- Renuka @ Midko, as she shared with a close comrade in 2012
(14 October 2026 marks Renuka’s 56th birth anniversary.)
When I was in my tenth standard, studying at Hari Vidyalaya in Mothkur [in 1984-85], Padmavathi was our Principal. She was the life partner of U. Sambasivarao, a well-known scholar-activist. She used to tell us, “It’s not just the textbooks that students should be focusing on. You also should be writing stories and poems.” That was the time when I had tuberculosis, and it took a while to recover from it. That was when I first thought about writing something. But I didn’t write. After I finished my tenth standard, I started writing a story. It was about a girl whose family wanted to marry her off at a very young age. But she resisted them and decided to continue with her studies. That was the theme. After all, girls need education in order to be able to stand on their own feet! But I could not finish it. I don’t remember now what eventually happened to that unfinished story.
After our family moved from Kadavendi to Mothkur in 1989, I wrote a story. I can’t remember if I had heard about this or read about it somewhere, but the theme was about an exchange marriage and also about a dowry death. I wrote this story in a notebook. My mother was its first and sole reader. I don’t know why, but I didn’t want to refine that copy. Neither did I want to send it to any publisher.
Padmavathi madam was a progressive woman. She taught us English and social studies. She would also tell us about all progressive ideas. She would tell us there is no God. She would also tell us that women are subjected to oppression regardless of their class. Be it rich women or poor women, both are equally subject to male domination. She was an inspiration to me.
She spoke fearlessly. I too felt it was true that women had some additional sufferings compared to their male counterparts. Some time later, I turned my thoughts into a story.
As far as men are concerned, rich men suppress poor men. For example, a landlord suppresses a farm worker. Even the landlord’s wife suppresses the farm worker. And when the farm worker returns home in the evening, he suppresses his wife. At the same time, even the landlord’s wife, who suppressed the worker, keeps mum at home before her husband. This was the theme of that story. In those days, we used to get Nalupu magazine at our home regularly. So I sent that story to that magazine. Chakravenu used to be its sub-editor in Hyderabad. He read the story and wrote me a letter, saying, ‘The story is good.’ However, it was not published because the last page of that story was misplaced in their press. I was studying LL.B. at Padmavati University, Tirupati, at that time.
When I was at home (Mothkur) during vacation, I saw a cartoon about a child labourer in the Eenadu newspaper. On Children’s Day, a child labourer and his mother were walking, and the boy asks, “What is childhood, after all, mother?” That was the cartoon. I wrote a poem on that cartoon. As far as I remember, I gave it the title ‘Repati Suryudu’ (‘Tomorrow’s Sun’ in English). Chakravenu wrote another letter appreciating that poem and confirming that it would be published. He also informed me that henceforth, Nalupu publication would cease. I was not at home when the letter was delivered. He wrote a very detailed letter discussing the poem as well as the earlier unpublished story. Thus, everybody in our family got to know that I had already written a story and a poem and sent them for publication. My mother mentioned to everyone that I had written a story earlier too.
Later, Chakravenu wrote me another letter telling me that he had moved to Tirupati and joined ‘Andhrajyothy’ newspaper there, and also that he had recently got married. He also asked me to meet him at his residence in Tirupati and gave me his address. I wrote back to him. At that time, he was a leading member of the Revolutionary Writers’ Association. Then my first-year exams were happening. So I thought that I would see him after the exams. By then, I got to know that he had died in an accident. There was another reason for my postponement in visiting him. I wanted to finish a story, take that with me, and show it to him. On the day when I got the news of his death, I finished the story to overcome my grief. That was ‘Bhavukata’ [translated into English with the title ‘The Capacity for Wonder’], which was my first published story.
That’s when ‘Ahwanam’ magazine was newly started. Two of its issues were already out. It felt very nice to me. They were publishing good stories. I didn’t show ‘Bhavukata’ to anyone. I wrote a fair copy and simply dropped it in the mailbox. I was staying in the University hostel in Tirupati at that time. Within three or four days, I got a reply from the editors of the magazine confirming that they were publishing it.
By then, I had some acquaintance with ‘Mahila Margam’ magazine. I sent them the same story that I had earlier sent to Nalupu. I don’t know the reasons, but they didn’t publish it. I never did know what drawbacks they might have seen in it. As I said, I sent ‘Bhavukata’ to ‘Ahwanam’, not to ‘Mahila Margam’. Because I thought that my story was no ‘revolutionary’ enough to be considered by them. As I felt that ‘Bhavukata’ was a ‘normal’ story, I thought only ‘normal’ magazines might consider publishing it. Such were my views back then. I never thought of sending my stories to other magazines to gain name or fame. I only felt that they might not make great or ‘revolutionary’ stories.
The background of the story was that I happened to read a story written by a writer, Challa Subramanyam. It was about a new couple who started living in a house opposite another couple’s house. They lived very affectionately. The husband from the other couple would always complain that his wife lacked the capacity for wonder. I now don’t remember exactly what word he used – whether it was romanticism or something else. The new couple would always look at each other. When she did rangoli in front of the house, he would be there chatting with her. Both would sit in the veranda having coffee together. And this man, from the opposite house, would also want to be close to his wife just like the new couple. But his wife wouldn’t show any interest in it. When I was reading that story, I wondered how it would even be possible for a woman to be like that. Wouldn’t it be hard to find time in the morning for her, leaving all household chores aside? So, I had expected that the writer would take his story in that way. But something takes a weird turn in the story. When this man returns from a trip to a village, the new couple’s house looked locked to him. When he inquires about it from his wife, she tells him that they were not ‘actual’ wife and husband, but were an eloped couple. She would tell him, “How would they have been the way they were, had they been a real wife and husband?” This ending annoyed me greatly. That’s how I wrote ‘Bhavukata’.
I didn’t expect that ‘Bhavukata’ would receive that much response. It was mentioned as one among the best stories of that year. Well-known literary critics Papineni Sivasankar and Vasireddy Naveen wrote in appreciation that ‘it opened new gates to feminism’. It felt good, but it also scared me that it was read widely by people like them.
My next story too was sent to ‘Ahwanam’ magazine. That was ‘Viddurapu Manishi’ (The Weird Person). I felt like writing that story because of a woman. In Mothkur, near our house, there was an office belonging to FCI (Food Corporation of India). There was an officer of some lower rank. Probably, he too belonged to Mothkur, I don’t remember. His wife would occasionally visit our home. She never spoke to me. She would only speak with my mother. By that time, I was studying in Tirupati. I don’t know whether she considered me a younger person, or whether she might have felt that there would be nothing to talk about with an educated girl… I don’t know. Some time later, her husband died of some illness. After his death, she got a small job in the same office on compassionate grounds. Then she would come to our house frequently. Whenever I came home on vacation, she would speak more with me. She had studied only up to tenth standard. She wanted to upgrade her qualification so that she could get a promotion, so she would ask me about all those details related to education. She would ask me about those courses that she could pursue through distance education. Mostly, her conversations were about education and career only. Before her husband’s death, she didn’t have anything to talk about with me. Mostly, she would talk about food and recipes and other household matters. So, I felt that earlier she mostly used to speak with my mother. Now, with the job she got, her horizon had expanded enormously, I thought. And that made me write ‘Viddurapu Manishi’.
This story too generated a lot of response. It was selected for the anthology of the best stories of the year. [And, Visalandhra Publications selected it as one of the 100 best Telugu stories written in the twentieth century, published as ‘Telugu Katha – 1900-2000’.] I remember one person who wrote a letter to me saying that he would like to turn it into a play. I don’t know whether or not he actually did it.
Then I wrote ‘Marpu Yevarilo’ (‘Who has changed?’ in English). Martyr Comrade Padmakka, my mentor, on one occasion mentioned the way in which girls are treated differently after they reach puberty. “I’m telling everyone to write on this, but nobody is writing,” she said.
After her demise, I told myself, why shouldn’t I try writing about this? Thus, I wrote it and sent it to ‘Mahila Margam’ magazine.
I have to tell about another story too that I wrote for ‘Mahila Margam’. Then, in Tirupati, a young girl named Jyoti was raped by then MLA Mabbu Ramireddy’s and his friends, while she went to attend her friend’s wedding. ‘Mahila Sakti’ too took to the streets on this issue. I turned that entire issue into a story. What I really wanted was to write a ‘revolutionary’ story!
Actually, by then, I didn’t know what makes a good story. I didn’t know things like how to make sure it looked natural, how the structure should be, and so on. All four stories I had written before were written without knowing much about the craft. They naturally came out well, even though I didn’t know much about the craft. Not that I learned to write first and then wrote. So, as I finally wanted to write a real ‘revolutionary’ story, I filled it fully with what sounded like slogans and speeches. I don’t remember now what name I gave to it. I sent that to ‘Mahila Margam’.
Then, ‘Mahila Margam’ used to be published from Tirupati. Its editor, Vishnupriya, gave that story to her partner Umamaheswara Rao. He read it but didn’t make any comment. One day, when all of us sat for lunch or dinner at their house, he opened the conversation by saying, “Shall we all discuss a worst story?” Then he opened the salvo against me, “Do a mother and
a daughter talk with each other like that in real life? Do you yourself talk to your mother like that? You have already written three good stories, haven’t you? What happened to you now?”
It was shocking to me. I controlled myself from breaking into tears with great difficulty. I immediately took that copy back and came back to my hostel room from their house. Some time later, he called me on the phone at my hostel to say sorry. He said, “You know, I had photocopied your first story and distributed the copies to my friends… still, even now, I feel very bad about the way you wrote this one.” His anger about that story was still evident despite his saying sorry to me. Much later, I rewrote that story and had it published. Its title reads ‘Kotta Malupu’ (New Turn in English).
My next story was ‘Pani Manishi’ (‘Maid’ in English). A house help would come to work in the house of a man I knew. She was an aged woman. Apparently, she didn’t know much about cooking when she first came, and the man taught her well with great patience. He would look after her well because usually it was difficult for bachelors to get a maid. When she would enter the house, he would make her a nice coffee. When I heard about this, I thought to myself whether a man could show this level of patience when it comes to dealing with his wife. The thought of whether a man could make a nice coffee for his wife made me write this story, ‘Pani Manishi’.
Then comes the story ‘Sankela’ – (‘Shackles’ in English). Once, when I went for a movie with some others, a couple sat in the row in front of us. Whenever bad scenes came onto the screen, he would behave with his wife in a vulgar way, clearly making her uncomfortable. Even others sitting around made some unceremonious comments. That made me write that story. The thought that women can’t do anything when it comes to their husbands, even though they would resist when others do such nasty things, provoked me to write that story.
Another story, ‘Amma Kosam’ (‘For Mother’ in English), too was inspired by such a real-life incident. One of my friends’ sisters bought a washing machine for her mother as a gift.
Unlike many others, I didn’t like her calling it a gift for her mother. I felt that we need to look at that differently. Then I wrote it as a plain essay and sent it to ‘Mahila Margam’. They suggested that I write it as a story, as I had already been writing stories. I then put it aside.
After some time, I could weave it into a story.
My next story was ‘Puritinoppule Nayam’ (‘Labour Pains Were Better’ in English). I sent it to ‘Mabhoomi’ magazine. It was not about any one incident. Many incidents made me write that one. When I was in my intermediate studies, one of our teachers, who was pregnant, taught by sitting in a chair. Some nasty students made a ruckus, asking her to stand up and teach.
Then she stood up and taught the lesson with great difficulty. I felt very bad about that. On another occasion, when I was commuting on a bus, one pregnant woman vomited. Then I thought, when a woman gives birth to a child (particularly to a male child), all people would congratulate her! But to what extent does this society really cooperate with women when they are carrying? When I wrote it, I gave it a different title – ‘Matritvam Madhurima Venaka’ [Behind the joy of motherhood]. But the editors of the magazine changed it as this.
The inspiration for my story ‘Iddaru Tallulu’ (‘Two Mothers’ in English) was a woman named Adivamma who belonged to our native village, Kadavendi. Her son Yadagiri was working in the revolutionary movement back then, just like my own elder brother. Those days, when we were living in Kadavendi, she used to visit our home very frequently. She used to talk about this and that and then ask us quietly about the news published in the newspapers. Much later,
it took the shape of a story like that. I had first sent this story to ‘Mahila Margam’, but they asked me to change its ending, writing it in a way that the teacher too becomes part of the movement. But it was not possible. I gave it to my younger brother Raju to read and sought his feedback. He then gave it to a literary critic, Srinivasamurthy. He wrote to Raju that there was no need to make any changes in the story. So, I then sent it to ‘Arunatara’. They published it.
I mentioned this to my partner, Comrade Mahesh (Santosh), too. He told me that the way I narrated it to him, the ending I wrote would go well. Some time after he read this story, when it got published, he wrote to me: “There will be people who would contribute to the revolutionary movement in very different ways. Not all would work full-time. There should be people who lend cooperation in various ways. Such people also should be required. So the ending you gave to the story is good.”
Another story, ‘Pravaham’ (‘The Flow’ in English), was inspired by an incident that happened in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh. A district committee member married his niece even before joining the organisation. His wife too followed his path and joined the movement sometime later. Later, he left the organisation, but she remained. She was my inspiration to write the story.
I wanted to show my other story, ‘Metla Meeda’ (‘Over the Steps’ in English), to Mahesh first. But, by the time I could finish it, he was martyred [on December 2, 1999]. That story generated a lot of discussion and debate. However, the debate was completely different from what we have seen here [in Dandakaranya]. VV [Varavararao] and Chalasani Prasad liked the story very much. Chalasani even went to the extent of saying, “You should be conferred a Nobel Prize for this story, dear!”
On one occasion, when I had gone to see Comrade Mahesh, I took some of my stories to him – Sankela (Shackles), Viddurapu Manishi (The Weird Person), Iddaru Tallulu (Two Mothers) and Bhavukata (The Capacity for Wonder). He made me read all of them to him. He liked all of them. However, in ‘Bhavukata’, he pointed out that in the line – “When you sleep peacefully, forgetting everything, we are the ones who breastfeed your children and pat them to sleep”, I shouldn’t have written ‘your children’. Society usually identifies children as the father’s kids, but we don’t. He finally commended me, saying, “You have developed a good command of this craft. Continue writing more.”
After ‘Metla Meeda’ (Over the Steps), I wrote a story, ‘Bonda Judanaithi’ [meaning, ‘Wish I Could See the Grave’ – This story has been titled in English as ‘Unresolved Loss’]. That was inspired by the real story of my maternal grandmother, who could not see her husband’s grave.
Then comes the story ‘Ee Sokam Yendaridi’ (‘Collective Grief’ in English). In 2003, there was a piece of news about an encounter in which police had claimed that my elder brother was killed. Later, it turned out that it was a woman comrade, Damayanti, who was actually killed, not my brother. My mother didn’t stop crying even upon knowing that he was safe. When I asked her why she didn’t stop wailing, she said, “Maybe it’s not him, but someone’s child has lost her life. Doesn’t it pain us too?” I also remembered an incident where ‘Kranti’ Mohan’s mother too went to see a dead body when she got to know that her son might have been killed in an encounter. When they realised that the dead comrade was not her son, while others felt relieved, but she still grieved for the dead and said, “Maybe he is not my
son, but somebody has lost his life.” It had known about this for a long time. But after my mother’s words, I transformed it into a story.
One more story of mine was ‘Anaganaga Oka Amma’ (‘Once Upon a Mother’ in English). Comrade Chandra’s mother was very dear to me. She had told me that when her daughter was in her first marriage, she would always be worried about her daughter, thinking that she could get killed by her husband. After she joined the movement, her mother would still worry about her daughter’s life. She once shared this with me, saying, ‘How similar and yet different are my worries!’ That gave birth to this story – ‘Anaganaga Oka Amma’.
In the year 1996, Revolutionary Writers’ Association (RWA) conducted a story writing workshop in Araku, Andhra Pradesh. When I was asked to attend that workshop, I was worried initially because all the big names would be there. Allam Rajaiah, Tummeti Raghottam, RS Rao, Chalasani Prasad, N. Venugopal were among the attendees there. They would discuss a lot about literature. I couldn’t understand even a bit of it. However, in the evenings, stories would be read out, which were much easier to understand. Actually, I was reluctant to go there, but my comrades pushed me, saying, “You just have to sit there, nothing else.” Some of the attendees were non-writers. Some family members and friends of the writers too were there, who actually went there to see the place, as Araku also happened to be a nice tourist destination. Everyone there thought that I too was there just like them. On the last day, the organisers said, ‘Today, those people have to speak who didn’t speak a word till now.’
I felt as though a stone had fallen on my heart. I asked, “What am I supposed to talk about?” They said, “You can talk about something you have written, if you have anything.” So, by then I had five published stories to my name, so I talked about the background of all those stories. I also mentioned that the inspiration behind all of my writing was Volga’s ‘Political Stories’ [Rajakeeya Kathalu in Telugu]. When I revealed that I had written five stories, Krishnakka [RWA leader Krishnabai] was amused and said, ‘You already wrote five stories and still not making any noise?’ The moment I finished, Bajara [writer Bammidi Jagadeeswara Rao] came running towards me and said, “Is it you who wrote ‘Bhavukata’? I liked it very much.” Apparently, Bajara converted it into a play when he was working with ETV in Hyderabad. His job was to convert stories into dramas that would be telecast on their TV channel. But for some reason, they didn’t consider that.
After I started working in the Bansadhara area [of Odisha in 2004], I wrote the story ‘Anita’. I wrote ‘Jolapata’ (meaning Lullaby – which has been titled in English as I want those politics) in 2005 when I was in a hospital [in Hyderabad]. I read about a struggle waged by the ‘Organisation of Martyrs’ Relatives’ to build a martyr column in Hyderabad, and that made me write it. The editors changed its title to ‘Aa Rajakeeyalu Naggavale’ (‘I Want Those Politics’ in English). After that, I wrote ‘Poolatota’ (‘Flower Garden’ in English) and ‘Nadaka Munduke’ (‘Marching Forward’ in English). ‘Nadaka Munduke’ was written when Vinay surrendered. And I wrote ‘Ukku Kota’ (‘Steel Fortress’ in English), in 2007, after coming to Dandakaranya. This is about Padkal Swamy’s heroic resistance. I happened to know about this incident back in 1993. It was so inspiring to me. So, when I met him in person for the first time, I made him tell me the full story. Meeting him was itself the inspiration for the story. There is nothing fictional in it.
My other stories ‘Talli Prema’ (‘Mother’s Love’ in English), ‘Moosukunna Hridayam’ (‘Closed Heart’ in English) and ‘Na Biddane’ (‘She is My Daughter’ in English) were written against the backdrop of Salwa Judum. Another story, ‘Ame Akali’, was in my mind for a very
long time. It was something one of my aunts had shared at home. I always used to think about it. Finally, I decided that I couldn’t come out of that thought unless I wrote it out.
(This manuscript is an abridged version of the audio recording, edited for better understanding and clarity. Translated and edited by Prasad)
