New book! The River Speaks, poems by Bojja Tharakam.

We are glad to announce our new book, ‘The River Speaks’, a collection of poems written by lawyer, human rights activist, writer, intellectual Bojja Tharakam (1939-2016) in 1976, when he was jailed during the Emergency. It is a brilliant commentary on the Indian state, society, and the ruling classes. The poems have been translated from the original Telugu by Naren Bedide (Kuffir).

It is available to order from amazon.in.

~ Emergency was clamped on 26th June 1975. Many thousands were thrown into jail. Fear gripped the entire country. Many people I knew were arrested. Whoever was perceived as ‘opposing Indira Gandhi’s policies’ was arrested. Political activists were anyway not spared, but they arrested writers too. The police had been sending reports about me (to their bosses) saying, ‘he has developed good relations with the people, and is also a writer’ for quite long.

July 4th.. I returned home from the court a little late. It was already dark, and a light drizzle was falling. The police inspector arrived. ‘The SP wants to see you’, he said. I understood. I told Bharathi, ‘they’ll arrest me’. We went in a police jeep. There was a bustle at the SP’s house, with police vans.. jeeps.. He told me, ‘we’re arresting you’. I said, ‘I’ll inform my people at home and return’. They sent me back in the same jeep, which was filled with armed policemen by then. When we reached my home, it was already surrounded by gun toting policemen. As I went inside, a policeman with a gun accompanied me.