The revolutionary tag to his poetry prevents the government from celebrating the anniversaries of Sri Sri openly. His admirers are far too intellectual to show their love for the poet-cum-lyricist to pay floral tributes for his statues on his anniversaries.
While a few of his fans garlanded his statue in Visakhapatnam, the place of his birth, there were no garlands decorating his bust in the compound of the Tummalapalli Kalakshetram here on his 33rd death anniversary on Wednesday.
Despite these drawbacks, anthologies of Sri Sri’s poems and collections of songs he wrote for Telugu films continue to sell like hot cakes in all book festivals and shops. He is also the most quoted Telugu writer. There is not a political meeting, wherein, he is not quoted. Though his writings bear the ‘revolutionary’ and ‘progressive’ labels even the rightists and the so-called ‘fundamentalists’ quote him.
Sri Sri’s influence instead of waning with time seems to be getting stronger with literary critics and academics still showing a keen interest in his works.
Andhra Pradesh Writers’ Association office-bearer and an active leader of the Telugu Movement G.V. Purnachand said: “Sri Sri’s literary and popular works are alive and kicking when compared to that of his contemporary writers like Viswanatha Satyanarayana, Devulapalli Krishna Sastry and others.”
“No introduction is necessary for Sri Sri. He is better known to the younger generations than writers of his time,” Dr. Purnachand said.
Though he is tagged as revolutionary and progressive, none of the leftist movements seem to want to associate with Sri Sri now.
Left parties that seem to be on some sort of soul searching in the country have stopped being sponsors of Sri Sri’s works and so have the so-called extremists, like naxalites, now calling themselves Maoists, Dr. Purnachand said.
Though the writings of Sri Sri seem to be making their ways into society by the power of their own momentum, the work of a literary organisation, the Sri Sri Sahitya Nidhi, in unearthing, collecting, publishing and promoting not only the works of the poet but that of others who written on him, cannot be underrated.
Valuable contribution
All Sri Sri admirers agree that what the Sahitya Nidhi founder Singampalli Ashok Kumar has been doing is invaluable. He is publishing the complete works of Sri Sri and also the critiques and treatise of others on him. Mr. Ashok Kumar said the Sahitya Nidhi had been publishing a bulletin for the past nine years and distributing it to a limited number of literary enthusiasts free of cost. He set for himself the targeting of publishing 100 volumes on the poet’s work. He said that Sahitya Nidhi had been selling Sri Sri books in the Vijayawada Book Festival for the past five years with an overwhelming response from book lovers.
Correction
This story has been corrected for an error
