bookreview

 

WAR A HEART’S RAVAGE: Seela Subhadra Devi (Translation of Telugu poem Yudham Oka Gunde Katha)

According to Wilfred Owen, “All a poet can do today is warn. That is why true poets must be truthful.” No doubt the poet Seela Subhadra Devi had been truthful to what she wanted to say to the global human spirit in the book, “War A Heart’s Ravage”. Amidst the mad catastrophes created by political power maniacs and the mindless revenge tactics conceived by religious fanatics, the innocent human child and the mother are the worst sufferers. In this backdrop of Pralay Tandav of war nobody questions life’s purpose any longer. The poet has been successful in creating heart a wrenching emotional picture as captured by her sensitive mind. Images hurl at us with the speed of missiles, jolting us to the reality. By reading the poem, not only do we visualize the inhuman butchering but also we feel the actual fear felt by those who had been haunted by sudden attack of war and gory death. One simple example is “legs slide like lifts, stairs as skates slither”.

The poet’s clarity of thinking is laudable at such places as when a mother is shown as an independent being separate from religion with inherent power to wipe out war tendencies. In a moving appeal- the poet exhorts all mothers to nurture the children in such a way to earn their names themselves after birth totally unlinked to religion.

War poetry always had its impact on poetry reading masses. But there is a marked difference between the earlier war poetry, which was a tribute to the brave soldier who sacrificed his life and this book. Here there are no war sung heroes. No patriotic feelings aroused. Only the mother and the child untouched by religion emerge as the victims of cruel schemes of the likes of Laden and Bush etc.

On the poetic canvas, we find not only war paintings such as “missile seeds sprout smoke trees” but also find a solution towards the end. The poet appeals for “a healing balm of fellow feeling”, for hatching one integral human offspring. There is a touching message to all the mothers “to lend their wombs to re-consecrate this planet with human touch—.”

A special mention of the translators P. Jaya Lakshmi and Bhargavi Rao should be made whose painstaking efforts resulted in giving the impression that the poem is originally written in English. Words and characters from Hindu mythologies give a taste of Indianness revealing the True Indian Spirit. Telugu words such as “Puli Judam”, retained as they are, make a curious reading.

- Lakshmi Turlapati