A Literary Conference of Cultural Value

LITERARY CONFERENCE OF CULTURAL VALUE

The two-day conference conducted by Vemuri Chandravati Ramanadham Charitable Trust on 7-8 February, 1998, in the P.S. Telugu University, Hyderabad, was an event of cultural value. It was the second annual programme devoted to the subject of Telugu Poetry in four sessions, respectively on Verse (Padya), Lyric (Geya), Folk (Janapada) and Prose (Vachana). There was a paper on each topic by a scholar of eminence. A chief discussant, who had access to the paper in advance, made prepared comments: and a general discussion ensued in which the scholarly audience participated.

The conclusion was that the form of the written was a subordinate consideration, while the essential element to look for was the poetic quality of the words used. The choice of words, word combinations (e.g. ‘samasas’), figures of speech (‘alankaras’), which have a unique quality of beauty in the Indian languages - especially in Sanskrit and Telugu - have an important place, no doubt: but for superior and covetable is the poetic quality, ‘kavitatma’. Subject and the meter does not matter much. However, some topics have greater relevance to a given time and region and tend to be relatively popular, e.g., the ‘geya’ and ‘vachana’ forms.

The intrinsic beauty of the ‘verse’ form in Telugu was brought out in the course of the discussions. There were even attempts made at imputing a ‘metre’ to ‘vachana’ or prose poetry, though what made it glorious was its poetic appeal a point that was consistently emphasised by the conference.

The ‘geya’ stood midway between the verse and prose, and has a rhythm, a major characteristic of the old ‘metres’, observed with far greater freedom on the part of the author. As this weakens, we get into prose poetry. This is what applies to Telugu. The ‘folk’ compositions are almost invariably a special version of the ‘geya’, with far greater freedom in the use of diction as well. One major characteristic of this lies in the spoken style, rather than the style of the books, ‘grandhika’ which, incidentally, has been given up by authors, except in verse and some ‘geyas’. The direct appeal of the ‘geya’, the folk compositions and some prose poems in certain contexts was emphasised. There was a passing reference to the very diverse quality of ‘vachana’ (prose) poems usually found today.

An interesting finding, which came out of the discussions, was that the ‘geya’ was hiding within certain traditional metres like the ­‘seesa’. This could be, and was, demonstrated. A suggestion was made that the many ‘geyas we already had, could usefully be analysed to establish their amenability to ‘new’ metres, i.e., metres other than the traditional ones.

The conference was, chaired by Mrs. Nayani Krishnakumari, Vice-Chancellor of the Potti Sriramulu Telugu University, and co-chaired by Professor V.V. Ramanadham, Chainnan of the Trust with long UN connection, both poets in their own right. The well-known Professors N. V. Ramakrishnanacharylu, Kalaprapurna B. Rajnikanta Rao, Kasireddi Venkatareddi and Chekuri Rama Rao were those that presented the scholarly papers.