A bridge of words

Swami’s translations in Telugu and Malayalam have enriched literature of both the languages

Lakshman Iyer Rama Swami is a bridge across the cultures of south India; a Tamilian born in Trissur, Kerala and educated in Malayalam medium, found employment in Andhra Pradesh. His story would have been that of a simple profession-confined inter-state south Indians, who do not look beyond their career. But Swami, who evidently had higher callings, turned a different page altogether. His settling down at Visakhapatnam has turned a boon both to the Telugu as well as Malayalam literatures.

After working as a Chemical Engineer at Andhra Petrochemicals Ltd, when he retired, he was already actively pursuing passion for literature. His position as short story writer in Telugu was a firmly established one, with many prizes to his credit, with more than four anthologies, and around 200 short stories published in various periodicals, some of which are translated into Hindi and English.

Short story remained Swami’s forte, and making life’s vignettes shine through his simple prose, his stories remained a readers’ delight, and the urban backdrop which provided the milieu served this writer well. Writing on the job-world politics and the agitated human condition; Swami scored well, etching his characters from day to day life. His stories are crowded with people on both ends of the bureaucracy, poor folks, children, women, and the changing times where the market values determine the rest.

Sahitya Akademi in due course recognised his usefulness as a link between two vibrant south Indian languages, and took his services to translate Malayalam folk songs (compiled by noted Malayalam litterateur Ayyappa Panikkar) into Telugu way back in 1990s and he never looked back. The value addition Swami brought to the field of literature through his translations of the who’s who of Malayalam literature, including Akkittam Achyutan Namboodiri, K Satchidanandan, ONV Kurup, Setu Madhavan, KP Raman Unni, Kamala Das, Santosh Echchikaanam, Tagazhi Siva Sankar Pillai and many other present generation Malayalam fiction writers. To his credit are the two anthologies of Malayalam stories ‘Katha Keralam’ published by Mosaic group and ‘Katha Varaadhi’ published by Visalandhra Publishing House.

He has translated into Malayalam works of Telugu writers of lore including Gurazada Apparao, Chaganti Somayajulu, K Siva Reddy, Dr N Gopi, Syed Saleem, a Monograph of Sri Sri penned in original by Budaraju Radhakrishna, Mandarapu Hymavathi, Dr Papineni Sivasankar, Perugu Ramakrishna, Jayanti Papa Rao and Aasa Raju.

To cap the relentless endeavour Swami has undertaken, recently, a dictionary compilation work from Malayalam to Telugu. Many awards came his way in recognition of the importance of his work, which include Prabhasamba Puraskaram, Dr Parachuri Rajaram Award, Puripanda Award, Nalli-Thissai Ettum Award, Akshaya Foundation award for outstanding work by Keralites outside Kerala, and he has presented papers at several symposia held in many locations across the south India, on translation.

Swami is turning 70 on 22 November and a day-long programme is planned in Visakhapatnam. True to the richness of his contributions a docu-video Hrudaya swami is being released in the function by the Vice Chancellor of Andhra University. Col. Prof. Dr GSN Raju, Dr Kalipatnam Rama Rao, Dr Chaganti Tulasi, Navya Editor AN Jagannadha Sarma, Dr UA Narasimha Murty, Chalasani Prasad, Dr Chandu Subba Rao and a galaxy of writers are participating in the celebrations organised by Mosaic Literary Association.