Gunturu Seshendra Sarma

Gunturu Seshendra Sarma B.A. B.L. (20 October 1927 – 30 May 2007), also known as Yuga Kavi, was a Telugu poet, critic and litterateur. He is well known for his works ''Naa Desam, Naa Prajalu'' and ''Kaala Rekha''. He authored over fifty works which have been translated into English, Kannada, Urdu, Hindi, Nepali and Greek.

Early life

Gunturu Seshendra Sarma was born on 20 October 1927.

Personal life

At 18 years of age, Sarma's marriage was arranged to Gunturu Janaki (née Yeddanapudi Janaki), and they had two sons and two daughters: Vasundhara (1951), Revathi (1953), Vanamaali (1956) and Satyaki (1958). Later in 1970 he married Indira Devi Dhanrajgir, an Indo Anglican poet. Till his death on 30 May 2007, he lived with her at her Gyanbagh Palace. Although Seshendra led an active extramarital life he was a family man. His love for his children was limitless - “an ocean of love” in his own words. His joy knew no bounds whenever he saw his children and grandchildren (see foto). In a literary biography “Seshendra velugu niidallo” written by his son Vanamali Gunturu, the author describes the literary genius and unparalleled scholarship of his father, his evolution from an everybody’s darling in a small village Thotapalliguduru till his complete maturity as author and intellectual, who was engaged in an incessant fight against the brute power of the state and was a victim of political persecution. At the same time the biography shows how his wife Janaki had to swallow the pangs of being married to such a historical person as Seshendra and the injustice being done to her.

Works

Seshendra Sarma is the second person to have been nominated for the Nobel Literature prize for his contribution to literary field from India, the first being Rabindranath Tagore. The West Bengal Government conferred upon him the title "Rashtrendu" (Moon of the Nation) in honour of his accomplishments. Telugu University conferred an honorary D.Litt. on him in 1994. He received the "Kalidas Samman" award from the Madhya Pradhesh government. He won a Central Sahitya Akademi fellowship in 1999. The other important awards Seshendra received are ‘Subrahmanya Bharati Ekta Award’ from the Hindi Academy, Rashtriya Sanskriti Puraskar’, ‘Ugadi Puraskar’, ‘Tilak Award’ and ‘Sahitya Ratna 2001’ from Sri Ram Sahitya Mandal, Himachal Pradesh. He has been nominated as a member to the ‘Kendriya Hindi Samithi’ by Prime Minister of India. He was selected for Hamsa Award, in 2004-05, by the Govt. of AP.

Seshendra's first work in print appeared in 1952. It is the translation of Matthew Arnold's '' Sohrab and Rustum'', which is based upon the Persian Epic '' Shahnama''. Initially he focused on poetry and occasionally worked on literary criticism. Seshendra's first collection of prose-poems was entitled ''Sesha Jyotsna''. He composed it in strict conformation with Telugu prosody which was published in 1972 in Telugu and English. Its translations into Hindi and Urdu

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases