Allamraju Venkatarao worked in All India Radio for more
than 3 decades and his career gained him an ample number of colleagues and
friends. He is a well-known personality in Telugu literary world too, but very
popular with his pseudonym – Sudhama. Being a combination of many genres and
styles of writing, he shares his schools days with young Hans readers
Sudhama now (inset) and then
(circled) in the group photo of his HSC class at Malakpet Govt High school
.
My life’s journey is that of a traveler who has been planting trees
along the paths he traversed but has never stopped to nurture a whole garden.
Which is why, I continue to cultivate literary off shoots of myriad genres. My
school was indeed my first literary sojourn and has laid out this path that I
walk on today.
My entire education has been in Hyderabad. My father was
in the Directorate of Medical Services and we were in Madras until 1956, later
moved to Hyderabad after formation of the State.
I first studied at a
school near Sultan Bazar clock tower and then in Keshav Memorial School. It was
my high school days at Malakpet High School that really shaped my inclinations
and interests. Then in HSC course, we had a library period every week during
which we read one book and took home another, to come back to school with a
review. Of course, we had carpentry and other skill classes too.
When I
was in my 7th standard, our teacher Krishna Murthy, in charge of the library,
discovered that I had impeccable hand writing and made me write down the entire
index in the library, plying me with milk and bananas. That was my first touch
with literary greats. Trigulla Vekateswara Sarma sir was another teacher made me
write small plays, while allowing complete creative freedom. At the age of 10,
in 1961, I started what has come to be a revolution and an experiment that still
stands out in literary genres.
I launched Vijnana Jyothi, a manuscript
magazine or Likhita Patrika, which means a completely hand-written, illustrated
and bound magazine that was circulated by turns. The magazine was a serious,
formal affair, with a signature poem at the beginning of each edition. Malakpet
High School then was in Malakpet colony, with the majority of students from the
Govt quarters. Hence, each of the pieces in the magazine had the contributor’s
name and quarter number at the end.
By 1964, though we read Chandamama
and Andhra Prabha and other magazines, we were only marginally influenced,
merely adding colour illustrations to our magazine. I remember vividly an event
we had reported in the manuscript mag, with a report of speeches of eminent
scholars such as Khandavalli Lakshmi Ranjanam and Diwakarla Venkatavadhani.
The magazine used to be circulated to major libraries such as Sri
Krishna Deva Raya Andhra Bhasha Nilayam and we attached small slips of paper at
the back of the magazine for comments. Gyanpeeth awardee Dr C Narayana Reddy was
one of those who left a signed comment, saying rather commandingly that
periodicals that came in print in those days really needed to take a few lessons
from us.
Vijnana Jyothi was a pioneering effort and within a few years,
we had many people replicating the format and we felt we needed some kind of
control over the situation and started the Twin Cities Manuscript Magazines’
Federation! It was mandatory for all the magazines to send us all 12 copies at
the end of the year and cooperate with us in selecting the best story of the
year across magazines. I could run Vijnana Jyothi for more than eight
years.
My exposure to literature and language at school level helped me
plough a furrow for myself throughout my life. I had resisted efforts of my
family to make me study mathematics and chemistry and joined the Oriental
college to study language. And then did my post-graduation in Literature, then
called MOL and not MA. One occasion I remember was my teacher at school coming
to get notes from me for the MoL course. After all, teachers in those days were
just Graduates who joined Government posts.
I went on to be associated
with many eminent organisations such as Yuva Bharati and worked for innumerable
publications. I won awards and experimented with literary tools.
I wrote
about 45 short stories, more than 2000 poems and drew innumerable cartoons. My
columns have subsequently published as compilations.
As someone who has
many firsts to his credit in the field of literature as well as acknowledged
prowess in many genres, such as cartoon drawing, poetry, short stories,
criticism, film reviews, plays, literary essays and columns, including a column
in poetry, I look back at my school days with pride and satisfaction. As is
expected of school education, those days were truly a foundation for my todays.
(As told to
Usha Turaga-Revelli)
