Life and Works of A K Ramanujan - for APPSC JL DL

Attipate Krishnaswami Ramanujan (16 March 1929 – 13 July 1993) also known as A. K. Ramanujan was an Indian poet and scholar of Indian literature who wrote in both English and Kannada. A.K. Ramanujan was born in Mysore, India.He isrenowned Indian English poet who worked as a Professor in the USA

He was born in Mysore City (now Karnataka). His father, Attipat Asuri Krishnaswami, an astrologer and professor of mathematics at Mysore University, was known for his interest in English, Kannada and Sanskrit languages. His mother was a homemaker.

Ramanujan was a poet, scholar, a philologist, folklorist, translator, and playwright. His academic research ranged across five languages: English, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, and Sanskrit. He published works on both classical and modern variants of this literature and argued strongly for giving local, non-standard dialects their due. Though he wrote widely and in a number of genres, Ramanujan's poems are remembered as enigmatic works of startling originality, sophistication and moving artistry. His poetry is known for its thematic and formal engagement with modernist transnationalism. Issues such as hybridity and transculturation figure prominently in such collections as The Striders (1966), Selected Poems (1976), and Second Sight (1986). The Collected Poems of A.K. Ramanujan (1995) received a Sahitya Akademi Award after the author’s death.

In 1976, the Government of India awarded him the Padma Shri, and in 1983, he was given the MacArthur Prize Fellowship.

A. K. Ramanujan died in Chicago on 13 July 1993 as result of an adverse reaction to anaesthesia during preparation for surgery.

 

Translations and Studies of Literature

1.      The Interior Landscape: Love Poems from a Classical Tamil Anthology, 1967- folklore

2.      Speaking of Siva, Penguin. 1973. - Speaking of Siva is a book of vacanas. A vacana is a religious lyric in Kannada free verse; vacana means literally 'saying, thing said'. It is a collection of poems by A.K. Ramanujan called Vacana, is an active approach, stands in opposition to both the Sruti (which is heard) and the Smrti (which is remembered). He mentions that heart of vacana is devotion to God (hear a particular form of God: Siva).

3.      The Literatures of India. Edited with Edwin Gerow. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974

4.      Hymns for the Drowning, 1981

5.      Poems of Love and War. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985

6.      Folktales from India, Oral Tales from Twenty Indian Languages, 1991

7.      Is There an Indian Way of Thinking? in India Through Hindu Categories, edited by McKim Marriott, 1990 - essay

8.      When God Is a Customer: Telugu Courtesan Songs by Ksetrayya and Others (with Velcheru Narayana Rao and David Shulman), 1994

9.      A Flowering Tree and Other Oral Tales from India, 1997

Essays

1.      Is There an Indian Way of Thinking 1990-

2.      Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five examples and Three thoughts on Translation (1987)-essay, summarizes the history of Ramayana. Portrayed Rama and Sita as siblings, controversial. The count of 300 Ramayanas in the title of the essay is based on a work of Camille Bulcke and it has been pointed out that it is an underestimate of the actual count. However, Ramanujan considers only five tellings of Ramayana, namely, the tellings by Valmiki, Kamban, the Jain telling, the Thai Ramakien and the South Indian folk tellings. One of Ramanujan's main observations in the essay is that there is no such original Ramayana and that Valmiki's Ramayana telling is only one among many Ramayana tellings.

3.      Collected Essays of A. K. Ramanujan

4.      "A Flowering Tree: A Women's Tale". In: Syllables of Sky: Studies in South Indian Civilization Syllables of Sky ByVelcheru Narayana Oxford University Press, 1995. (posthumous article)

Poetry in English      

1.      The Striders. London: Oxford University Press, 1966: This poem explains about the human being who is very powerful in every aspect. Strider is a small water insect which is a New England name for it. Insect may be small but he explains it from different angle. In the first stanza of the poem he gave the idea about his physical appearance and made it as source of idea.

2.      Relations. London, New York: Oxford University Press, 1971- “Small-Scale Reflections on a Great House”and “Love Poem ForA Wife” appear in it

3.      Selected Poems. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1976

4.      Second Sight. New York: Oxford University Press,

5.      The Collected Poems. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997

Kannada        

1.      Samskara: A Rite for a Dead Man (1976) (translation of U R Ananthamurthy's Kannada novel) Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1976- translated U.R. Ananta Murthy’s novel into English. Itdeals with eternal questions; with the question of who should cremate Naranappa, a brahmin who has rejected brahmin hood, with the question of what Praneshacharya, a pious man in whom life is finally stirred by the female contact, should now do.

2.      HokkulalliHuvilla (translated to English - "No Flower in the Navel"). Dharwad, 1969

3.      Mattu Itara Padyagalu (translated to English - "And Other Poems"). Dharwad, 1977

4.      Kuntobille (translated to English - "Hopscotch")

5.      Mattobbana Atma Charitre (translated to English - "Yet Another Man's Autobiography")

6.      Haladi Meenu (Kannada Translation of Shouri's English Novel)

7.      A. K. Ramanujan Samagra (Complete Works of A. K. Ramanujan in Kannada)

8.      A. K. Ramanujan Avara AaydaKavitegalu

9.      A. K. Ramanujan Avara AaydaBarahagalu