NEW DELHI, February 13: "Once the person playing Hanuman fell ill, so we got a hefty Pathan to fill in for him. But when it came to lifting the Sanjeevani mountain, despite shouting Jai Bajrangbali the Pathan was unable to lift it. Finally he said Ya Allah and succeeded."This anecdote comes from a poets youth in Balrampur; a description of a Ramlila years before in the shady recesses of the memory of Jnanpeeth awardee Professor Narayan Reddy, a Rajya Sabha member.
He has one book to his name for every year of his life. The prolific septuagenarian has written 67 books - 50 volumes of poetry and an assortment of plays, ballets, translations and travelogues.
In this 50th year of Independence, the professor says, "My advent as a poet coincided with Independence. The country was free on August 15, 1947, but Telengana was still under the rule of the Nizam." He was a standard 10 student when his birth place Telengana was liberated in September 1948.
On Thursday he shared the platform withawardee AliSardar Jafri at the 13th World Book Fair in Pragati Maidan. The professor who won the award for his Telugu poems grew up on the works of Jafri and Majrooh Sultanpuri, among others. In fact, his has had an Urdu-medium education right until graduation.
Reddy finds it difficult to identify one language as his own. "All languages are mine. I dislike linguistic intolerance, and this is reflected in my poetry." A perusal of his verse will find haunting images of death. Take for instance the lines: "...If Death approaches me/ to receive her, I'll feed her milk,/ sing her a lullaby and put her to sleep."
Provoked by a question from a member of the audience whether English is a global language, Reddy's speech was followed by a heated discussion on its status and importance.
National Book Trust chairman Sumithindra Nadig, a Kannada poet and English professor, seemed to display his own intolerance by lashing out at the gentleman.
As voices were raised and the murmur of discontent threatened to erupt intoa terrible row, Jafri brushed back his long hair with his fingers and quietly spoke into the mike: "Looking at the way this discussion is going, I have decided to speak in Urdu."
He didn't have a prepared speech, but the poet was at his eloquent best as he spoke about the importance of Urdu and the misconceptions surrounding it: "The two lies of democracy are that Urdu is Pakistani and Urdu is not connected to any Indian language. In fact, Urdu is from the same Indo-Sanskritic group as Bengali, Marathi etc."
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
