Symposium on autobiographies

Prasoona Balantrapu

Cultural correspondent

Vijayawada, March 27:

On Saturday, Central Sahitya academy in association with Siddhartha Academy conducted a Symposium on Autobiographies in Telugu Literature at P.B.Siddhartha Arts College. It was a day long session. After a gap of almost a year, it was the first major literary event held in Vijayawada.
The First session was on the types of autobiographies. Basing on the focus of the writer, this division was made as Political, cultural and those written by women writers.
Kurra Jitendra Babu spoke about the autobiographies written by poltical leaders. Autobiographies written by the freedom fighters especially from Telengana region were more like a history of that period. G . Bala Srinivas Murthy’s focus was on the autobiographies of social reformers like Veeresalingam Pantulu to autobiography written by film artist,T.L.Kantarao. K.N.Malleswari focused on the autobiographies of women. Most of them participated in freedom fight. Others were written by the women who took part in Communist struggles against Nizam and in coastal Andhra Pradesh. There were autobiographies written by film artists like Bhanumathi and play back singer P.Suseela.
After a short lunch break the second session started with discussion on five autobiographies. The first one is Tanguturi Prakasam’s autobiography which was also a book on the political history of the then Andhra Pradesh region. Kalluri Bhaskar narrated a few incidents which show the personality of Prakasam. Second book was Dasarathi Krishnamachari ‘s ‘Yatra Smruti’. This was again the history of the struggle for freedom from Nizam’s rule. Konakaluri Madhu Jyoti discussed about this book. Vasireddy Naveen talked about Tirumala Ramachandra’s Hampi nunchi Harappa daaka’. Nanduri Rajgopal spoke about two novels – Namburi Paripurna’s ‘ velugu darulu and Kondapalli Koteswaramma’s ‘Nirjana Varadhi.’
Honorary Fellow ship to Velcheru Narayanarao.
Prof. Velcheru Narayana Rao was honoured by presenting Honorary fellowship which was highest literary honour to Diaspora. Velcheru translated many old Telugu texts like Manu charitra, kanya sulkam . His major contribution was challenging the existing method of understanding native literature and history. Mandali Buddha Prasad, K.Srinivas , and Vice President of Sahitya academy and the famous poet Sivareddy participated in the event.