Reading Arudra in Kolkata

My knowledge of Telugu writings is ver fragmentary but I knew about Arudra from his film songs (particularly Premalekhalu from around 1852) and his very impressive Samagra Andhra Sahityam. Visiting a friend's house in Kolkata, I came across a number of books by Arudra and a few about him. I have been browsing throuh some of them and find Arudra very impressive. From the biography 'Arudra' by Medipalli Ravikumar, Ifind that Arudra (original name Bhagavatula Shankara Sastry) was rebellios, scholarly and creatve from a very young age. Apparently, he refused to have a thered ceremony, dropped out of college to take part of the freedom movement, and later bcame a Marxist. But he did not seem to be like many other Marxists. As A.S. Ramman says in 'Words cast a spell'(publiahed in Arudra Abhinandana Sanchika, on the occasion of his 60th birthday in 1985):
" He is a Marxist who readily responds to the literary graces of the bourgeois West, an athesist who wrote exquisite devotional poetry, a non-conformist whom conformists find irrestible because of the authenticity of his dissent, and pacifist who advocates war for peace."
Apart several poetry books, plays, stories there are many scholarly books, some on two of my favourite poets: Vemana and Gurajada. From his two books on Vemana (Vemana Vedam and Mana Vemana), it appears that Vemana was not just a clever epigramist that I imagined but had deep knowledge of various philosophies of his time, found them unsatifactory, tried to go beyond then and expressed his thoughts in the language and idiom understandable to common people. Thus his stanzas remained in people's cosciousness, particularly after they were made available by C.F. Brown. Eventhough many pundits did not like his work (when some of his poems were prescribed by Madras Ujversity, copies of the book disappeared and there was a strike by some students and teachers, according to Narla Venkateswara Rao in his introductory articles to "vemana, Pacchatyulu"), Arudra also shows Vemana's influence on several poets. He also brings his formidable knowledge of classical works into play in his discuusons of everyday conversation pieces. Some of these are in his newspaper articles and leaves the discussion usually withe comment that the topic needs futher research. It seems that all his works are worth pursuing. Medipalli Ravikumar's "Arudra" has a comprehensive list of his writings. A book on popular science that he wrote is missing from the list. It is possible that are more works missing. From Ravikumar's book one finds that Arudra wrote under several psedonyms in his younger days. Some of the pseudonyms are Sankaram, Sankarasastry, Chotasastry, Junior Ashwini,Tingu Rangarao, Samidheni Savitri, Markandeyudu, Vamakshi, Haridasu and Konetirao. Possibly some more may be found in the old magazines and newspapers.