It's back to books

With five of his novels being republished this month, well known Telugu author and former Press Chief of the U.S. Consulate in Chennai, Maganti Koteswara Rao talks about how he balanced fiction writing and his career in public relations.

In the Telugu literary world, he is simply known as “Maganti.” He has authored seven best-selling novels in Telugu, several plays, short-stories and poems. His novels have been translated into Tamil and Kannada. He was a journalist in leading Telugu dailies for 10 years from 1975. He began his career in journalism in the Eenadu group under the tutelage of Ramoji Rao. He was a newscaster for ETV from its studio in Chennai for about two years when the ETV was launched. He knows well leaders in politics, films, government, business and media and they include former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and the late Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy. Maganti is an old friend of film actor Chiranjeevi and knows Chiranjeevi's brothers Nagababu and Pavan Kalyan from their younger days. Maganti acted as an official interpreter to U.S. President George W. Bush when Bush visited the Agricultural University in Hyderabad in March 2006. The then Chief Minister Rajasekhara Reddy and Maganti even rehearsed the event the previous day with a U.S. official “acting” as President Bush!

But there is another side to Maganti Koteswara Rao. He served the U.S. Consulate in Chennai for 25 years before opting for voluntary retirement on July 23, 2010 at the age of 55. He joined the U.S. Consulate as Media Editor for Andhra Pradesh and rose to become its Press and Media Chief for south India. After a gap of five years, he is all set now, as he said, to take to the technology of fiction-writing again.

full report here Hindu

DRDA offers to buy Telugu Academy books

Help is flowing in for the fund-starved Telugu Academy after some corporate institutions' alleged piracy of its Intermediate textbooks came out last week. With the state government and the minister for higher education, Sridhar Babu supporting the academy, another government body, District Rural Development Authority (DRDA) has offered to purchase a part of the academy's stock of textbooks which were not purchased by corporate institutions. The first purchase by the body will be worth Rs 2 crore.

The DRDA is a state project set up to offer free and compulsory education for Intermediate students from rural areas with poor economic status. According to Telugu Academy sources, the DRDA has agreed to buy 4,000 bundles of textbooks for the students who are covered under the programme at first. More stock will be bought as and when the government sanctions come.

The Telugu academy officials had earlier revealed that they had a loss of Rs 8 crore in the academic year 2010-11 alone as corporate institutions, private colleges and small-time publishers printed pirated editions of their textbook content and supplied it to junior colleges across the state. The academy recently, lodged a case against Nishit Multimedia India Pvt Ltd, a Narayana Group of Institutions owned-publishing company for allegedly pirating their books.

Full report here Times of India 

''Telugu Bhasha Dinotsavam'' observed

'Telugu Bhasha Dinotsavam', a day to celebrate Telugu as the mother tongue, was observed across Andhra Pradesh on August 29.

Cultural organisations organised a 'walk' on the Tank Bund Road at the picturesque Hussain Sagar lake in the heart of the city to raise awareness on the need to promote the language. Meetings were organised at several places in the state to discuss the status of the language and ways to promote it. "Telugu is among the languages which are facing threat of extinction as per UN reports. It is the responsibility of Telugu people to protect and safeguard the language," R Kavita Prasad, a famous Telugu writer said.

"Loss of culture is loss of identity. Telugu was hailed as a beautiful and sweet language even by non-Telugu personalities like Tamil poet Subramania Bharati and also C P Brown, a renowned British official during the British rule in the country. So, we should do our best to promote the use of our mother tongue," he said. The day is observed on the birth anniversary of Gidugu Ramamurthy Pantulu, a great Telugu writer, who organised a spirited campaign in early 20th century for popularising functional Telugu used by common people instead of the language spoken in those by the pundits and purists.

Full report here IBNLive

Punjabi scholar, Telugu researcher chosen for Bhasha Samman

A noted Punjabi scholar and a Telugu veteran have been chosen for the 'Bhasha Samman' by the Sahitya Akademi for their contribution to the field of classical and medieval literature.

Gurudev Singh, a Punjabi scholar, was chosen for the honour from the Northern region, while Telugu researcher and critic Korlapati Sriramamurthy from the Southern region, the Akademi said in a statement.

Singh has compiled the Encyclopedia of Sufi Poetry and Thoughts and also the History of Sufi Punjabi Poetry and has also written books in Gurumukhi script and translated texts from Persian and Arabic.

The Bhasha Samman carries a cash prize of Rs 1,00,000 besides an inscribed copy plaque and citation.

Full report here DNA

Best of the best

Abhinava Publications, Tirupati, has brought out a compilation of the nineteen best short stories authored by various writers during the year 2009.

The year saw as many as 2000 stories and as it is not possible for one to read all of them, academician-turned-litterateur Sakam Nagaraja has brought out the compilation entitled Varthamana Telugu Katha 2009, meticulously selecting the best of the best.

After Katha, a compilation being published jointly by Vasireddy Navin and Papineni Sivasankar for the last 20 years and the decade-old Katha Varshika by Madhurantakam Rajaram Trust, this is said to be the third such annual compilation in the field of Telugu literature.

The book includes short stories by veteran writers like Thummeti Raghothama Reddy, Mohammad Khadeer Babu, Vinodini, Vempalle Sharif, Attada Appala Naidu, T. Patanjali Sastry, S. Venkatrami Reddy, Swamy, Kasibhatla Venugopal, Pasupuleti Gita, Sai Brahmanandam Gorthi, Ramanajeevi, T. Karuna, Bhanu Kiran, D. Padmakar, G. Gouru Naidu, P. Ramakrishna and novices P.Raji Reddy and Anil S. Rayal.

Full report here Hindu

Lifetime achievement award to C Narayana Reddy

Padma Vibhushan Cinjireddy Narayana Reddy will be awarded the Lifetime achievement Award at Cine‘Maa’ awards, by Maa TV this year.

The ‘Jnanpith awardee’ C Narayana Reddy, a poet and lyricist, will be given the lifetime achievement award for his outstanding contribution to Telugu cinema. With a PhD in Telugu literature, C Narayana Reddy has written lyrics for more than 3,000 songs. He is known for his excellent command over the Telugu language.

Cine‘Maa’ Awards, the flagship event of Maa TV, enters its 6th year this year. As usual, it will be a grand affair, as Megastar Chiranjeevi and King Nagarjuna will also attend the function. The event will be telecasted on Maa TV on August 28th 2010.

Full report here Cineglitz

Linguistic harmony need of the hour: Volga

Famed Telugu writer, Lalitakumari (Volga) said, cultural enrichment can be possible only through linguistic harmony and regretted that politicians were scuttling the efforts of cultural ambassadors to bring in linguistic harmony.

Speaking at the silver jubilee celebrations of North Karnataka Women Writers Association here, she said women writers were making a mark in the literary world in recent times and were off the beaten track. Literature by women is taking a new turn, with writers harping on contemporary issues. They have begun to question exploitation, Volga said.

She offered to organize interaction sessions on literary works in Telugu and Kannada in Andhra Pradesh and invited Kannada writers to Andhra Pradesh. She said Telugu writers would be pleased to participate in such sessions anywhere in Karnataka.

Full report here Times of India

Rosaiah releases Telugu version of the holy Quran

Chief Minister K. Rosaiah on Thursday released the Telugu version of the holy Quran.

CD FORM
The Quran was translated and brought in a book and CD form by Abdul Rahim Mohammad Maulana, a nephrology specialist working in Holy Mecca.

The Chief Minister lauded the efforts of Dr. Abdul Rahim, who migrated from Hyderabad, for not forgetting his roots and bringing out the holy book in Telugu.

FREE OF COST
Dr. Abdul Rahim informed that the copies of the translation were being supplied free of cost to Haj pilgrims. He also said that he had designed a video CD of Quran to ensure that even illiterates could understand it.

Full report here Hindu

Blow to Telugu courses in overseas universities

The objective of spreading Telugu language overseas is set to take a serious blow as the state government failed to keep its commitment of paying Rs 10.26 lakh each to Hebrew University, Israel and University of California, USA, to fund their courses in Telugu.

A few years ago, the state government entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the two universities for organising a certificate course in Telugu. The Potti Sriramulu Telugu University had taken the initiative in holding talks with the universities and the regime of former chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy approved the proposal. As per the MoU, the state government was to provide Rs 10.26 lakh each university for engaging Telugu professors and supplying books to the students interested in learning Telugu. If the state government funds the programme for a period of five years, the respective universities expressed their willingness to recognise the Telugu language course as any other course in their universities.

The courses began in both the universities in 200809 as the state government paid Rs 10.26 lakh. At the Hebrew University nearly 12 students, including both foreigners and nonresident Indians, joined the course. Similarly, at the University of California, where there is a heavy contingent of Telugu diaspora, nearly 20 students took admission. Both universities offer diploma and certificate courses.

Full report here New Indian Express

Call to revive Krishnamayya's works

The message that the first Telugu Vaggeyakara Krishnamayya had given through his sankeertanas should be preserved and propagated for the benefit of posterity, port Chairman Ajeya Kallam has said.

At the inaugural of the Krishnamayya Jayantotsavam organised at the temple of Lord Varaha Lakshmi Narasimha at Simhachalam on Thursday, he said it was unfortunate that many of the verses of Krishnamayya had not seen the light of the day. He appreciated the efforts of the organisers to revive the works of the poet. He, however, said that instead of focussing on individuals, efforts should be made to revive their works.

Presiding over the programme, Ramachandracharyulu of Vizianagaram said it was unfortunate that successive officials of Simhachalam temple were pre-occupied with the temple lands issue and were not able to concentrate on the temple activities. He said some of Krishnamayya's works were available at the Manuscripts Library in Thanjavur.

Full report here Hindu

Google working with Wikipedia to translate 'Smaller Languages'

Google July 14 said it is working with Wikipedia contributors, translators and "Wikipedians" (I assume these are users) across India, the Middle East and Africa to translate more than 16 million words for Wikipedia into Arabic, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Swahili, Tamil and Telugu.

While Wikipedia has the so-called common languages English, German and French covered with millions of articles, there is a paucity of pieces translated into the aforementioned smaller languages.

The motive is obvious; Google and Wikipedia have a shared interest in organizing information and content and making it easily consumable for Web users all over the world.

Google has made great progress with Hindi, arguably one of the larger smaller languages, but the method is not so obvious. Google apparently uses Google Trends to pinpoint content and then the Translator Toolkit to translate it for Wikipedia.

Full report here Googlewatch

Regaining the lost glory of poetic play

If you were a Telugu teacher in the good old days, you were singing in the class room. Well, it wasn’t  exactly singing in the strict sense of the word, but one would tunefully recite the poems from the text. A Telugu teacher who could not ‘sing’ a poem was considered a blot on the fraternity. But then, those were the old days where the Telugu pundit was a pundit in the real sense of the word, knowing both his ancient literary texts and the basics of music.

Nowadays, this singing has almost completely gone out of the curriculum. Not only because the contemporary teacher cannot sing poems, but also because the syllabus has become more modern with blank verse, short story and essays occupying quite a significant. But there is one place where the Telugu poem is still sung and enjoyed both by the singer and the listener. That is the Padya Natakam in Telugu. Telugus are extremely proud of this poetic heritage. Padya Natakam, which we claim as a unique genre not to be seen in other languages, has its origin from the late 19th century. In a play of not less than 3 to 4 hours, there are just a few dialogues in between and a series of singing poetry. All the major dialogues are in poetic form; the characters burst out singing as in opera; these actors need to be proficient in literature, music apart from the four Abhinayas. They need to concentrate at one and the same time on emoting, speaking, singing and gesturing.

All this makes it a unique performing art. Starting from Vemuri Gaggayya, Peesapati, Raghuramaiah, Sthanam Narasimha Rao (to name a very few) to the present day Gummadi Gopalakrishna there have been a number of excellent artistes. The duo who made this poetic play a household name are Tirupati Venkata Kavulu. Their poetic play based on Mahabharata, and especially the scene where Arjuna and Duryodhana visit Krishna to ask for his boons, and the famous scene in which Lord Krishna visits Duryodhana’s court to make an ‘amicable’ settlement between Pandavas and Kauravas are known as classics in this genre. In fact, there is hardly any Telugu person alive who does not know at least one poem from this text, written in the beginning of the 20th century.

Full report here New Indian Express

Bridging the language divide

Biruduraju Ramaraju has left a rich legacy

Not many a scholar in contemporary culture scene could claim authority over the pan-Indian, Sanskritic tradition and the , local, folk tradition with equal felicity and competence. This is the accomplishment of Biruduraju Rama Raju who passed away last month at the age of 84.

The Telugu Department of Kakatiya University, Warangal organised a meeting in his memory recently and the speakers paid rich tributes to the scholar-researcher-critic . Rama Rau was born at Devanoor village in Warangal. He completed primary education at Devanoor and Madikonda, on the outskirts of Hanamkonda. For his higher education he had to walk 14 km to and from Hanamkonda for about eight years.

He used to regularly Rajarajanarendra Andhra Bhasha Nilayam, a library established in 1904 at Hanamkonda. He took part in the meetings organised by youth leaders of the time like Kaloji Narayana Rao, P.V. Narasimha Rao, T. Hayagreeva Chari and M. S. Rajalingam. He came into contact with leaders of the Arya Samaj, Andhra Mahasabha in Warangal and under their influence he was actively involved in politics for a while

Full report here Hindu

Remembering Bharago

Noted writer Bhamidipati Ramagopalam, popularly known as Bharago, breathed his last last Wednesday. Born on February 6, 1932, at Pushpagiri (Sree Venugopalaswamy Punyakshetram) in Vizianagaram district, he was the eldest son of Bhamidipati Suryanarayana and Suramma.

He had regular schooling from III form onwards at M.R. Branch College and later he graduated in B.A. Economics in 1951 from M.R. Degree College, Vizianagaram.

After serving a temporary assignment as a checker to start with for seven months from April to December 1951 at the Census Sorting and Tabulation office, he served as a clerk, surveyor, head-surveyor and district surveyor of the Department of A.P. Survey, Settlement and Land Records. He was chosen to be assistant to the Editor of Andhra Jyothi Weekly for a year and a deputy surveyor of Visakapatnam Port Trust for about 16 years, before retiring in 1990.

Full report here Hindu

Vara Vara, a lyrical ideologue

Ideology and imagination are happily blended in the work of Vara Vara Rao and he is not the rigid political poet he is made out to be, observed fellow litterateur K Siva Reddy on Saturday, April 11.

Addressing a gathering after the release of Captive Imagination -- Letters From Prison, a translation from the writings of the Virasam founder-member, Siva Reddy said Vara Vara had distilled the people’s experiences, and his own, in the depiction of political and social life.

The poet might be rigid in his political line, but none can deny his lyricism -- as in his descriptions of the jasmine and the dove in jail.

Siva Reddy also complimented the translation for capturing the nuances and rhythms of the original.

Full report here New Indian Express

V V: To Andhra Pradesh with love

David Shulman, professor of humanistic studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an expert on South Indian languages and cultures has written Spring, Heat, Rains: A South Indian Journey (University of Chicago Press, $25/Special Indian price, Rs 1,004) which is not just a travelogue but a long meditation on Telegu literature with reflections on Andhra history. As a journey across space and time, it is rather like a genre without rules, free from precept or precedent: part travel writing, part literary appreciation but above all, a philosophy expressed in images. Shulman is also a scholar in Sanskrit and classical Hindustani music, plus much else besides, and brings to bear his formidable learning to this book, which he admits to “a restlessness that rules me, so the landscapes shift like the languages and the texts”. All of which makes it difficult to write about it in this limited space!

As you might expect, the diary is lyrical, sensual but more than anything else, it is introspective. Just about everything becomes a part of the huge canvas Shulman builds his story on. There are reflections on daily happenings and the life around: “Rocks. Goats. Dry shrubs, Buffaloes. Thorns. A fallen tamarind tree.” Simple observations of the daily lives of ordinary people of Rajahmundry, on the banks of the river Godavari which like all rivers in India are sacred and determine the life styles of millions around. Shulman has been bitten by the metaphysical bug:

“How did I happen to find myself in Rajamundhry in the early spring of 2006? The answer would be the river called me. She — the Godavari — is imperious, also infinitely seductive. Rajamundhry is her town. When I saw her, she extracted a promise that I would return:….”

Full report here Business Standard

A new wave in the offing

The trend now in Telugu writing is to look into ourselves; look into our own. This could be called introspection in a very broad sense of the word. Well-known writers are now asked to write, not just creative or critical writing, but about how and why they have become what they are today. The best way to ponder this is to talk about themselves in as dispassionate and objective way as they can. It’s not very easy for egocentric people (most writers are just that) but the attempt by publishers is interesting and novel. What’s more, the writers have risen to the occasion and the readers seem to be liking them.

First there was the publisher from Tirupathi, a committed Telugu language promoter, Kota Purushottam who came up with the idea to find what moulded the character of each of the reputed Telugus in different fields (here it was not just literary people but reputed personalities from all walks of life, with literature taking a big slice). This book recorded one or a few incidents that influenced their life; this took those people right down to their childhood, coming up with interesting and inspirational incidents. The whole idea behind this exercise was not for the protagonists to introspect, but for the next generation to be inspired by it. It is something like a motivational book, trying to say that all extraordinary things stem from ordinary situations. It seems to have paid off, with the success and wide readership it has managed to acquire.

Full report here New Indian Express

Telugu short stories for global audience

After reading an anthology, 1947 Santoshabad Passenger and Other stories, 24 representative Telugu short stories translated into English by eminent journalist and teacher of media studies Dasu Krishnamoorty and his talented daughter Tamraparni Dasu, one would get into a dilemma, not the Hamletian kind but that of Alfred Prufrock’s, “How should I presume, And how should I begin.” Several years ago, when a scribe asked well-known novelist and professor of English UR Ananthamurthy, why he had asked AK Ramanujam to translate Samskara into English, though he could have done it himself, pat came the reply, “He is a better translator.” The same Ananthamurthy, again many years ago at a UGC-organised seminar on Contemporary Indian Literature, complained that not much was known about the happenings in the Telugu literature, as there was a dearth of English translations of Telugu works.

With talented English teachers like Alladi Uma, Sridhar, Vijayasree, T Vijaykumar, Jayalakshmi, Venkata Rao, GK Subbarayudu and CLL Jayaprada emerging to join the likes of Velcheru Narayana Rao, Ranga Rao and SS Prabhakara Rao, the scenario of translations, from Telugu to English, has undergone a significant change and the void seems to be filling up.

The father and daughter team of Krishnamoorty and Tamraparni are the latest to emerge to take Telugu literature to readers of English, including our own Telugu yuppies who cannot read their mother tongue, besides introducing the richness of Telugu short story to global audience.

Full report here Express Buzz

'There's no distortion of the epic in my Draupadi'

Telugu writer Yarlagadda Lakshmi Prasad won the Sahitya Akademi award this year for his novel Draupadi. The award announcement was followed by protests in Andhra Pradesh and elsewhere against alleged misinterpretation of the mythological character. Prasad, who is the chairman of the AP Hindi Academy, talks to Faizal Khan about his book and the controversy. 

What is your book about? 
It is a novel based on the character of Draupadi from the Mahabharata. I wanted to explore different facets of Draupadi's phenomenal character, like her exalted individuality, laudable self-confidence and exemplary good nature, which made her worthy of the crown of the feminine world. It is a novel but there is no distortion of the epic. I researched for two-and-a-half years and read more than 100 books on the subject in Hindi, English and Telugu before I started writing.

What is different in your representation of Draupadi?
I believe that Draupadi and other characters like her in the Mahabharata, who are incarnations of gods, had to behave in the same manner as human beings. I wanted to bring out the human qualities in them to portray them as such. From Draupadi's time to even today, women are the worst sufferers in any world. I delved into the inner feelings of Draupadi to understand the contemporary woman better.

Full interview here Times of India 

Now, you can type regional languages on mobiles

To help millions of mobile users who do not know English, an Indian company has conceptualised and brought out a multilingual keypad known as Panini Keypa. Buzz up!India, which boasts of 50 crore mobile users, also is a land of many languages. The Panini keypad is aimed at those millions of users who do not know English.

The new technology, which is available for free download, supports typing in many regional languages of India including Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya and Assamese.

The new system does not require printed characters of any language on the phone as the characters are displayed on the screen and the user can type using the numeric keypad.The technology, which has been formulated through statistical mining of the nature of each Indian language, can also be applied for PCs, web, ATM, Touch screen kiosks, STB, IPTV etc.

Full report here OneIndia