The Sparrow from When the Grief Rains collection though small is a specimen of poetry reminding us of Victorian trend and tradition, the twilight of romanticism, pensive brooding and reflection, the crux is one derived from sorrow and despair, as he is a poet of the country, the farmer and the schoolmaster. T.V. Reddy who had been the Principal of Govt. College, Puttur, Andhra Pradesh in the latter years was also awarded Visiting National Fellowship for a tenure. The poem which may be cited as an example dances before the eyes just as an image. The whole scene of making and unmaking comes to our purview as and when we sit to discuss this poem.

How the process of making! How is the footfall approaching, the footfall of the stranger coming with his gum boots, how is the evening descending upon, the hawk looking with the pouncing eyes!

The sparrow picked in zeal the veins of a leaf with the view of making a nest with its beak to hatch the eggs, picked, made and hatched too, unaware of the ominous, the unthought about, as the crow which lay in waiting to conspire, invaded the nest to give a deserted look ultimately and the bird flew away. A vacuum pervaded in the spirit and atmosphere with a flutter of wings. The sky saw it and squawked in requiem. The poet means to say, how dreams are dreamt and how they are reduced to dust! How do the dreams get shattered? Hope and despair keep walking with. How are conspiracies hatched?

When Grief Rains published in 1982 contains in the poem so pictured as an image, a scenic presentation, a silhouette taken aback. 

It picked in zeal
the veins of a leaf,
wove a nest
with its beak
to hatch the eggs.
The ominous crow
invaded the grassy womb and
the lone sparrow fled
away from the vacuous nest.
A flutter of wings:
the sky squawked in requiem.

The Village Girl from Melting Moments refreshes the memory of the modern Hindi poets such as Suryakanta Tripathy ‘Nirala’ and Jayshankar Prasad. Is the poet describing twilight or Twilight personified as a maiden going to fill her earthen pitcher with water? What is it? It is both a maiden pictured lonely against the backdrop an eve-fall and twilight retreating together with the filling of water and a scene portrayed with the picture of an Indian rural girl reminding of love, beauty and sadness. A beautiful poem, it has come to us as a surprise as it is really an ennobling experience to read it, to go through the lines of the poem. How does twilight sink into the water? How do the Indian village, rural girls go to the water body as for to fill with water?

As twilight was sinking, fading into dusk exactly at that time there came a girl in pale brown to fill her pot with water and when it was filled with brownish water, she placed it at her waist, curved and balanced it upon lifting it and took to the route walking down and the dusk too seemed as being carried away with her retreating stride and go. Twilight sunk into dusk slowly or just sinking when she was filling the pot with the last glimmers glimmering, glistening looking golden and sparkling, but when she took to it to her waist, balancing to go, with her stride the dusk too seemed to be carried away. It means the dusk turned into the eve-fall to deepen into the nighttime and it started gloomier and darker. 

A small poem, it has so many covers and coats of meaning to laid bare of. Love and sadness, what is it to say about it? What is romanticism? How does it fade away? How do the sceneries change? How was our village life? What does it remain unto the end, darkness, shadow and reflection, image, memory and reminiscence?

Jayanta Mahapatra’s Missing Person can also be read. Tennyson’s memory hangs it upon. The Indian nautch girls scenery flashes upon the mind’s plane. How do they perform with pitchers and anklets, make-up and beauty-aids going to fill pitchers with water? The poem is Grayan, Tennysonian and Victorian. The traces of early and late romanticism can also be traced as the kernels and streaks to be found therein. Everything vanishes, but the memory lingers on as some shadow doing the rounds. The day is gone, now it is night given to remembrance and brooding.

Twilight
sinking into dusk
a girl in pale brown
came to the stream
and gracefully filled her pot
with brownish water
Keeping the pot balanced at her waist’s curve
she balanced her lonely way
and carried the dusk away
but her melting shadow
lingered long in my mind’s stream