I would think.
> I expressed my views and request any response on a personal mail rather
> changing TELUSA as flame field.
Once somebody expresses their views on a public forum, they
should expect the responses to be conveyed in the same forum, particularly
when the original post contains contestable implications. This post is
not intended as a flame, but as an explanation of why I consider vOlga as
one of the foremost Telugu writers of the current day.
Regards. -- V. Chowdary Jampala