My Life Is a Song: Gaddar's Anthems for Revolution

Description

Gaddar, poet, singer, revolutionary, is among the most well-known of the

creative minds associated with people's resistance movements in India. Born

Gummadi Vittal Rao in 1947, in Tupran village of Medak district in what is

now Telangana, Gaddar became an activist in his youth after dropping out of

engineering college due to poverty. With a gift for singing and song-writing,

he travelled the road-for some time underground-reaching lakhs of people

with his music, and became the cultural face of 'rebellion', the literal meaning

of his nom de guerre.

Of the thousands of songs Gaddar performed, only a few were ever recorded

in print. My Life Is a Song brings together, for the first time in English

translation, twenty-three representative songs, selected by his friend and

fellow traveller, Vasanth Kannabiran. Translated from the original Telugu

with an eye to Gaddar's unique style and delivery, this selection takes the

extraordinary 'anthems' of one of India's greatest singer-poets-and a living

legend of revolutionary thought-to a wider audience.