SRI SRI

ABOUT THE POET Srirangam Srinivasarao (30 April 1910 – 15 June

1983), popularly known as Sri Sri, was a Telugu poet and lyricist.He was a member of PEN INDIA, Sahitya Academy, Vice-President of the South Indian Film Writers Association, Madras and President of the revolutionary writers association of Andhra. Srirangam Srinivasa Rao was the first true modern Telugu poet to write about contemporary issues that affected day-to-day life of a common man in a style and metre which were not used in classical Telugu poetry. He wrote visionary poems in a style and metre not used before in Telugu classical poetry. He moved poetry forward from traditional mythological themes to reflect more contemporary issues.

FORWARD MARCH ‘Mahaprasthanam’ was one of the poems in Sri

Sri’s second collection of poems with the same title, published in 1950. It’s translated version, ‘Forward March’ appeaed in the collection ‘Three Cheers for Man’ in 1956. the poem in translation was later published in Sri Sri Miscellany in 1970. The poem was a product of diverse influences ranging from Adi Shankaracharya to Wilfred Owen. The poem started a new epoch in Telegu literature and influenced a whole generation of poets. It employs a new idiom to express a collective experience.

THEME AND SIGNIFICANCE Sri Sri’s poem, ‘Forward March’ sounds a bugle for a new classless

society. It calls upon the youth to start a revolution for establishing a new world order by destroying everything associated with the present world which is outdated and rotten.

The poet calls upon his young comrades to set on a new journey to discover a new world. He says that the hearts of the marchers are galloping with the desire to achieve their goal of establishing a new world by reshaping geography and rewriting history. Neither deserts and forests nor hills and rivers will be able to stop their march. The young revolutionaries will attack all institutions founded on hypocrisy, humbug, hoax and sham like aggressive eagles, lions or hounds. The poet asks them to move forward like a cyclonic wind, their elemental fury will shake the mountains, rivers and oceans.

The poem is based on the idea that the present orthodox world based on unjust principles has to be destroyed through revolution in order to usher in a new system based on truth, equality, freedom and progressive ideology

SOME PEOPLE LAUGH, SOME PEOPLE CRY

‘Some People Laugh, Some People Cry’ is a prose poem expressing the poets surrealistic vision of the world around him. This chaotic world is populated by suicidal philanthropists, one eyed pups and unfinished sagas. In a way’ the poem is a picture of modern urban life where everybody is an island in himself and nobody bothers to see what’s happening around him.

SUMMARYThe poem ‘Some people laugh ,Some people cry’ is a series of snapshots of

figures of oppressive loneliness. In the first picture, a man walking on the bride gives the change from his pocket to a beggar. Then he gives away his wristwatch to a nurse who happens to pass that way. Next he throws his coat into the river and following the coat drowns himself in the water. The poet thus has presented a surrealistic image of the incoherent urban life represented by the suicidal philanthropist ,the beggar and the nurse. All the three have been brought together to demonstrate the absurdity of human actions due to frustration. The man who commits suicide is perhaps a capitalist who has found no meaning or purpose in life.

The second Picture is an image of a capitalist who knows all the tricks and tactics of his trade and has made a lot f money. Money grows up like plants which yield golden eggs in the safe lockers of the banks, where the eggs lies stuffed up. But behind all this money tears are clearly visible. As the yolk comes out when an egg is broken, so the tears are seen when we peep into the heart of this man who is frustrated and broken.

The next picture is of a man sitting near a milestone waiting endlessly for someone to arrive but no one arrives. The image is of boredom and loneliness. Full of frustration,he kills time eating peas and counting buses and when the person being waited for does not arrive,he even forgets the count of time looking at a cloud in the sky.The entire scene is absurd and defies logic.The fourth image is of a man who wanders about carrying ladders and keeping goose eggs in his bag.He leans his ladder against a wall,climbs up,existed in all ages. Here the trickster duping the people with his tricks is the perverse form of the sage Vishwamitra who dumped Harishchandra , the legendary king of Ayodhya. Harishchandra was tricked by Vishwamnitra  into giving away everything he possessed.He even had to sell his wife, his son and then himself to pay money tovishwamitra.Next is the picture of the man who invstigates holes and finds that holes are differ in size. Holes represent the hollowness,vacuity and emptiness in the lives of urban people. An anarchist may the holes to advance his own cause or purpose.Other subversive elements may also use the holes for their advantage.

The sixth picture takes the scene to a man who offers anarchy for sale. The implication is that he advocates criminality, lawlessness, theft, dacoit, etc.. as source of getting money. He is perhaps selling the technique how to do it. With his long arms he is searching  for something with which to convert young men to anarchists. The giant lemon he eats once a day is usually found in lakes of blood in young hearts. Anarchy feeds itself on violence and bloodshed. It is terrible image of the world rotting in chaos and the anarchist taints the blood of young people with his oratory to beguile them for anarchy.

The next scene shifts to a musician who is singing Raga khamboji and playing on a lute. He has got perfection with different ragas whose music has the power to heighten people’s fancy which establishes a harmony in nature and offers a marriage to beautiful girl. Then there is the picture of a poet applying traditional kaajal in his eyes and kumkum on his cheeks. The poet presents himself in a trance like state but then his image transforms into a cryptographer deciphering the secret codes and working for the air force. He is said to be directly responsible for the fall of prices in the market. It is rather a confusing picture of the creative artists like musicians and poets Sri SriSuddenly being fixed in a perverse slot. The poet perhaps implies that art, which aroused some hope of some bright spot in human existence, has turned into business filling life with frustration and hopelessness.

The eight picture brings us to the sight of a seemingly holy man with a string of rudraksha beads around his neck is meditating. He is hypocritic and his religious knowledge doesn’t go beyond coconuts people break in front of him to obtain blessing. It is a common feature of Indian society steeped in ignorance and superstition which deifies and hypocrite posing as spiritual leader. Such unquestionable power these shame godmen exert over ignorant and superstitious masses that it is futile to try make them salvation.

The next short scene pertains to a man who loves only one woman and she dies. The poet then makes a reference to the world of films, Bollywood where this idea is portrayed in film after film. The same theme repeated in every film with slight variations becomes boring and frustrating. The idea of permanent love is just an ironic comment of the emotion of love as it is not to be found in real life situations.The tenth picture is of a man who gets hanged for a crime he has not committed but refuses to say that he is being unjustly executed. The scene brings forth the power of an anarchical state where and individual pitted against the state is powerless to protest against injustice and is hanged. No one but a loyal dog of his remembers him and weeps for him. The scene is a comment on the legal system and procedure, the unjust judgment of the courts and the poor people who are made scope-goats because they are unable to get costly defense.Next is the picture of a society in its decay where a man prospers by making false promises and pompous speeches, while another one dies of drinking too much due to frustration. A boy takes a coin from his maternal aunt and buys a kite another boy snatches it away from him. The picture thus, is a society where the weak and defenseless are being exploited by the clever and powerful.

The last picture of the poem presents frustration, emptiness and futility of life depicted in mundane images of a man running away and of another man struggling with life and killing himself. A third man get married ,fourth one sleeps, fifth dozes, while the sixth one talks endlessly to kill time. Then there is one man whose crying makes people laugh, while another man’s laugh makes them cry. Being asked if there is any end to these frustrating absurdist, the poet replies that there is no end to these.