(ఆజన్మం పుస్తకం మీద మిత్రుడు శిరీష్ ఆదిత్య జూన్ 2021లో రాసిన అభిప్రాయం.)
Poodoori Rajireddy’s Aajanmam is a collection of short autobiographical sketches written over a period of a decade or so. The write-ups include philosophical ramblings, observations of physical surroundings, questions and notes to self, memoir among other things. Across the pieces, the reader gets to travel, in a sense, alongside the writer and to listen to his thoughts and musings. While that might get monotonous after a while despite the broad range of topics, what keeps the reader hooked is Rajireddy’s incredible ability to translate into words feelings we are aware of in the deepest recesses of our hearts but never were able to pinpoint and communicate them precisely.
The other thing that Rajireddy achieves in this collection, and in his other writing as well, is to give us a sense of what it feels like to go through life on an everyday basis. The fact that most of our lives happen inside our heads is easy to see but hard to write about without turning either boring or self-obsessed. And I have not read many writers, Geoff Dyer being another exception, who have been able to do that in such an interesting and insightful method; On what happens in our lives during minutes and hours when nothing much is happening.
In the preface of his book 'Chintakindi Mallayya Muchchata', Rajireddy states, "I cannot write anything that is not me". But who is this me exactly? It is a question he repeatedly asks and attempts in myriad ways to answer in Aajanmam. And in that exploration, he inspires the reader to undertake a similar journey. Aajanmam is like an impressionistic painting with innumerable short, casual strokes giving us a truer picture than a more traditionally autobiographical transcription of reality might have.
- Sirish Aditya
