Wednesday, July 18, 2007

I found it!

This young man came home.
He does not come very often. When he comes, he starts a good discussion.
The same happened today also.
We talked about a lot of things. One thing lead to another and we ended up talking about culture. He straight asked me what is there to feel great about Telugu culture?
I really got excited. I said Kuchipudi dance is out and out Telugu!
No answer. Then he asked me what in music?
I got wild this time. I said entire classical music in south India is ours!
There started a very good discussion. And thsi si what I said.

There is a very famous composer in Carnatic music by name Mysore Vasudevacharya. By birth he was a Tamilian, The Maharaja of Mysore took him into his court and made him the court musician. The best part is Vasudevacharya composed most of his songs in Telugu! It appears the Maharaja called the musician and asked a straight question. " You are a Tamilian. Me, who is sponsoring you, am a Kannadiga. How is it, you compose your songs in Telugu?" I really do not know the answer from the great Sri Vasudevacharya, but he continued to compose his songs in Telugu later also.
Ramanathapuram Srinivasa Iyengar, who is also known as Poochi Iyengar also composed songs in Telugu. Many other composers followed suit.
I really have this question in my mind for a long time. Why did they do so?
I have my own answer too.
We now, thanks to Nehru and his language states idea, think of immediate boundaries to the language. Back in those time everyone spoke all the languages. They never thought some particular language is not theirs. Tyagaraja and the others laid a path and the later composers followed the same. If Tamil brothers and sisters , even when not really aware about the sahitya bhava, sing the Telugu songs and enjoy, what is wrong with us, to at least to listen to them and feel proud of the language?
Telugus have a wonderful character.
Looking down upon themslves and their culture!!
I am also a Telugu man.
Back in history my people were not.
My blood pressure raises today, if some one speaks easy of this language. I am equally fond of all languages. I learnt Urdu just for the beauy of it.

I think, thanks to this young man, found something to talk about!
His wife was waiting in the hospital to deliver their first baby! After a long talk, he went to my wife and told, "After talking to Mama, the tension in me has disappeared!" The tension of first fathering he said. My wife was to conduct the delivery. I believe the boy or girl born after this discussion will at least be named suitably!!

2 comments:

కొత్త పాళీ said...

Dear Gopal garu,

Very glad to have stumbled across your blog. There was an itneresting discussion on this very same topic here -
http://sreekaaram.wordpress.com/2007/02/20/%e0%b0%a4%e0%b1%86%e0%b0%b2%e0%b1%81%e0%b0%97%e0%b1%81-%e0%b0%a4%e0%b1%80%e0%b0%af%e0%b0%a6%e0%b0%a8%e0%b0%82/

mathangi said...

from what i know is earlier AP and Tnadu were together a State later they were divided and this reason would have made them learn Telugu to compose songs in sundara Telugu. How and why did Subramanya Barathi call it sundara telunginil'

My parents also speak good Telugu, though we are Tamilians