To Snehalata - A Tribute
Achyut Patwardhan
TO SNEHALATA
It is a strange irony of circumstances that a person of such deep artistic sensibility as Snehalata Reddy should have got caught into the vortex of a passing political cyclone. For though the Emergency regime of Indira Gandhi was a veritable nightmare while it lasted, the people of India were fortunate to learn from experience how fragile it really was, based as it was, without authentic roots in the hearts of the people, and without any purposive function in terms of the oppressed rural poor.
The illegal arrest and detention of a basically non-political artist even if it is a glaring outrage on personal liberty of a citizen, cannot by itself explain the sad and untimely end of a life full of warmth and promise. Snehalata was a person of deep and spontaneous kinship for fellow men and women. Her response to the suffering of another was more intense than her pain in her own ailments. The injustice of the jail and police administered with highhanded brutality, toughness and cruelty was totally suffocating and unbearable for a sensitive nature like Snehlata’s. Confronted with this outrage day after day in the jail, she was very deeply disturbed and it contributed to aggravate her illness which hastened her end. It is tragic that a political set-up could be so totally callous and unmindful of glaring wrongs to helpless prisoners. Snehlata is a martyr in the crusade to dismantle such a soul-less political machine.
Snehalata’s death is an irreparable loss to Pattabhirama Reddy. An artist of out-of-the-ordinary intelligence and creative flair himself, Pattabhiram was the main inspiration and sustenance in the flowering of Snehalata as a person and as an artist. It is a matter of deep regret that this team of Pattabhiram and Snehlata was broken up by a cruel conspiracy of circumstances before it could yield a richer harvest of artistic creations.
(Courtesy: Olympus - Magazine )
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Snehalata Reddy – A Tribute
- Madhu Limaye
There was one extremely enduring quality about Snehalata. She never went stale. Her mental growth never came to a stop. In spite of the terrible ailment from which she suffered advanced bronchial asthma – she remained cheerful and always wore a smile on her face.
Snehalata Reddy was a true martyr to the cause of freedom. She was the most eminent victim of the cruel emergency era. Let us all draw inspiration from her example and dedicate ourselves to the service of the poor, exploited and neglected millions of our land.
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