ABSTRACT
Chekuri Ramarao (1934–2014), known as CheRa, is one of the critics in Telugu who brought criticism to the reach of the readers by using lucid language and identifiable examples. Unlike many mainstream critics who ignored the movements and the identities, CheRa paid close attention to the identities that emerged from the movements and the struggles that women, Dalit, minority and others were becoming part of. He introduced the idea of strategy in literary criticism. He proposed structural, composing, linguistic, phonological, syntactic and discourse strategies which he classifies into groups that lead from one to another. The essay in this chapter, written in 1990, reflects Chekuri Ramarao’s critical insights as well as his ideological stance. It focuses on Digambara poetry, a major stream of writing in Telugu which challenged all the institutions and notions. The Digambara poets were six, by names Kesavarao, Yadava Reddy, Raghavachari, Bhaskara Reddy, Manmohan Sahai and Venkateswara Rao, who shed their old names and assumed new names: Nagnamuni, Nikhileswar, Jwalamukhi, Cherabandaraju, Bhairavayya, and Mahaswapna. According to them, the years were six after the names of the six writers; seasons were six—hope, longing, tears, wine, separation and sorrow; days of the week were six—friendship, anarchy, revolution, creativity, progress and infinity. They thought they were building a new era called the “Digambara Era” with these names. The Digambara writers described the society as a system affected by leprosy. They devised the new calendar for the Digambara age. This article becomes a continuation of Chekuri Ramarao’s analysis as well as ideology as echoed in several of his articles. He confesses that he does not want to be judgemental, but he does draw our attention to the anti-women voices in Digambara Poetry. While he is not certain whether Digambara poetry can be called a movement or not, he says that it has some positive characteristics as well.
