If there’s a lesson waiting to unfold from late Achyuta Ramam’s life story, it would be of the need to push one’s creative pursuits to the fullest and sustain the thirst for knowledge irrespective of age. The rather simplistic exterior of the Kakinada-born (who died in 1984 and whose 95th birth anniversary was held recently in Hyderabad) is a contrast to his multi-faceted personality, whose life was consistently bound by music, literature and spirituality since the age of five. After clearing the Civil Services exam and serving at several levels at the Railway Board and BHEL, Ramam tasted success in several crafts and roles he took up. He also seamlessly switched from a managerial role to composing and writing kirtanas, singing them, also penning essays, translating epics, directing, acting and scripting plays. Offering a taste of his abilities to this generation, one of his three children Akella Venkateshwar and son-in-law M S Prakasa Rao have taken efforts to publish his writings in English and Telugu in the book form.
“Reading out the Valmiki Ramayana to his grandma with inquisitiveness to understand the nuances of the epic was where everything started,” Akella Venkateshwar recounts, from what he’s seen and heard from his father. Ramam not only knew and understood the essence of the epic thoroughly but also ended up translating it into Telugu (in ‘ragada’ poetry form in Bala Kanda and Sundara Kanda). For this, he took some grammatical liberties, in an effort to reach out to people. This continued with the translations of Soundarya Lahari, Sivananda Lahari, Bhaja Govindam and Sri Lakshmi Narasimha Karavalamba Stotram. The beauty here was Ramam’s ability to go beyond literal translation and add quite a bit of his understanding to the poems/slokas.
What separated Ramam from his contemporaries and veterans was his ability to interlink music, management and mythology (presented in the book Mixed Bag, a collection of his English essays). Ramam’s strength was invariably to draw different analogies from the same scene. An instance from one of his books presents the interaction of Krishna and Arjuna during the Kurukshetra battle in an interesting light, where the former is believed to be a manager who convinces his sub-ordinate to fulfil his duty. “It’s similar to what Devadutt Patnaik is doing now where a writer looks at mythological parts as characters and not Gods as such,” he adds.
Venkateshwar’s memory of his father includes seeing him wake up in the early ‘brahma muhurtam’ hours and start writing his drafts in the puja room that also had portraits of Vemana, Pothana and Ramadasu. The role of Achyuta Ramam’s wife Suryakantham is also significant; a classical musician herself, in adding value to the former’s kirtanas (which bear influences of Tyagaraja and Ramadasu’s compositions) set in specific ragas, inspired by the vaggeyakaras. While Suryakantham’s focus was on the structure and the raga, Ramam’s interest was on the bhava. His son-in-law vividly recollects Ramam singing many Tyagaraja kritis on car drives during the times he spent at Delhi. Interestingly, Vyzarsu Balasubramanyam, who sang these select set of kirtanas, released in a CD form (along with D Sesha Chary of the Hyderabad brothers) , mentions that Achyuta Ramam satisfies every ‘vaggeyakara lakshanam’. The reference point for them was the recordings of the Yadagirigutta temple management where Ramam had given a concert. Besides, traditional music, Ramam was a connoisseur of outdoor sports and film music too.
Venkateshwar and M S Prakasa Rao in fact confess their guilt in being late to release his books (almost 32 years after his death). The problem was also their busy schedules and locating his drafts and manuscripts. “I needed a person who could proof-read his works thoroughly. I’d noticed such interest first from Emesco (publishing house)’s Chandrasekhar Reddy (besides B V R K Prasad), who’d told that my father’s works were a treasure trove and wondered what I was doing with them all along.” Some of his writings here include the discourses he’d given at temples and articles published in the management column of The Hindu in the early 1980s.
Gollapudi Maruthi Rao put it aptly at the book launch ceremony: “By 62, the man achieved in life what many can’t even dream of when they turn 100. His works are not only informative but interpretative and incisive too.”
Some of Ramam’s traits have definitely passed onto the next generation. While Ramam’s late elder daughter had a formidable music background, Venkateshwar was a regular debater at college and university levels, a visiting faculty at the IIM, has been among television panels for several managerial discussions, having also given mridangam concerts. Ramam’s grandson who currently stays in the US also plays the fusion flute. His great grand daughter Dendukuri Soumya is a growing vocalist; she performed on one of his kirtanas during the book launch. “We feel gifted to inherit some of our father’s traits,” says Venkateshwar, more grateful than proud.
Besides opening the books to e-commerce sites, the next challenge for Venkateshwar is to release the e-book versions of his father’s works. He already has a team in place that’ll work on the digital aspects. To keep the legacy of Achyuta Ramam alive and ensure his works reach out to many more people, Venkateshwar and Prakasa Rao have also opened a trust called Ramamrutham.
