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Musings.....

Munnangi Madhu Babu - Arundhathi

Musings

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W hen head When head theorises theorisesanything, anything, Heart Heart fails fails to to prove prove itself. itself. pain, pain, I It tss now now a ap ain, T o he bot he ea ad d and and h he eart! art! bot he hh T o bo th T o my he pr ove m my pr yh eart, art, op rove T he Head Head needs needs to to be be proved proved first. first. th ere wor now, rt th ere e is is no no wo wor rld ld now now,, F Fo or her T o any th lone nely he acc th islo lone nely he any oac acc yt his lyh eart. art. pan T co om mp Only Only head head to to heart. heart. And And heart heart to to head. head. As As my my thoughts thoughts rise, rise, So do my feelings. - Arundhathi

I served you for the ages in many ways While you inhumanly humiliated me always You imposed upon me crude rules and forced untouchability While I cultivated your land to produce food and sustainability You made me without land and health While I laboured to multiply your wealth You bayed at me and kicked me like an ass Yet I bore your hegemony patiently like an ascetic I was ordered not to spit on the soil While you spit upon me endlessly to spoil - Madhubabu

of of a a Daughter Daughter and and Dad Dad

Munnangi Madhubabu Munnangi Arundhathi

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Musings
of a Daughter and Dad

Munnangi Madhubabu Munnangi Arundhathi

Ratnanjali Publications Hyderabad

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ISBN 978-93-5137-940-9

Mus in gs of a Dau gh te r and Dad usin ings Daugh ght

A collection of Poems by

Munnangi Madhu Babu

First Published Cover Design Images courtesy Price Printed at For Copies

: : : : : :

03-02-2014 Mohan Chitta Prasad 75/Akruti Publications

M.Madhu Babu

Email

# 8-4-549/279 Netaji Nagar, Erragadda Hyderabad - 500 018 Ph: 9848530432 : m.madhubabu.2012@gmail.com

to the most reverred teachers who inspired numerous youth and students
Sri Dokka Manikya Vara Prasada Rao
Minister for Rural Development & MGNREGS

Dedicated

All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a news paper, magazine, radio or television review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying and recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the poet.

Sri Mekala Bhushanam

Retd.Asst.Divisional Manager LIC of India

Sri Salikiti Deva Kumar

R AT NA N JA LI P U BL IC AT I O NS PU
# 8-4-549/279, Netaji Nagar, Erragadda Hyderabad - 500 018 Ph: 9848530432

Advocate, High Court of A.P. Standing Counsel for JNTU

- Madhu Babu Arundhathi

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Index
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. You spit upon me Forgive me mother Solitude Let Her be Beside Me Justice Ostracized A New Dawn : From Waste Land To Vast Land Dispossessed Creative battle Retribution Fury of the forest Banished dream Marginalised Rebirth of a Warrior We Shall Overcome Growth is Life Casteless People Nest of a Bird A New Beginning Reflection of True Image A Beautiful Day Hope Milestones "Finited-Infinite" ness of Time Departure of my heart The Fact of the Fate Musings My Heartbeat goes away Words speak louder than Actions Modern man-still Ancient Dreams come true Thought The Rain Comparison Waiting for Freedom Journey Disguised Conflict of Head and Heart Things remained Weaker than the vanished The beautiful sunset Untrodden destination Rising ember From losing to becoming lonely An endless attempt
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2 4 6 7 8 10 12 14 15 17 22 23 26 28 29 30 36 37 38 39 40 42 43 45 46 48 50 52 55 58 60 62 64 66 68 69 71 73 75 77 79 81 83 84

Foreword............
I consider myself privileged to write this foreword to
the poems of Madhu Babu and his daughter Arundhathi, poems that combine beauty and pain in equal measure. As a literary work, the poems stand the test of the beautiful without falling into the trappings of romantic poetry. In other words what they will not do is take a sentimental view of the world bereft of any sense of reality. The thing about beauty in the case of these poems is that it cannot be lost in another world but must recognize the sorrows and struggles of this world. Thus one of the poems says: When I came across the street of dreams/ I felt just like its heaven/ When I came across the street of sorrow/ I felt just like a dry leaf/ When I came across the streets of life/ I cant believe/ Im jus like a falling flower In fact the poems do not even call themselves poems. They refer to themselves as musings. The Muse as in the inspirer of the poems speaks through the poets; the muse in this case is however life itself. Between the street of dreams, the street of sorrow and the streets of
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life as a reader one encounters different aspect of the muse. The streets of life are filled with struggles and hopes for the future. Thus Madhu Babu notes in his poem You spit on me You imposed upon me crude rules and forced untouchability/ While I cultivated your land to produce food and sustainability. The lines are written with an intense awareness of a painful past. The downtrodden communities produced food and created economy. In the process they were artists as well given their nature as creators. Yet what was imposed on them was a gruesome system of reality in the form of untouchability. While the poems contain an element of protest they also contain in them an element of pride. The dispossessed are not ignorant of the fact that they are the makers of history and civilization. The poems celebrate the contributions of the dispossessed. The take pride in the ability of the dispossessed to articulate their feelings and speak for themselves. In a way this is to signify the fact that the dispossessed of history were always conscious of their creative abilities as well as of the fact that they made contributions that made life meaningful for the others around them as well. The day to day reality of common lives is important for poetry in general and any poet who is serious about his or her concerns. It is in daily life that we experience both beauty and pain in equal measure. Therefore daily life is the stage on which the poet performs his or her poems. It is a stage filled with emotional conflicts. Arundhathi reflects on them in her poem Conflict of head and heart. When head theorises anything, Heart fails to prove itself. Its now a pain,
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To both head and heart! To prove my heart, Head needs to be proved first. For there is no world now, To accompany this lonely heart. Only head to heart. And heart to head. As my thoughts rise, So do my feelings. The poem is almost like an argument. However, the conflicts are also about the paradoxes that occupy our lives. Thoughts are rational while feelings are not. How does one reconcile the irreconcilable situation of the head versus the heart? The poet recognizes that there is no final solution to the conflicts that dominate our day to day life. More importantly the poems are written with an awareness of the power of language to comprehend reality. They are not the efforts of writers in a second language but the efforts of someone who wishes to use English as a medium to express a different kind of reality. They take pleasure in matching sound with sense. I sincerely see a future for both Madhu Babu and his daughter Arundhathi who have put in their best efforts in as spontaneous a way as possible to make poems out of their experience and perception of life.

K. Prakash Reddy
Associate Professor (English Literature) The English and Foreign Languages University Hyderabad
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When Madhu Babu asked me to write an introductory, I honestly expressed my inability as I have been away from literary convention and I may not applaud the genre, integrity, creativity and aesthetics of the poetry. Instead, on insistence I dare to write my point of view and I also request the esteemed readers to leave this screed and move the glances to the ecstasy of poems which are res Integra. My acquintence with Madhu Babu, a teacher now, is as old as two decades and more. I knew him as a social activist who sacrificed his higher studies for the cause of aparthied and their empowerment. After many close encounters, I realised he is not only an organizer who orates extempore speaches, but a narrator and poet is in incognito.

Avocets are born to fly........

The birds fly and the flowers blossom. The lyrical poetry authored by Madhu Babu and his daughter are overwhelming and flowed naturally as the stylistic mannerism is of prototype. The functional analysis and any comparative study may not accomplish poetic justice as these free verses were sung with feel. The objectivity and narration were intertwined with an invisible yarn of philosophical touch. There are many Indian writers who reached the heights in English literature and majority of them wrote prose on native sources. We would see a few resorted to poetry in English. The authors of this book, M.Madhu Babu and Arundhathi, who is prosecuting 10th class now, have adopted grand and ornate style in this anthology of poems of distinct and varied ideas.
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The poems are aimed at different aspects of life particularly towards redemption and human values. The irony and technique is used to fructify the poetry to reach the perspective of the writer. Eg :- I was ordered not spit on the soil While you spit upon me endlessly to spoil The poet took abundant caution in keeping the style. Mr.Madhu Babu, being a person hailed from a village and having a back ground of Ambedkar thought can only say... Eg:- Hills on either side Are like the breast of the forest She apperars like a mother Who rejoices offering Breast milk to her infant and he concludes that the wrath of the forest would end the world if the ecology is betrayed. The rhapsody of words and
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feeling in the poems about relations such as mother, wife etc., are very impressive and metaphoric. Arundhathi is so confident in expression and never lost the rhyme in construction. The reflection of personality and human conduct are her main objects. Eg :- In my sense, being among many doesnt mean to be lost, But when neither yourself nor anyone else finds what you actually are, makes you lost. Her perception of understanding the modern man is exceptional. The way she presented the Words speak louder than actions is beautifully syntacticed. This book is a synthesizer of poems spurt out with an object. Though, the poems are rendered by the writers as an attempt of novices, they have no such colour and acheives the benchmark to stand as outstanding. However, I endevoured in my own mundane fashion to present with all conscience my understanding of the poems. Though I am not connoisseur, my attempt to analyse the poems may help readers. These two writers, father and daughter may come up with some more poetry soon and I wish they produce volumes of books of this sort and distinct vareity. The avocets are born to fly and flowers blossom. This is natural phenomenon and another course is these writers write perennially. With warm regards.

Madhu Mohan..........
Advocators of pure poetry are irritant of the new
aesthetics of Dalit poets. For me the very word-phrase pure poetry is itself an absurdity. Read the poetry of Leopold Sedhar Senghor, or the poems of Namdeo Dhasal, who
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T. BALASWAMI
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passed away recently, or the poets of negritude, or the Dalit poets of India- black becomes a positive colour; metaphor of jinx turns a new harbinger. Munnamgi Madhubabu, in his poetry anthologyGaddipulu Garjistaayi enchants the crow, the raven and he replaces the conservative status of peacock as national bird with the raven. According to him, it is our sheer ignorance to elevate alien peacock that prowls in the forest eating snakes as national bird. He takes serious exception for not recognizing the raven, which is domesticated into our daily life. Elevating the raven is not a new phenomenon, as William Shakespeare refers to the raven in his works such as Othello and Macbeth. The raven is used as a supernatural messenger in Edgar Allan Poes poem The Raven. But, in Indian context, where the raven is a bad omen, Dalit poets depicted it in their new diction and Madhubabu also falls in line with his predecessors with his own vocabulary, posing a challenge to the mainstream lingual radar. This sacred radar of the mainstream is so programmed to scrutinize the vocabulary of Dalits, because by the default their language is- abusing and offending, the stinking and sacrilegious, the vulgar and violent, the crude and casteist, the rotten and rude! But, Madhu, like lotus in the mud, blossomed with his own tragic, comic, satirical and subliminal tones, with its innovative use of both desi, as well as cosmopolitan diction and idiom. Owing to my brief association with him and with his poetry, I came to know about his activism during college days.
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As I understood, he gave up his studies for the Dalit cause. He revolted against the whole system that sustained communalism and casteism. The frustration turned him into an anarchist. He threw out all the rule books. He seriously took part in the Dalit debates and activism. Of late, he resumed studies and did masters in English literature. It is the nimble and graceful movement across the fault-lines of alienation that gives his poetry its artistic distinctiveness. His seemingly straight style has a special charm and his cunning employment of metaphors, though not unfamiliar, sound fresh and untouched. Another wonderful contribution of Madhubabu is his daughter- Arundati, a school going young poetess. She is penning the poems on myriad hues of life with her own vocabulary of creativity, originality and literary pleasure. Madhus seemingly docile face of chubby cheeks and dimple chin conceals the global mosaic of anger, protest and revolutionary upsurge. Sympathy for the oppressed class ran through his poetry. One need only look at the marginalised characters in his poems: they could be goat-herds, farmers or petty politicians, but none was above the poverty line. It is pertinent to note that even ugly or evil needs to be created beautifully so that it can exert aesthetic impact on the reader. Nevertheless, he should have cared for brevity, the lack of which may sound a bit prosaic. I hope, his long-lasting journey in the pursuit of words may definitely result in many enlightened works. Good for him, more power to his elbow!

-Mohan, Artist.
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