Re: Nanduri Subbarao in his own words on Yenki pATalu

Srini (srini@usiva.com)
Mon, 24 Feb 97 15:35:12 EST 

 Sri Ari Sitaramayya wrote:

> Some times when the author is writing a beautiful piece of poetry with an
> unambiguous aim, his biases creep in unintentionally. Should those be
> ignored?
> 
> For example:
> 
>       kollAyi gaTTitE nEmI
>       mA gAndhi
>       kOmaTai puTTitE nEmI
> 
> The poet is praising Gandhi of course.
> He is also saying that Gandhi rose above his genetics.
> As a Komati, should I be thrilled about this piece?

  I agree poet is saying that Gandhiji rose above his caste. But I am not sure 
if that is an insult to that caste itself. Infact I thought members of that 
caste should feel proud of Gandhiji born with similar social heritage,
achieving so much with his non-violence, truth and integrity that he stands 
tall among all men of the world for many generations to come. I am proud he is 
Indian. Since you yourself are convinced about the genuineness of the poet's 
intention, I do not think it is a good idea to drop such pieces of inspiring 
poetry. I read the poem in my childhood and even now it inspires me and never 
felt that it was or has anything to do about putting down Gandhiji's caste.

   I think language or poetry is just an outer expression for inner feelings
and thoughts. And being hammered with Electronics and Computer Engg. I also 
have some "bias", so forgive me please! I think human feelings are "analog" in 
nature and not "digital"! Also no matter what language or poetical expressions 
we use,all are discretised tokens and it is impossible to completely capture the
magnitude of the breadth and depth of the spectrum of human thoughts, feelings 
and experiences in terms of the non-analog tokens of words or sounds. That 
itself introduces some "quantization noise" or error! That is why we hear people
saying "dont read literally, but understand the spirit of it", because it is 
extremely difficult and sometimes impossible to express _COMPLETELY_ certain 
human experiences in terms of lifeless, state and pale tokens of words! And to 
the extent the author can clearly communicate the spirit, I think to that extent
he succeeded in his endeavor. Well, you know how much I "succeeded" now!:-) 
Besides, if we start reading literally, we lose all the beauty, charm and grace 
of many expressions that bring liveliness to the language.

Some funny or not so funny instances I recall are:
1. Women feeling they are being put down whenever someone uses "mankind" word!
2. Men feeling they are treated "unfairly" when women are described as 
   "fairer sex"! 
3. Myself and my friends feel strange whenever they call us "aliens"  in
   all immigration forms as if we are from some StarTrek planet! 
 
> I say, Amen! We can't continue to insult people and claim that we are
> above the biases.

 It is the spirit that is more important than the letters. It is easier to 
determine if one "insulted" other people, than to determine if there is "bias".
Who can proclaim that they have absolutely no bias whatsoever? Yet, we have 
power to gracefully express without "insulting". Isn't it?  

 With best regards
 -Srinivas Nagulapalli