naDedu banda dAri (The Road Travelled )

Adiga gave two reasons for selecting that particular title for the collection. The first reason, he wrote, was the need to give some title to the collection and the second was the feeling that henceforth he might not be able to write in the manner he used to so far. In his preface he also referred to certain changes in post-independence India and argued that poetry which is dependent upon life has to change as life changes. More significantly, he spoke of the need to articulate a new idiom for the new experience.
The title poem in this collection is imagistic and reveals a change in Adiga's sensibility. The road travelled is seen in terms of a series of images. But the lilting rhythm and the musical idiom still connect the poems in this collection with those in the previous ones. In terms of thematic preoccupations, seven poems in this collection are important. They are -- "Hennu I", "hennu II" (Woman I and II), "Puspakaviya ParAku" (The Paen of Pushpakavi), "Nanna Avatara" (My State), and "Indu Nammi Nadu, I, II & III" (Our Country Today) I, II, & III). "Woman I & II" and "My State" attempt to articulate the poet's growing awareness of "the human condition". The feeling that nature is our step-mother which is so central to the later poem "Song of The Earth", finds its first expression in these poems. The object of the satire in "The Paen of Pushpakavi" is a poet-aesthete who prefers flowers to fruits, i.e., immaturity to maturity.