Dasarathi award to Jukanti, delayed but well deserved
Government of Telangana has conferred the Dasaradi Krishnamacharta award on Sri Jukanti Jagannaadam, one of the leading poets of Telangana state. He will be handed over this award with a price money of Rs.1,01,116 on the birth anniversary of the great progressive poet dasaradhi Krishnamacharya.
Jukanti was born in 1955 June 20 to Sri Durgaiah and Susheela in Tangallapalli village in Sircilla taluq of the then Karimnagar district.
Jukanti has a unique style of writing which is is full of native Telangana lingo. Even the titles of his books reflect his identity with domesticity of pastoral life.
I read almost all his books; the most popular among them include India Pvt Limited,Ganga dolu, Patala garige, Vascodigama dot com, Boddutaadu, Oka roju PADI gaayalu, Taara gam etc. Starting from 1993, his poems were published in 17 collections.
His poetic lines are lyrical and most of the time devoid of any forced alliterations but exude native smell of local dialect. We find no pompous use old Telugu words usually associated with classical poets in his poems. His metaphors and similes are mostly taken from the textile industry particularly the handloom and powerloom lingo like Pogu,bkande, dharam. Every poem reflects his observation of life springing from his own experience and outlook on him and he does not believe in symbolic riddles one sees nowadays in poetry. Though inspired by C.Narayan Reddy as every poet from Karimnagar district is, we find nothing borrowed from the great poet.
He is also the recipient of Gyanpith C Narayana Reddy national award for his poetry.
He has been the President of All IndiaTelangana Rachayitala Sangam since 2014.
His sensibility is spread over a wide variety of subjects such as Indian economy, globalization, economic reforms and their painful impact on the family relationships, the decimation of the self employment skills of the subaltern classes, women's rights, old age and its problems, naxalism, interpersonal relations mainly friendships, attachment to the roots of his birth and his identity, human and civil rights. He even wrote a book of poetry to express his love for his grand children and his devotion to family values which are disintegrating at a faster pace now. I think this book on grandchildren is the first of its kind in the entire world literature.
All the social, political and cultural upheavals and turmoils of Telangana since 1990s find their expression in his poetry with such a depth that it can be a fertile subject for Ph.D students of literature.
He has been an essayist and his essays mainly published in Andhra Jyothi embody incisive commentary on politics and depredations caused in the lives of the poor by the rich-and -middle class centric policies of the successive. But as far as I understand his writings do not betray loyalty to any particular ideology. He is humanist at core.
He has been extremely active in the Telangana movement and was one of the authors of a report submitted to the Shri Krishna Commission which contained detailed and deeply researched information about the various ways the Andhra politicians had looted the Telangana people. He gave me the opportunity to translate this document into English which I did at a stretch for 6 hours.
It was indeed quite a surprise for me that this award was not given to him by the TRS government. Along with him, many of those who supported the TRS government quite selflessly in the initial stages were cold shouldered in preference to opportunists and henchmen. This author who wrote dozens of articles in English for Telangana was no exception.
He was able to anticipate and grasp the impact of globalisation, privatization and liberalisation on Indian economy and culture even before the Economic Reforms were started officially. The following lines from one of his earliest poems loosely translated by me expose the cultural Neo-colonialism resulting from globalisation.
Now no tanks or guns required
An antenna on rooftops of your houses is enough
To make you a slave and perpetuate your poverty
How prophetic are these words we can see in how much our young people in particular and everybody in general are enslaved by the way internet and multimedia and how technology driven unemployment and inqualities have become the trade marks of our economic scenario.
I take this opportunity to congratulate Jukanti and hope that he will continue to write with his insightful observation and enrich our literature and the society and be honored by many more such awards.
Dr M H Prasad Rao
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