The School of Humanities, University of Hyderabad organized a Telugu Lecture on “Seshendra Sharma’s poetry-Novelty in Expression” by Prof. R V S Sundaram at Humanities Auditorium on October 30, 2013. This has been organized under the Guntur Seshendra Sharma Memorial Lecture endowed by his wife, Smt. Indira Devi Dhanrajgir.
Prof. R.V.S. Sundaram said that Seshendra Sharma is the second person to have been nominated for the Nobel Literature prize for his contribution to literary field from India, the first being Rabindranath Tagore. The West Bengal Government conferred upon him the title “Rashtrendu” (Moon of the Nation) in honour of his accomplishments. Telugu University conferred an Honorary D.Litt on him in 1994. The other important awards Seshendra received are ‘Subrahmanya Bharati Ekta Award’ from the Hindi Academy, Rashtriya Sanskriti Puraskar’, ‘Ugadi Puraskar’, ‘Tilak Award’ and ‘Sahitya Ratna 2001’ from Sri Ram Sahitya Mandal, Himachal Pradesh. He has been nominated as a member to the ‘Kendriya Hindi Samithi’ by the Prime Minister of India. He was selected for Hamsa Award, in 2004-05, by the Govt. of AP.
Prof. Sundaram stated that Seshendra’s poetry gives a universal message and his poetry and writings talk about cultural transformations. He shared that Seshendra’s poetry itself he has a deep social commitment and all of his works speak about the truth in the literary way. Seshendra was the personification of a vibrant Telugu poetry tradition, added Prof. Sundaram.
Prof. R.V.S. Sundaram was born on 21-04-1948 at Nellore, Andhra Pradesh. He is a former Professor and Director of Kuvempu Institute of Kannada Studies, University of Mysore, and Director of Prasaranga (Publication Directorate) at the same University. He received A.P. Sahitya Akademi Award, 1968-69 for a book on Native Poetry in Telugu literature and published in 1970; Award for book written in a language other than mother-tongue, Union Ministry of Education, 1983, Palkuriki Somanatha Award, 2000 Bhasha Bharati Award for Translation, Central Institute of Indian Languages, Ministry of HRD, 2006. His books and monographs more than 80 were published in Telugu, Kannada and English (these include Poetry, Criticism, Folklore, Translation, Novel, Linguistics, Life-sketch, Drama, Editing and Text-Books He wrote about 200 Papers and Articles published in Telugu, Kannada and English.
The lecture was presided over by Prof. Amitabha Dasgupta, Dean, School of Humanities.