Rivers, the beds of life, fascinated him, embraced him, overwhelmed him, and made him weep. For those who do not know, Ande Sri, the poet who gave the new State of Telangana its official song, has toured half of the globe, in his exploration of world’s rivers.
He walked along the Nile, meditated on Congo, wondered at Amazon, and got drenched in Victoria Falls. Now he is raring to visit Europe, China and Australia for that rare spiritual communion with rivers.
This man of no letters is in fact better lettered than any one. He can intrigue the listeners with his arcane poetic description of rivers, which will soon be out in a book format with the refrain ‘Nadi nadichi pothunnadi’.
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“I gave up my work as construction labourer the moment I dipped my hands in the River Godavari in Basara, which I visited during my son’s illness. The river had a profound impact on me,” he recalled. Abandoned as an infant in his native village Rebarthi in Warangal, he received patronage under one Jakkireddy Malla Reddy and later, many others.
Ande Sri is his pen name, and Ande Yellanna, his original, and he follows ‘Vedic Dharma’.
A friendly challenge by a bureaucrat pal has got him on the latest expedition. Since 2010, he has visited all the rivers in the country except Brahmaputra which he is hoping to see in China as River Yangtze.
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“I travelled all along the Nile up to Alexandria, and covered all the countries that the river meanders through,” he said, beaming with pride, “I stayed in a houseboat on Amazon for 10 days.”
River Zambezi and Victoria Falls in Zambia, Iguazu Falls in Brazil, River Congo and 14 islands on Amazon are other sites which fascinated him.
Returning to his song ‘Jaya Jayahe Telangana Janani Jaya Ketanam’, he asserts that it is no longer his. It has become the Telangana people’s the moment they owned it up, he says.
“I want no eternal glory out of the song. After the sapling breaks out of the seed, the seed exists no more. The glory belongs to all,” he says eloquently, and wonders why he is being chased by all, a decade after he penned the song.
The song was first sung by him in the Adilabad meeting of Telangana Writers’ Forum in November, 2003, and later adopted by many organisations and schools in replacement ‘Maa Telugu Talliki..’ Music for the song was composed by Ramachari.
Another song ‘Mayamai pothunnadamma…’ too brought many laurels to Ande Sri.