HYDERABAD: “They left their villages for a handful of cooked rice/ leaving with heaviness of hearts/ the cool breeze of the village, and a canopy of their growing fancies... they should reach their villages,” writes an Economics lecturer from Hyderabad about the migrants, who braved hunger and death to reach their villages after the Covid-19 lockdown.
Ramesh Sunkara has started putting up his translated work with voice-overs recently, but has been writing poems for three decades now. He also contributed his bit to the Telangana separate statehood agitation by highlighting the voices of Telangana poets. From 2006-10, he edited an anthology of poems called ‘Telangana Kavitha’. This lecturer, who teaches at Government Junior College in Quthbullapur, published his first poetry collection, ‘Palapita’ in 2017, and it was translated into English by Tirupati Reddy in 2019. Right now, he is ready with a collection about the coronavirus pandemic, and is looking to publish it after the situation improves.
As many as 20 poems from this collection have been translated into English by Manthena Damodara Chary. “In these stressful times, poetry makes us introspect and realise where humanity went wrong. We can ruminate on our shortcomings and find ways to make this world a better place,” says the poet. Ramesh adds that he was inspired to take up poetry from childhood due to the rich imagery of the stories from the Ramayana, Mahabharatha and the Upanishads that his mother used to tell him.
Later, the Telangana agitation too inspired him to write and amplify the voices demanding a separate state.This Barkatpura resident wrote a song too, which celebrates Bathukamma, the flower festival of the state. Ramesh recently penned a tribute to Minal Dakhave Bhonsle, a virologist who created the country’s first coronavirus testing kit.