‘Varavara Rao: A Life in Poetry’: Six decades of activism and courage bound in one collection

Meena Kandasamy introduces the poet-subject of Varavara Rao: A Life in Poetry with the epithet “India’s most-incarcerated poet”. She has co-edited the new collection published by Vintage Books with Telugu journalist, N Venugopal. The translations contained within speak volumes about the life of the man who wrote them. Each poem spurs the reader into restlessness, and takes them back into the contexts in which Rao was writing. And the contexts are many – as the helpful yet unobtrusive annotations that the editors have provided will tell you.

The collection, presented in close-to-chronological order, enables the reader to see the continuities in six decades of Rao’s activism and writing. From armed struggle in Warangal and other parts of Telangana in the 1950s-60s to the Kisan March in Maharashtra in 2018, Rao’s poetry has emerged from contexts that are varied and yet, often, similar.

Intangible hope

What stands out as you read the collection is the almost limitless empathy that runs through Rao’s work. A poem where the khaki uniform of a policeman stands in for the injustices meted out by the police force immediately follows a poem written in solidarity with the nationwide police protests of 1978-79. Rao can write with equal sorrow of Marilyn Monroe’s suicide in Los Angeles and the killing of Vempapatapu Satyanarayana in Srikakulam. No context is too distant, and every poem sees Rao extending himself beyond his own subjectivity into the political crises and movements he supports. His poetry reminds us that rebellions of the marginalised are always movements that begin with empathy and hope, and that there are motives behind these movements that no state or organisation can destroy.

Rao writes:

“I may have not known him before
Or ever heard his name
Had I seen his face in any photo
I wouldn’t even recognise him.
But when I know that he is human too
How can I not be related to him?”

— from “The Death of a Human”, translated by Rohith.

This poetic conviction in the interrelatedness of all human beings and our struggles holds the collection together, even as it jumps from one political crisis to another, from one geography to another, from one translator’s interpretation to another’s.

Although nine translators collaborated on this collection, every one of their translations rings with the same clarity. Rao’s voice is always direct, always seeking to be understood. The words are never hesitant or afraid:

“I did not supply the explosives
Nor ideas, for that matter.
It was you who trod
Upon the anthill with iron heels
And from that trampled earth
Vengeance was born.”

— from “Reflection”, translated by K Balagopal.

“Reflection” was written in 1985 during the poet’s incarceration in Secunderabad under false charges of distributing explosives amongst youth protesters. Rao has been jailed for many things and convicted for none. He has been arrested often on the basis of contested evidence – sometimes because his words are said to have provoked violence. And yet Rao’s writing remains unshaken by the decades of state harassment he has been subject to. In another poem, he writes “The real butcher is / The state.” (“The Butcher”, translated by K Balagopal).

In solidarity

Rao’s poetry stands in solidarity with and mourns for the marginalised, but is equally loud in its critique of power and privilege. “Déjà Vu”, for example, satirises the anti-reservation youth agitation in Andhra Pradesh in 1986. At nine pages, it is the longest, and perhaps the most searing poem in the collection. Cold and sardonic, the anger lurking beneath the poet’s words here is unmistakable:

“Boys and girls
Protesting hand in hand
Against buried merits and dashed futures
Going off on a picnic

Oh yaar,
How heroic!”

— from “Déjà Vu”.

At 82, Rao continues to be a figure who evokes fear from the establishment. Accused in the Bhima-Koregaon violence case, the poet was granted bail on medical grounds in 2022. Rao himself writes of the power of poetry but, as he is quick to clarify, the right kind of poetry:

“Poetry is hope in the eyes of human beings.
It is compassion in the minds of human beings.
There is no self-deception greater than
Separating poetry and life.”

— from “Livewire is Better than a Poet”, translated by N Venugopal.

Rao’s conviction in his poetry, however, does not come at the cost of his recognising that some realities cannot be captured in language:

“Can a drop of ink from a poet’s pen
Express the truth that a worker’s sweat can never utter.”

— from “The Truth”, translated by KVR.

While Kandasamy herself writes of the loss of rhythm in the process of translation, for an English reader with no knowledge of Telugu, the translations stand in good stead. The translations by N Venugopal and K Balagopal, in particular, are notable for their precise, measured use of words. Rao’s writing is not led by aesthetic passions, his is not a mystifying voice or style, and the translators have stayed true to this. This is a collection of poetry that seeks to bring a truth to light: the poems are unafraid to challenge, to confront, and to hope.

Varavara Rao: A Life In Poetry, edited by N Venugopal and Meena Kandasamy, Penguin India.