SUDDALA ASHOK TEJA

LYRICS

Visalaandhra Publishing House Suddala Ashok Teja Lyrics

Publication No. : 2350/481 No. of Copies : 1000 First Edition : December, 2013 (2013 Visalaandhra Publishing House Diamond Jubilee Year)

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© Suddala Ashok Teja

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Cover Design: Lordly Digital Parthu

Photography: S. Haragopal

Printing: Pragati Offset Pvt. Ltd., India. www.pragati.com ii | Suddala Ashok Teja Lyrics I Welcome

I feel happy to stand at the threshold of a collection some of the best songs written by Ashok Teja Suddala. I welcome the readers from near and far lands. They will find here one of the finest song makers of contemporary .

Here is a poet who inherited the spirit of poetry along with the spirit of social protest from his father, Hanmanthu Suddala, who was a legend in his lifetime and still remains an immortal balladeer in public memory. Since Hanmanthu had to live in the days of utter darkness, his songs sang of darkness, as Breht hoped. But Ashok Teja sang not only about the suffering of life, but also of its spirit too. While his father made poems out of flames Ashok weaved poetry out of dust. He tinged his poetry with the green of the land and grey of the times.

His is a journey in identifying his self, asserting himself amidst a sea of hurdles and breaking into a song with all the reveling of a butterfly and the energy of a fountain. He had to make a living as a boy, salesman, volunteer and a teacher and like Gorky he made the best of every opportunity that life offered him. He has seen the length and breadth of contemporary strife and sickness. Had it been a lesser mortal he would have succumbed to either sorcery or cursing. But Ashok wanted to become a poet and make living as a poet. After years of agony in wilderness he returned as a poet with the cheerfulness of a child and the simplicity of a saint.

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There is something in his poetry that makes you to go back to your roots. Listening to him I often take off on a voyage into the distant recesses of my childhood. Like the singing of Nasrat Fateh Alikhan his voice reminds you of the villages, the drums and dances of the fairs and festivals and the songs of the transplantations and the harvests. One theme that consistently runs through his poetry is his reverence and deep felt gratitude to the woman - woman as a mother, a companion, a worker and a fellow worker. Often he wonders at the kind of sacrifice that woman could offer for sustenance of mankind. His every song unfailingly ends into a salutation to woman as his source of inspiration. For him the land is woman personified, life is woman manifest!

It added another dimension to Ashok Teja’s poetry when he started writing for films. Telugu is primarily a musical language. If a poet could grasp the lyrical nature of he would be successful as a film lyricist also. Ashok Teja knows the secret of this musicality. Once writing on the poetry of Gurazada, Sri Sri said, Gurajada’s poetry hisses like a serpent and roars like a lion. One can make a similar observation on

Suddala Ashok Teja Lyrics | iii the songs of Ashok Teja. They are soft and vigorous at the same time. His vocabulary drawn from everyday speech undergoes a metamorphosis with the imagery drawn out from his varied experience and acquires a timbre of a symphony.

One finds this much more articulate in his film lyrics. They made his heart an open gallery where every listener could find his own mirror images. As a second generation poet of modern Telangana, he sang about his society that passed through a transition from a feudal order to a democratic process. Unlike earlier generation poets, he can no longer sing in isolation nor like a martyr in a prison. He is aware that he is neither distinct nor different from any other man of his times. He had to live with them and in their midst only, as any other normal human being lives. This awareness to normality made his poetry exceptional. The same ordinariness when tuned into film songs sounds extraordinary.

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It is very difficult for a non – native reader to appreciate the beauty of this poetry in translation. All of us are responsible for this collectively. We chose to stay away from introducing our poets and our poetry to the readers of neighbor and distant languages. It is not as if our poetry had not been translated into English. There have been translations. This may not be the context to evaluate the quality of those translations. But what I would impress upon is that we are not really keen on recreating our poems into English consistently as a number of other language speakers do.

One reason for this diffidence could be that the task of translating a Telugu padyam or a gitam into English is often very demanding and yet at the same time a dissuading effort. By its very nature, prosody of English can never comprehend the nuances of prosody of Telugu. For that matter, no two prosodies are commensurable. Yet, lovers of poetry all over the world have not given up amusing themselves in translating a Japanese Haiku, an Urdu Gazal or a Greek Ode into their own languages however extremely dissimilar they may be.

There is something in poetry that is beyond language. Herself a competent translator and co editor of ‘World Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from Antiquity to Our Time’ (W.W.Norton& Co.,1997), Katharine Washburne, wrote in her intro to the anthology that “Robert Frost’s dismissive remark that ‘poetry is what gets lost in translation’ is famous, less celebrated is Octavio Paz’s response that ‘poetry is what gets translated”. I can never forget this sentence.

As an avid student of poetry, after years of struggle to locate the ‘poetry’ within a poem, I realized that poetry is the current that passes along the language rather than through it,

iv | Suddala Ashok Teja Lyrics as electricity passes along the copper wire. If the poet weaves his poem from out of the burning flame of his heart, the warmth does not fail to reach whoever comes across that, whatever language he may speak. There language can no longer stand as a barrier. We can cite any number of examples. Readers in America who are strangers to Persian have no difficulty in feeling Jalaluddin Rumi as their own. People who do not know how to make out an Egyptian hieroglyph have been least relenting in constantly pursuing the Pyramid Texts. A reader like me from India, who can not decipher even a single Chinese character , has faced no limitation in subscribing his whole time to reading and rereading translations of Li-Bai and Du-Fu in different versions in English.

We know that a poem grows. It is true for translation also. Translation is a dynamic process. The same poet when translated again and again into a particular language appears as if he is scaling new heights and plunging into new depths with every fresh translation. Compare the translations of the poetry of Rilke into English. The latest translations of Edward Snow bring out a new Rilke whom we find altogether different from the one that we have seen in the early translations of last century. The same magic is felt in reading Rumi in different translations from that of Nicholson to those contemporary renderings by American masters like Coleman Barks and Robert Bly.

I assure myself that this is the first generation translation of Ashok Teja into English. I congratulate the translator for having taken up such an endeavor. She broke the ice. I hope these poems would allure readers across the globe to demand for more and more translations of Ashok Teja’s poetry. In years to come, I hope readers from continents and countries as distant as Africa or Peru would find a poet akin to them, as we find their poets such as a Senghor or a Vallejo.

Hyderabad Vadrevu Chinaveerabhadrudu

Suddala Ashok Teja Lyrics | v Enchanting Poems of Suddala Ashok Teja

SUDDALA ASHOK TEJA is a well-known Telugu Poet, Lyricist and Singer. His lyrics which are down to earth reflect myriad aspects of life. He speaks for the poor and the downtrodden. He reveres the earth, loves the soil, caresses the crops, cares for villages, respects tradition, sustains culture, pays tributes to martyrs, laments over the plundering of nature, depicts pastoral life, worries over human conflicts, seeks peace, respects women and pleads for their rights and rightful place.

One who reads Ashok Teja’s poems reads life itself – large, too complex but enchanting and overwhelming. One cannot ignore the underlying melancholy. Over and above there is an optimist who gives hope of new life and new dawn.

Suddala Ashok Teja’s poems are rooted to soil. The poet sees life in all its aspects and presents the same in varied colours. Nature is his teacher. Human love is his discipline. Hardships are his touchstone. His canvas is vast. His vision is wide. In one glance he captures the u8niverse. In one sweep he gathers beauties from the Himalayas to Kanyakumari.

Ashok Teja is a spontaneous poet. Words gush out from his heart like natural spring. His language is simple and direct appealing to emotions, drawing word pictures, transporting the reader to yet another world created by the poet. Certainly he is a people’s poet with a magic touch that makes ordinary extraordinary, simple sights artistic and day to day incidents out of this world experiences.

Yes, Ashok can do all this and much more when he sings lyrics in his mellifluous voice and keeps his audience enthralled.

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Ashok Teja has established himself as a poet, lyricist and singer in Telugu and has a niche of his own in poetic world.

It will be a gross injustice if a remarkable talent of his is confined to his own language and only to Telugu speaking people. It is time he reached out to the readers and audience in other languages as well. His lyrics and songs should flow seamlessly beyond borders.

This collection of poems titled, “Lyrics of Suddala Ashok Teja” by Swatee Sripada is one such effort in this direction. The book contains fifty three poems taken from Telugu version, “Nelamma, Nelamma “ . The colourful and charming poems included in this volume indeed present kaleidoscope pictures. Swatee who made her mark as a creative writer in Telugu has adhered to the original text in this translation and tried to be faithful while rendering into English. It is said translation is only a substitute and in Virginia Woolf’s Words “It can but offer

vi | Suddala Ashok Teja Lyrics a vague equivalent”. It is more applicable to poetry. How true Robert Frost sounds when he says, “Poetry is what gets left out in translation.

Meaning and information can be transferred but the musical quality of the word cannot be conveyed through another language. Translating poetry from one Indian language to another can work to some extent provided a translator himself is a poet and has mastery over both the languages. But the English language is different in its idiom, syntax and mode of expression from Telugu. When the original poems are rooted to soil, as is the case here, the task becomes much more daunting. Swatee Sripada has succeeded in carrying the meaning and message of Ashok Teja with all nuances in tact to English readers. But it is too much to expect the music, rhyme, rhythm and melody which are inherent in Telugu poems to manifest in English version.

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I congratulate Swatee on accomplishing a difficult task and wish Suddala Ashok Teja all the best in taking his melodies across the continents.

Ashok Teja is already well decorated with honours and awards for his extraordinary work in the field of poetry. When we think of performing poetry which is catching the fancy of the modern world from a new angle we have Ashok Teja in forefront to be counted among the accomplished poet performers. He has a long way to go. I wish him Godspeed.

New Delhi Dr. J. Bhagya Lakshmi

Suddala Ashok Teja Lyrics | vii Acknowledgements

“Whether you say it to yourself or spell it out give thanks for all that you get and express gratitude for all the things done for you”

When it comes to expression, words are deficient to say what we feel, but the feel expresses what we intend to say.

Its my minimum curtesy to express my gratitude.

Let me say thanks to Vishalandhra Pulications for their kind acceptance of the book as theirs, Pragati Printers made it an exemplary one with a touch of immaculate composing and setting, I vow my thanks Especially to the veteran genius Sri Paruchuri Hanumanthrao Gaaru, and his team for their keen interest, to Vadrevu Chinaveerabhadrudu and Dr. J. Bhagya Lakshmi for their warm welcome and good words, to Sri Ravi Thakur for his kind suggestions, Lordly digitals Parthu for the unique cover design.

Finally my friends Hara Gopal for my exclusive photograph and Swatee for her transcreation fecilitating the lyrical form in English too.

I am grateful to one and all for their helping hand.

Suddala Ashok Teja

viii | Suddala Ashok Teja Lyrics Contents P. No.

Parents ...... 2 Mother soil ...... 3 Green moon ...... 5 Mother forest ...... 7 The stars of the land ...... 8 I am a tree ...... 9 Yesterday you swayed ...... 10 My dear sisters ...... 11 O My childhood friend ...... 12 Tools 13 Tup tup tup ...... 15 A stone, a ram ...... 17 I am a woman ...... 18 Woman Born on the land of Veda’s ...... 20 Mother I am a girl ...... 21 Chandramma ...... 22 As a mother ...... 24 A female ...... 25 Is this my village? ...... 26 Where did the festivals go? ...... 27 No equivalent ...... 28 The song of life ...... 29 Rock a bye baby ...... 31 Our unfortunate land ...... 32 The debt of mother milk ...... 34 Indian continent ...... 35 The city is in slumber as if walking in sleep ...... 36 In the liberated India ...... 38 Lullaby ...... 39 What happened mother Godavari ...... 40 …My salutes to you my dear wife ...... 41 Work is the epic ...... 42 Real beauty ...... 44 Education violence ...... 45 Young Beard ...... 48 A song for the child sings this wind ...... 49 One life ...... 51 Is the village dawning? ...... 52 The fisherman ...... 54 Be prosperous ...... 56 If the word gets aggravated ...... 57 O mother O mother O My mother India ...... 58 Dancing Shiva ...... 60 I am the goddess ...... 62 Watch the TV; watch the movie ...... 63 Pure heart ...... 64 Drops, drops and drops ...... 65 At the End ...... 66 RTC Bus ...... 68 Whimper of a police...... 69 Endless pain of mother Godavari ...... 71 Swami ...... 72

Suddala Ashok Teja Lyrics | 1 Parents

Mother is the goddess father the god Life giving Father and mother Are the angels visible to us

Mother! I know your dream became my eyeball now You have given me birth at the stake of your life Your lump of blood is this handsome body For the life light of a child mother’s milk is the oil

Father I know I learned walking on your heart With your forefinger I glimpsed this world If I adore father it reaches the god I know well that father is a ladder between mother and the creator ……………

2 | Suddala Ashok Teja Lyrics Mother soil

Mother soil mother soil mother soil Thousands of salutes to you mother soil A slender sprinkle leaps you delighted Makes you a mother every year Make the wind a swing and water the breast milk Carry that along the plants on either side, throughout and in wings Young Crops bend down The elated farmer happily Lift the crop child on to the wheels Your motherly tummy explodes

Mother when you are laughing, you are a wet land If the door of your heart opens It’s a coal mine Though your body gets dug out And your mind shoveled Your children struggle for food and It’s the struggle within you For everyday smooth running For a long life of a centenary For your sons roaming in your belly, You may be circling around the sun temple

The Nile smeared oil to you The Ganges given you the head bath Ho yang ho applied sandal wood elegantly Vibrant flowers in continents Nightingales and canaries That silver hill too Assembled on Your sympathetic heart The flag Though you have all these You can’t see the blood tears of men And you shiver

Suddala Ashok Teja Lyrics | 3 My dear mom your soil is gold That is the vermilion on the forehead Mother your warmth A delicious sameness Never count our faults and bluster Never leave us Though we take birth as royal kings or the poor in poverty You burn the fire of your son’s pyres on your body Not even gods have a mother like you

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