Editorial December 2010.
For personal reasons, putting together this issue has been a struggle for me. I apologize for any errors
that may have occurred in the process. Nevertheless, I feel it turned out all right. The articles in this issue
are thought provoking.
To start with, Balivada Kantha Rao is one of the great writers of our times. By not limiting himself to one
ideology, Kantha Rao succeeded in studying and presenting on a larger canvas. For want of resources, I
could not do justice to his literary excellence completely. Nevertheless, I tried to present a reasonably
decent view of his writings. I hope readers would continue to look for his writings and obtain a better
perspective of his achievement in Telugu literature.
In this issue, we have two stories in English by two famous writers, Balivada Kantha Rao and Sarada.
Both the stories address an important issue in human nature—one’s fascination with oneself.
In the “The Truth about Desires” Kantha Rao illustrates how our desires play out in real life. We all wish
for better life and occasionally those wishes come true. I thought this story goes beyond having one’s
wishes fulfilled.
A friend of mine said the narrative was predictable. I think the predictability carried only as long as the
protagonist wished for better life. In the later half of the story, after the protagonist converted his wishing
spree into an ego trip, things changed dramatically. Possibly, that is the message the author attempted
to convey in this story. I would like to hear your opinions on this story.
The second story, “Selfish Man” by Sarada, is interesting in that it is based on a tradition specific to
Telugu culture—the vaaraalu tradition (the boy is called vaaraala abbayi). It is customary in our culture to
offer food to poor young boys, one family a day in a week and thus covering the entire week, through his
school years. In practice, the outcome might vary in several ways. Not all boys turn out to be exemplary
young gentlemen.
The present story revolves around three characters—a poor young man Prakasa Rao, vaaraala abbayi,
the lawyer who offers to provide food on the once a week basis and his daughter Padma.
Both the stories raise several interesting questions: Why a person acts the way he does and where the
moral lies, and so on. I leave it to the readers to raise questions and find answers.
“Top pocket” is a cute little story from my childhood days. In those days young girls wore skirts and tops
(also referred to as blouse or jacket). According to an old friend who called me recently, I was the only
one who had a pocket attached the top in those days!
On a different note, I am happy to announce my latest publication:
Kathala attayyagaru [Aunty, the storyteller] is an anthology 22 stories in Telugu written in the past
decade and published by Visalandhra Publishing House, Hyderabad.
The book is available now in all Visalandhra branches in India.
It is also available on www.avkf.org on Internet.
For more information, please, click on the label BOOKS on the homepage.
Malathi
1 December 2010