ALAS, THE GIANTS ARE DEPARTING
one by one – gargantuan in their respective
fields, with superb motivation to serve humanity in general. Their
extraordinary achievements in diverse arenas are but contributions to the cause
of common human weal. This editor fondly remembers his school days when all the
students – generally film goers – would split into two camps of ANR-NTR fans
and heatedly argue as to ‘ANR goppaa? NTR goppaa?’ [who is greater hero – ANR or NTR?] and gradually realization would dawn that both
were great, unparalleled-in-their-respective-specialized-characters actors who
had mesmerized the Telugu film watching public in those days. They were a
competing, if not rival, duo in the eyes of people then. In contrast the
friendly duo of Bapu-Ramana commanded the Telugu film sector to an extent in
recent decades. Bapu’s versatility in art, direction and production is
indescribable and sadly his body now extinct, following his demised friend, a
magician of the written word in Telugu. Well, as time passed, the fascination
for films waned and this editor as also many of the growing up students were
drawn into the vortex of academic, social and political developments in the
country and some into the movements to ‘change the society’ [samaaj ko badal dalo] when acquaintance
first and camaraderie next with giants in political and social transformation
movements had taken place. That is how a M.T. Khan and a Bipan Chandra came
into the socio-political circle of contacts to this editor and the former was
more of a comrade-in-arms, as a revolutionary writer, in the movement for
social and human emancipation that shook the country in the late sixties and
seventies, which continued to the present day with Khan Saheb more and more
immersing himself in and guiding the human rights movements. And Bipan Chandra,
a doyen of progressive historians in India
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