ஆளற்ற பாலம்

by Kondapalli Koteswaramma, கௌரி கிருபாநந்தன் (Translator)

இயக்கங்களின் வரலாறு பொதுமக்கள் பரப்பிற்குள் கட்டமைக்கப்படுகிறது. கட்டமைக்கப்பட்ட வரலாற்றில் அடங்கும் மனிதர்கள், இயக்கங்களை வழிநடத்துகிறார்கள். அவ்வாறான பெண்ணின் கதை இது. கொண்டபல்லி கோடேஸ்வரம்மா என்ற ஒரு பெண்மணியின் சுயசரிதை மட்டுமல்ல; பொதுவுடைமைக் கட்சியின் ஒரு கால நிகழ்வை, தலைவர்களின் நடப்புகளுக்குச் சாட்சி கூறும் நூல் இது. காலப்பெண்ணின் வாழ்வு இந்தத் தன்வரலாற்றில் பொதிந்து கிடக்கிறது. கொண்டபல்லி கோடேஸ்வரம்மா தன் அரசியல் பயணத்தின் தோழமையாக இலக்கியத்தையும் தேர்ந்தெடுத்துக்கொள்கிறார். அவ்வாறே பாடல்களும் வீதி நாடகங்களும் அவரோடு சேர்ந்துகொண்டன. கனவுகள், அதிகாரத் துரத்தல்களின் பின்னணியில் தலைமறைவு வாழ்வு, காதல், உறவுகள், பெண் இயக்கங்கள், சங்கங்கள், போராட்டங்களை விவரிக்கிறார். மக்கள் பரப்பில் சமத்துவத்தையும் மறுமலர்ச்சியையும் உருவாக்க உழைத்தவர்களின் தடங்கள்தான் இந்நூல். பெண்களும் தலித்துகளும் தொழிலாளர்களும் ஒடுக்கப்படுகிற காலத்தில், மீட்சிக்காய்ப் போராடிய இயக்கத்தின் வரலாறு இது.

This is the autobiography of Andhra communist leader Kondapalli Koteswaramma, who was directly or indirectly involved in most of the people's movements that took place in Andhra Pradesh from the late 40s. At 92, she wrote her autobiography in 2012. It also serves as a parallel history of various movements. Kodeswarammaa chose literature, poetry, and drama as companions on her political travel. A life that was threatened by power, filled with love, women’s right movements and revolutions. She talks of them all earnestly. The biography, is also a history of the oppressed and those who fought for them during her times.

Genres: Memoir, India, Politics

272 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2012

About the author

Kondapalli Koteswaramma (5 August 1918 – 19 September 2018) was an Indian communist leader, feminist, revolutionary, and writer.

Reviews

[Tejaswini · Rating 5 out of 5]

' The Sharp knife of memory' a memoir by Kondapalli Koteswaramma , originally written as ' Nirjana Vaaradhi' ( An abandoned bridge) is the first autobiography of a Communist woman in Telugu. It was also translated to two other regional languages - Kannada & Malayalam.
I absolutely don't consider this as a book review because doing so implies complimenting / commenting her life for which I'm not capable of. I'm here to just string my scattered thoughts running amok in my mind after reading her tenacious journey. I very well know that this is going to be a meek attempt to present her life here in mere ' black & white ' which has seen hues of extremities.
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Destined to be a child widow at the age of six , thanks to the rationalistic ideologies of her family, she was sent to school & neither shunned nor criticized for her misfortune. Later she is married to Kondapalli Sitaramayya, (then a noted activist of Communist party) despite the stringent opposition by the community towards window re-marriage. Her husband's company fuelled up her already smouldering riveting instincts and made her to join the Communist party.
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Koteswaramma led an incognito life when the party was banned during armed revolt of peasants in Telangana region under the leadership of communists leaving behind her children to her mother. Koteswaramma's life is never a cake walk & fate has denied showing an iota of sympathy on her. She is habituated to taste the bitterness of destitute & distress often. She has witnessed splits in the party parallel to the clamours in her own life.
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Disturbances in marital life of decades of togetherness shuddered her the most. But she has passed matriculation after separation from her husband in Andhra Mahila Sabha & succeeded in getting a govt job too. At this juncture , she has nurtured her neglected literary skills long ago by writing poems, songs , short stories and participated in radio plays & this has become her solace. As she spent most of her life away from her children, she has written ' Amma Cheppina Kathalu' ( stories told by mother) as if imagining telling to them.
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As mentioned in the book , writing autobiography at the age of 92 with poor eyesight & memory seemed as if her tears which were held back these years & brimmed up till then started rolling down and wrote the story of their own. Her son's death in fake encounter, son in law's sudden demise followed by her daughter's suicide -- choked her by not letting to breathe amidst the sobs of each grief dawning on her.
The prose is genuine & honest, much to the dismay it has no trace of self- pity, anger & rancour in telling her profused convoluted life. Translation by Sowmya V B is really good by using Telugu words thereby not losing the original tinge & also I liked the way references & contexts were explained when and where necessary.
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In her last interview at the age of 99 her revolutionary spirits were still being echoed in her words. She lamented about the current political scenario of the country & also the present safety of woman at risk citing the contrary situations in her years of exile.
She had lived a complete life of 100 years & exhaled her last breath reaching the abode of haven in 2018. Facing so many boulders in her restless journey ,Koteswaramma instead of shattering, harbinged hope & that made her to live surpassing all overwhelming odds .

[danny · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's hard to know what to say to do justice to the breadth of history and emotion that is contained in this autobiography of a revolutionary. I think the most important thing to express is that more people should read it!

The translation could have done a better job providing context in places or else sort of indicating which of the many, many revolutionary fellow travelers play larger roles in the story so that it is slightly easier to follow the people who play larger roles in Kondapalli's life, but also a retort to that is that I could simply better familiarize myself with the revolutionary landscape of communist groups in India in the second part of the 20th century, which is true.

While the narration of this does not always belabor the emotions that she felt at any given time, or in response to the truly tragic series of events that start to happen at a certain point in her life, the book is all the more filled with emotion for its restraint. I was really moved throughout reading this and cried a few times as Kondapalli recounts her feelings following everything that happens with her two children. It makes me wonder and want this kind of intimate auto-biography (or biography) of each member of her family, down to her grandchildren (and great grandchildren!). I do really appreciate how the book fully narrates her life on her own terms and relegates her second husband, who may loom larger in certain official Party accounts, to being a relatively minor character, and is not shy about alluding to his personal/interpersonal failings - or those of other men in the party.

Another book I thought about a lot in reading this was Burnout, which is concerned with the psychic wounds of revolutionary movements, and how people who were active in moments of climactic and intense struggle re-adjust to life after the most acute phase of the struggle. That idea - those set of questions - are highly relevant to Kondapalli's life, as there seems to be a real sort of reckoning with how to adjust to living aboveground in society after the period of underground armed struggle has concluded.

Something that I appreciate is that, in contrast to reductive and ignorant accounts in mass media (cough cough, One Battle after Another), real life often includes revolutionaries who continue to support their party, their comrades, and their causes even after the height of revolutionary possibility has perhaps passed. While Kondapalli did have to adjust to a world in which the communist party and its resistance activities (especially in the Telangana People's War period) had simmered down, she never downplays her political commitments and describes diverse forms of connection and solidarity that continue throughout the rest of her long life. While no doubt profoundly affected by the many scars of jailed and murdered comrades (and family members), Kondapalli and her family continue contributing to the cause and keeping the memory of class struggle alive in Andhra Pradesh and beyond. I thought that the sections towards the end of the book where she is encouraged to write her story and receives an upswell of support and people reaching out to her as a result was a really beautiful and inspiring way to wind down a book that is also filled with so much loss and pain.

While there are so many things to praise and reflect on in her life and politics - from the discussion of caste views within the party to her views on the fragmentation of groups to the internal contradictions of the party (particularly around male chauvinism) - what I was most struck by throughout the book was how the Kondapalli's life was interwoven with theatre, radio, song, and the Telugu language. So many of the people she names are identified as being poets, linguists, and artists of all kinds that it is possible to conjure - at least in my mind - a vision of a revolutionary moment in which advocacy for Telugu cultural forms coincided with violent class war. There is a moment toward the end of the narrative where Kondapalli goes on a trip with her remaining family to a town that she had visited in her youth. There are people there who remember a revolutionary song she had written and performed fifty years earlier, and they sing it for her and her family after she has paid tribute to martyrs whose photographs adorn the walls. The inclusion of this kind of detail helps resist a reading of the book as solely tragic without ever dipping into nostalgia.

I have more to say but I still need more time to think about it. I wish I could speak and read Telugu so as to read it in the original! Maybe one day..

[Bharathi · Rating 5 out of 5]

ஒவ்வொரு பெண்ணும் கட்டாயம் வாசிக்கவேண்டிய நூல். கொள்கைச் சார்ந்து இயங்கக் கூடிய மனிதர்களும் அவர்களுக்குள் இருக்கும் உயர்ந்த அற நெறிகளும், அது சாதாரண மக்களின் அற நெறிக்கு மாறாக இருக்கும் போக்கும், சிலரிடம் இருக்கும் சில கீழ்மைகள் உயர்ந்த நோக்கத்தைக் கேள்விக் கேட்கும் பாங்கும், அந்தக் காலகட்ட அரசியல் சமூக நிலைகளும் நம்மைக் கோடேஸ்வரம்மாவை மானசிகமாக வணங்க வைக்கிறது. வாழ்வின் மீது புகார்கள் இல்லாமல் சுயசார்பு வாழ்கையை அடையளப்படுத்துகிறது
ஆளாற்ற பாலம் :)

[Debjit Banerjee · Rating 4 out of 5]

My north indian bubble coded would have never picked this up randomly at a cafe in Bir but I'm so glad I did. What a woman and what a life. My goodness!

[Spandana · Rating 5 out of 5]

A MUST READ BOOK..
i almost cried what almost...i noticed tears in my eyes while reading some pages...
but still this is history and every one should read... i would recommend to everybody..
even after completion of reading the book is really fascinating and inspiring...
came to know the peoples sacrifice for the justice and for good things...i felt ashamed too for late reading...

[Saikrishna · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading this book, i became fan of her.
After reading this book, all the problems i am facing seems nothing compared to her problems.
If you want to gain tons of confident, i recommend this book to read.

Hats off to Kodapalli Koteswaramma.
[]previously i know her as W/O Kodapalli Seetharamaih, after reading this book i know seetharamaih as H/O Kodapalli SKoteswaramma !!!]

[Ipsita · Rating 4 out of 5]

"What happened to his party, which envisioned a day when farmers and workers would progress together hand in hand? That communist Party had now split into seven. Which amongst these seven will establish that equal society we had hoped for? Each May Day, we raise slogans saying,"Workers of the world, unite!" But we never unite ourselves. We fight among ourselves. How , then can the workers unite?"

[Roshini Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The poet, Nanduri had written, “Enki knows the language of flowers.” I thought, “If great people could understand the language of the wind, they would know why our revolutionaries who started the fight died in the arms of this forest without seeing victory.” Thus went the rest of my journey."

I hope I never forget this book and it’s leading lady.

[Sai Praveen Oruganti · Rating 3 out of 5]

ఒక వ్యక్తి జీవితంలో ఇంత విషాదం వుండగలదా ?! ఎర్ర జెండా విప్లవం పట్ల ప్రత్యేక ఆసక్తి లేకున్నా, ఈ పుస్తకం నచ్చింది.

[Sritanikella3 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don’t know much about revolutions but while reading this book it really gave me chills. How much they suffered to eradicate few nonsense. Ok thats one side of story I learned. But her struggle, how much pain a human being can take of in one life. First revolution then her husband left her, has to find her own life. Again studies, living far from kids. Losing kids. Omg, alot to take in. But she stood strong nd survived. One line she said when her husband want to see her again at old age still ringing in my mind, “ok he wants to see me, but doesn’t it matter whether i want to see him or not?” Bravo you broke a vicious cycle. You fought bravely nd you proved that you are a warrior. You live in my heart forever. Johar koteswaramma.

[Aruna Kumar Gadepalli · Rating 5 out of 5]

కొండపల్లి కోటేశ్వరమ్మ గారు తన జీవితం గురించి రాసిన పుస్తకం. ఇందులో బాల్యం నుంచి, వివాహం, అనుభవించిన కష్టాల గురించి. చాలా కాలం తర్వాత చదువుకొనసగించటం, ఉద్యోగం మొదలయిన అంశాల గురించి వివరించటం జరిగింది. చదువరులను అలోచింపజేసే పుస్తకం.

[Prem · Rating 3 out of 5]

The last book I read, Ants Among Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India, referenced Kondapalli Seetharamaiah, the founder of the People's War Group, and his wife Kondapalli Koteswaramma, the author of this book, her autobiography. Got to reading this right after, and it works well as a companion piece - a short, but revealing look at the complex layers of revolutionary politics. The moral failings, personal tragedies and persistent survival of its leaders and cadre, offer cautionary tales, but also a map of their passions.
The overarching theme here is the history of survival. Seetharamaiah abandons Koteswaramma in an act of infidelity, but she goes on living, raises her children, supports communist/people's movements, engages in cultural activities, works, endures so much grief, so much anger. The prose here is largely unsentimental, a by-the-numbers account (I often skimmed the flood of names and places, and other more monotonous and nondescript passages). But when Koteswaramma lets her emotions through, both implicitly and explicitly, the truth of her singularly painful, yet exemplary life reveals itself.

[Mohammad Rafay · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brief history on the life and struggles of Communists in India. Tells you about different sections of communists and their struggles for the egalitarian society.

[Pranuthi]

So moving