Poems That Break the Glass: The Poetry of Sri Santhapuri Raghuveer Rao

By S. Vamshi Krishna

raghuveerraosanthapuri.blogspot.com

Each poem is a spear — one that transfixes the reader’s mind and shatters the smoked glass of comfortable darkness: the darkness that masquerades as innocence, entrenches itself as immaturity, and fortifies itself as blind faith and unexamined ignorance. In that shattering, it appoints no shepherd. It simply demands that you think. That you question. That you carve your own sovereign path to light.

He was a freedom fighter, a journalist, an architect of movements. He co-founded parties, built causes from the ground up, and invited leaders into struggles larger than themselves. But when he needed to say the inviolable thing — the thing no newspaper column or public address could contain — he wrote a poem.

These are four of them.

1. మొదటికె మోసం — Betrayal From the Start

Telugu

సీటు కొఱకు ఓటు నడిగిన మాటకారిని నమ్మి మనం మాట మీద ఓటిస్తే
మొదటికె మోసం వచ్చెను ఘాటు ఘాటు మాటలన్ని హాటు హాటు ఆవిరియై
ఎటు పోయెనొ ఏమొ గాని అందా ‘అయిసై’ పోయెను.
మన మిచ్చిన మన ఓటే బల్లెపు పోటై పొడువగ
ఎవనికి జెప్పుక ఏడ్తాం దేనితొ కొట్టుక చస్తాం.
రోజు రోజుకూ...!

English Rendering

We believed the smooth-talking man who came asking for our vote.
We gave it on his word.
Right from the start — betrayal.
Those hot, blazing promises evaporated like steam from a kettle.
Where they went, nobody knows. Gone cold before they arrived.
The very vote we gave became a spear that stabbed us.
Whom do we tell and weep?
What do we beat and die on?
Day after day after day...
On the craft: The Telugu sound patterns — ఘాటు ఘాటు మాటలన్ని హాటు హాటు ఆవిరియై — are not decoration. They are the cadence of a man laughing at his own wound. He wrote this about every election, in every democracy, across every generation that has been promised the world and handed a receipt for nothing. It will land differently every time it is read. It will always land.

2. కవి కంట కోపం ఒలికితే...!? — When Anger Spills from the Poet’s Eye

Telugu

కవినే కాదంటావా మూఢమతీ...
సుమతి శతక రచయితనే మరచితివా కుమతీ...!!
అమర గ్రంథమునందించిన పోతననే పాతేస్తావా...?
రాముని నామము గానము చేసిన త్యాగయ్య ఎవ్వరు..?
అందెల రవళితో నీ హృది బంధించిన క్షేత్రయ్య ఎవ్వరు..?
తత్త్వబోధ గావించిన పోతులూరి కవి కాడా...?
మనిషే దేశము లెమ్మని పిలిచిన గురజాడ ఎవ్వరు...?!
వారు వీరన నెందుకు!? నీ లోపలి జీవే కవి...
కవి అంటే రవే సుమా..!
కవి లేని జాతి నిర్జీవం నిర్వీర్యం నిస్తేజం
లెక్కకు మించిన భాస్కరులను సృష్టించిన రవి కూడా కవే సుమా..!
కవి కుపితుడై శపిస్తే పతనం కాదా జగతి...!
కవిని గౌరవించు... నీకూ నీ జాతికి భావి కవి...!

English Rendering

You dare say poets don’t matter — you dullard.
Have you forgotten the author of Sumati Shatakam — you ingrate?
Will you bury Pothana, who gave us the immortal Bhagavatam?
Who was Tyagaraja, who sang the name of Rama into the ages?
Who was Kshetrayya, who bound your heart with the sound of anklets?
Was Potuluri not a poet when he brought philosophy to the people?
Who was Gurajada, who called out: The people are the nation — rise?
Never mind them — the poet lives inside you.
A poet is the sun itself.
A nation without poets is lifeless, spiritless, without light.
The very sun that creates countless suns — the sun too is a poet.
When a poet rises in anger and curses — does the world not fall?
Honour the poet. For your sake. For your people’s sake.
Your future poet is watching.
On the craft: He opens by calling his opponent మూఢమతీ — dullard — in the very first line. No preamble, no mercy. The roll call of Telugu literary giants that follows is not nostalgia; it is evidence entered in a courtroom. And then the closing turn — నీ లోపలి జీవే కవి (“the poet lives inside you”) — lands not as comfort but as indictment. The whole poem was the throw. That line was the spear.

3. కావ్యం — What Poetry Is

Telugu

విద్యుద్వేగంతో ఎదుటి వాని హృది జొచ్చే
పద్యమైనా గద్యమైనా శ్రావ్యము, సుగ్రాహ్యమైనదే
కావ్యమనుటయె భావ్యమగును
కేమి లోపము...?
కావ్య వస్తువు విశ్వమంతా కావ్యమయమే...!
పదాల పంచాయితీలో భావం పాలే తెగదు…

English Rendering

That which enters the other person’s heart
with the speed of lightning —
whether it is verse or prose,
if it is musical, if it is receivable —
that is what deserves to be called poetry.
What is missing from it?
The whole universe is the material of poetry.
In the committee meeting of words,
the share of feeling is never cut.
On the craft: Six lines. A complete philosophy of literature. He was not interested in the architecture of form — he was interested in penetration: whether the words entered the reader. విద్యుద్వేగంతో — with the speed of lightning. That was the standard he held himself to. Read his other poems against this definition. He met it every time.

4. అంతః శత్రువు — The Enemy Within

Telugu

పేల్చి వేయబూనె నిపుడు మన శత్రువు
మనలోనే మనుతునని గమనించక
విష సర్పానికి క్షీరం కుడుపుచు మనుచునున్నాము.

English Rendering

Our enemy is about to explode us — right now.
Without realizing it lives inside us,
we keep feeding milk to the venomous snake.
On the craft: Three lines. No title needed, no explanation, no footnote. He took one of the oldest metaphors in Indian philosophy — the snake nourished on milk — and aimed it directly at the reader’s present moment, with surgical precision. The word నిపుడు — right now — is what makes it a spear rather than a proverb. That single word is the difference between wisdom and urgency.

The Man Behind These Words

Sri Santhapuri Raghuveer Rao wrote under the pen name Anveshanam — meaning inquiry, search, the refusal to stop asking. He was a freedom fighter who went to prison at sixteen. A journalist who created the front page that gave birth to the Telugu Desam Party. A political organiser who co-founded the Telangana movement in 1969 and personally invited K. Chandrashekar Rao into it in 2000.

He believed in karma. He believed that truth, stated with sufficient precision and sufficient persistence, would eventually become impossible to unsee.

These poems are that belief — given form, given edge, given flight.

Read the full account of his life, his sacrifices, and what history owes him:
The Candle That Lit Telangana — raghuveerraosanthapuri.blogspot.com

Wikipedia (English): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santhapuri_Raghuveer_Rao
Wikipedia (Telugu): te.wikipedia.org/wiki/సంతపురి_రఘువీర_రావు

ఈ బ్లాగ్ నుండి ప్రసిద్ధ పోస్ట్‌లు

The Man Who Created the Leaders Who Created Telangana — Santhapuri Raghuveer Rao, Freedom Fighter and Senior Journalist

చిత్రం
By S. Vamshi Krishna, son raghuveerraosanthapuri.blogspot.com Santhapuri Raghuveer Rao was arrested for the first time at the age of sixteen. He was arrested for the second time at thirty-seven. Between those two arrests, he built the Telangana movement. After the second arrest, he kept building it. He was never corrupt. He was never bought. He was never given what he was owed. He died on 5 February 2015. His wife Ramadevi was beside him. His son was beside him. That was the room. The world should know his name. The world should know what he did. The world should know what it cost him. Born 16 November 1932 At his mother's elder sister's home in Kunoor Village, Warangal, Telangana. His parents were Yashodamma and S. Tirumala Rao. He was the eldest of six children. He lost his mother to tuberculosis when he was fourteen. He was devastated. But he did not stop. Under the guidance of his paternal uncle, he continued his education and carried forward what sh...
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భారతాంధ్ర (Bharatandra)

భారతాంధ్ర (Bharatandra) A moving tribute by Santhapuri Raghuveer Rao (1932–2015) reflecting on the emotive pulse of Andhra Pradesh, evoking vivid imagery of the fertile land, its nurturing river Godavari, and the mixed emotions of joy and sorrow within the hearts of its people during times of change and hope. This poem captures the profound relationship between motherland and her children, immersed in cultural pride and poignant tears. భారతాంధ్ర భారతావని బిడ్డ ఆంధ్రమాతకు నేడు ఆనంద సమయాన కళ్ళు చెమ్మగిల్లెనేమి...! నందనుల పరవళ్ళు పరవశం గొలిపెనా...? మందభాగ్యుల చూసి లోలోన కుమిలెనా...? చెమ్మగిలిన కళ్ళు బొట బొటా రాలగా గోదావరీ తల్లి గొప్పగా ఉప్పొంగె... హర్ష మతిశయించ అశ్రువులు రాలెనా...? దుఖ మతిశయించ కన్నీరు కారెనా...? (ఆంధ్రావతరణం ' సందర్భంగా)
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అహం కాదు జగం (Aham Kadu Jagam)

అహం కాదు జగం (Aham Kadu Jagam) In this evocative poem, Santhapuri Raghuveer Rao (1932–2015) reflects on the interconnectedness of the individual and the world. He denies the notion of isolated ego, emphasizing that one is not alone but part of a vast collective of millions. The poem invites opening one’s eyes to the flowing currents of life and recognizing the world as a friend. నీ వొకడవే కాదు జగం కోటాను కోట్ల జనం..! కాదనంగ ఎవరి తరం...? కాదు కాదు... నమ్ము నిజం...!! కళ్ళు తెరచి కలయ జూడు పారుతున్న ప్రవాహం చూడకున్న చూడబోదు జగం నిన్ను నేస్తం...
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