The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : A `Water Song' to die for, to pray for

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jan 25, 2006

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

A `Water Song' to die for, to pray for

Staff Reporter

Gopi pens the poem giving a humane touch to the plight of lakes, rivers, oceans, waterfalls

FOR THAT ELIXIR OF LIFE: Isaac Sequeira, Director of American Studies Research Centre, releasing N. Gopi's (right) poem translated into English by M. Sridhar and Alladi Uma in Hyderabad on Tuesday. - PHOTO: P.V. Sivakumar

HYDERABAD: "Every minute water awakening. Every hour water crop. Every season water season. Announce water alert the world over. Lend a helping hand. That's why this water song celestial."

The last few lines of Telugu poem `Jala Geetam' or `Water Song' by N. Gopi and translated by M. Sridhar and Alladi Uma ends with a rousing call to man to end the devastation of water and to awaken to the great need for its conservation.

"Whatever I write should come from my own experience. I come from the dry district of Nalgonda and I used to carry water from distant areas in my village Bhongir," explained Mr. Gopi for writing the poem that was released on Tuesday.

V-C hangover!

Another reason for writing, he said, was to get over his "Vice-Chancellor hangover" though he had been writing even when he was serving as V-C of Potti Sreeramulu Telugu University. The poem was rich with humane and environmental references to the plight of rivers, oceans, waterfalls and lakes everywhere. A line about the pollution of the Hussainsagar describes the fate of the lake — "Buddha's smiles have blackened in the Hussainsagar!"

References to the pollution of Dal lake, the Yamuna, the Ganga and the Brahmaputra were also made. The tenor is sometimes pleading and at other times, threatening in tenor. "For civilisation that runs faster than water, beware, there are hidden dangers," it says.

Not losing flavour

Ms. Uma said that they did their best to retain the original flavour of the poem while Mr. Sridhar confessed to the difficulties in translating certain images from Telugu. Commenting on the lack of tradition of writing long poems in English, Ms. Uma said: "That we don't write such long poems in English should be reason for translating more such poems from other languages."

Director of Indo-American Centre for International Studies Isaac Sequeira, who released `Water Song' commended the translators. He described the poem as an invocation to and a celebration of water and a prayer to water in the Vedic mode.

The book release and the poetry reading was organised by the Poetry Society.

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