A person who wielded the gun and led a harsh life in the forests of Srikakulam for five years as a revolutionary in the early 70s, takes solace in English poetry. He claims that poetry helped him combat mental illness.
M. Sarat Babu, who retired as English Professor and Principal of Silver Jubilee College, met with a road accident in the city three years ago and lost his memory completely. After partial recovery, he started reading poetry and taught at Rayalaseema University as professor emeritus. He claims that poetry worked wonders for him as it helped heal him along with medicine. Dr. Sarat Babu, who was born into a hardcore communist family at Guntur, left his studies after SSLC and joined the underground cadres in Srikakulam district in 1969 where the revolutionary movement under the leadership of Charu Mazumdar took birth.
Worked under stalwartsADVERTISEMENT
He worked with stalwarts like Chaganti Bhaskar Rao, an ophthalmologist-turned revolutionary, Panigrahi Subbarao, revolutionary writer P. Krishnanamuthy, Venkatapu Satyam and Adibotla Kailasam.
At one of high-level sessions, Sarat Babu along with another colleague seriously disputed the claim of Charu Mazumdar that India would be liberated within five years.
After abandoning underground life, he returned to Guntur in 1973 and appeared for SSC privately, completed intermediate and joined graduation at Silver Jubilee College. On the advice of his principal, he completed MA in English in 1983 and joined the government service as assistant lecturer. Even though he changed the profession, the revolutionary in Dr. Sarat Babu did not die as he proclaims that children gain very little by attending school. They can gain more by observing society.
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According to him, students are shackled by a big syllabus and books which carry more myths and a few facts.
Only science is a universal subject, taught with objectivity everywhere while other subjects are bogged down by beliefs, opinions and commentaries.