Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Classical Telugu Dance


Kuchipudi is a Classical Telugu dance form from Andhra Pradesh, a state of South India. Kuchipudi is the name of a small village in the Divi Taluq of Krishna district that borders the Bay of Bengal and with resident Brahmins practising this traditional dance form, it acquired the present name.
With the dance form attaining perfection by the time of Golconda king Abdul Hassan Tanesha, Kuchipudi brahmins are said to have received 600 acres (2.4 km²) of land as an endowment from Tanesha for the great presentation before him.
Siddhendra Yogi is said to be the first scholar to give it the current form of dance drama. Bhamakalapam is one of his celebrated compositions. He also reserved the art to males by teaching it to young brahmin boys of the village. However, in modern times, the art has been dominated by women.
The performance usually begins with some stage rites, after which each of the character comes on to the stage and introduces him/herself with a daru (a small composition of both song and dance) to introduce the identity, set the mood, of the character in the drama. The drama then begins. The dance is accompanied by song which is typically Carnatic music. The singer is accompanied by mridangam (a classical South Indian percussion instrument), violin, flute and the tambura (a drone instrument with strings which are plucked). Ornaments worn by the artists are generally made of a light weight wood called Boorugu.
Some of the well known people in this tradition are Dr. Vempati Chinna Satyam,Guru Jayarama Rao and Vanashree Rao Vedantam Lakshminarayana, Dr. Uma Rama Rao, Tadepalli Perayya, Chinta Krishna Murthy, Vedantam Sathya Narayana Sarma, Dr. Korada Narasiha Rao ,Sobha Naidu, Pasumarthi Venu Gopala Krishna Sarma, Raja Reddy and Radha Reddy swagath kuchipiudi, Mahamkali Surya Narayana Sarma, [2] Dr. Yashoda Thakore, Sarala Kumari Ghanta, Yamini Reddy, Vijayapal Pathloth, Vamshee Krishna Varma.
The prominence of Kuchipudi dance form is not limited to India alone. There are now a number of popular Kuchipudi teachers, choreographers and dancers in North America and Australia


In Malaysia, the Malaysia Kuchipudi Sisters, Kasthoori Ramanaidu and Thachayani Ramanaidu. The siblings have the distinction of being the first Indian classical dancers from Malaysia to have been fully trained in kuchipudi. Known as the Malaysia Kuchipudi Sisters. Having studied bharatanatyam from the ages of six and seven respectively, Kasthoori and Thachayani received honours as The Temple of Fine Arts (TFA) Bharatanatyam Nrityanjali graduates in 1998. Their deep interest in different dance styles and their own cultural background, however, inspired them to take up kuchipudi as well.

The sisters trained with the great kuchipudi master Vempati Chinna Satyam in India for four years, under a scholarship provided by the Indian Council for Cultural Relationship set up by the Indian High Commission. Kasthoori and Thachayani have performed with their teacher in prestigious festivals like the Perur Dance Festival in Coimbatore and the Vizaq Festival in Vishakapatnam. They also gave solo performances at the Hyderabad Festival and were involved in many of their teacher’s dance productions. Since completing their training in 2004, the sisters have returned to Malaysia and have been teaching kuchipudi and bharatanatyam in TFA. In fact, Kasthoori and Thachayani are proponents of an art form with a long and unique history who also performed at the International Telugu Conference/ Golden Jubilee Celebration held on 3, 4,5/3/2006 at Genting International Convention Centre, Genting Highland, Malaysia.
Source from Wikipedia / the star paper

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Telugu Teachers of Malaysia


There were more than 60 National Type Primary Telugu Schools in Malaysia. And most of the schools were in Perak,Selangor,Negeri Sembian,Kedah, Johore and Pahang, as wherever there were heavy pockets of Telugu population. The following are the names of the Telugu teachers.

Sri Netheti Duragaiah, Sri Timothy, Sri Vishnubatla Bapunaidu, Sri. B.Simanchalam and Mr.Alluru Kannaiah Naidu, Mr.Manikya Rao, Mr.Munukooti Subbarao, Mrs.Kunda Shanthamma and Sri Betha Ramasamy ,Sri Koruvada Vengkappa, Sri Madhini Somunaidu, Sri Adari Appalanaidu, Sri Boddi Samudram, Sri Koribilli Appalanaidu, Sri Nysetti Ramamurthy, Sri Kaseena Ramaniah, Sri Dwarapudi Somunaidu, Sri Ennala Ramulu, Sri Achanna Sri Paradesi Simanchalam, Sri Yellapu Krishnamurthy Sri A.Subramaniam, Sri K Abraham, Sri Mande Laxamana, Sri A.Appalanaidu, Sri B.K.Samudram, Sri B.K.Simanchalam, Sri Gummadi Appalanaidu, Sri N Appalanarasiah, Sri Balakrishna, Miss Sarammah, Miss V.B.Paapa, Miss Elizabeth, Sri Bangaru, Sri Dhuppatla Chinnayya, Sri Gorli Dhemudu, Sri Veerasamy, Sri D.V.Sree Ramulu, Sri Yellapu Apparao, Sri Gopisetti Sreeramulu, Sri Polamarasetti Ramulu, Sri Polamarasetti Laxmana, Sri B. Narayana, Sri Mani, Sri Karri Atchutha Ramaiah taught POL Telugu classes at Sri Satya Sai school, Jalan Puchong, Kuala .Lumpur

Source : Five Generations of Telugus in Malaysia- Sri Appanah Naidu

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Telugu link with Kling/ keling



Telugu originated from a hypothesized Proto-Dravidian language. Although Telugu belongs to the South-Central Dravidian language subfamily, it is a highly Sanskritized language. As Telugu savant C.P Brown states in page 35 of his book "A Grammar of the Telugu language": "if we ever make any real progress in the language the student will require the aid of the Sanskrit Dictionary, and cannot even talk or write Telugu with any ease or precision, unless he masters the first principles Sanskrit orthography." Inscriptions containing Telugu words dated back to 400 BCE were discovered in Bhattiprolu in Guntur district. English translation of one inscription as reads: “Gift of the slab by venerable Midikilayakha".[8]

Etymology
The etymology of Telugu is not known for certain. It is explained as being derived from trilinga, as in Trilinga Desa, "the country of the three lingas". According to a Hindu legend, Trilinga Desa is the land in between three Shiva temples namely Kaleshwaram, Srisailam and Draksharamam. Trilinga Desa forms the traditional boundaries of the Telugu region.The people who lived in these regions were also referred to as Telaga Caste seems to have been derived from Trilinga Desam. Other forms of the word, such as Telunga, Telinga, Telangana and Tenunga were also seen. It is also said that Trilinga, in the form "Triliggon" occurs in Ptolemy as the name of a locality to the east of the Ganga river. Other scholars compare Trilinga with other local names mentioned by Pliny, such as Bolingae, Maccocalingae, and Modogalingam. The latter name is given as that of an island in the Ganges. A.D. Campbell, in the introduction to his Telugu grammar, suggested that Modogalingam may be explained as a Telugu translation of Trilingam, and compared the first part of the word modoga, with mUDuga, a poetical form for Telugu mUDu, three. Bishop Caldwell, on the other hand, explained Modogalingam as representing a Telugu mUDugalingam, the three Kalingas, a local name which occurs in Sanskrit inscriptions and one of the Puranas.
Kalinga occurs in the Ashoka Inscriptions, and in the form Kling, it has become, in the Malay country, the common word for the people of Continental India.

According to K.L. Ranjanam, the word is derived from talaing, who were chiefs who conquered the Andhra region. M.R. Shastri is of the opinion that it is from telunga, an amalgamation of the Gondi words telu, meaning "white", and the pluralization -unga, probably referring to white or fair-skinned people. According to G.J. Somayaji, ten- refers to "south" in Proto-Dravidian, and the word could be derived from tenungu meaning "people of the South".[citation needed]

The ancient name for Telugu land seems to be telinga/telanga desa. It seems probable that the base of this word is teli, and that -nga, or gu is the common Dravidian formative element. A base teli occurs in Telugu (teli meaning "bright" and teliyuTa meaning "to perceive"). However, this etymology is contested. Telugu pandits commonly state Tenugu to be the proper form of the word, and explain this as the ‘mellifluous language’ from tene or honey. However, this claim does not appear to be supported by scholarly opinion. The renunciation[clarification needed] of the name of the language; 'Telugu' is a British legacy that still clings on in the print media. In fact, many of the 'Thelugu' words referred below in this article have to be rewritten to differentiate between 't' and 'th', and similarly 'd' and 'dh' sounds; otherwise some words mean either funny stuff, or a completely different meaning than what an intended word represents, or offensive.
Ref: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Telugu Language
In 1981, then it was Andhra Association of Malaysia wrote to the Malaysian government not to change the name of the place called Tanjung Kling in Malacca as it links with Telugu history and to date, it is still known asTanjung Kling.
In 2004, Telugu leaders like Sri MD Somunaidu, ME Maniam, Ramulu, A.Appalanaidu and I then the General Secretary of Telugu Association of Malaysia made some persentation with document evidence to Director of Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, K. Lumpur as there was some confussion about meaning of the word Keling.
After which, in the fourth edition of Kamus Dewan Page 719 - it reads as follows: Keling - sebuah empayar di pantai Coromandel Semenanjung India, yg disebut Kalinga dan Telingana, yg terkenal dgn pelayar atau pedagang yg datang ke Asia Tenggara seawal abad ke-3 so on.
Where Did Parameswara Come From? The Origin StoryBy Scott Thong

AMS Says: September 17, 08 at 12:23 am
You make a movie with that guy who created Starwars. Steven Speilberg, hope got his name right.
And maybe you can collaborate Stephen King for the scary stuff… hehe..good read,

Thevarajan Says: May 3, 09 at 8:08 am
i am quite sure that parameswara, as the name suggests in sanskrit language, parama (supreme) and iswara (lord), came to temasek from palembang. but where was he before that??
he and company were escaping from another place – sri lanka, after trying to settle and rule there. but even before that, his home was – you guessed, tamil nadu, india! he was an indian prince the chronology should read:
parameswara, indian prince — sri lanka — palembang — temasek — melaka
his final destination and subsequent rule was significant, but equally significant was his country of origin

Marc Neal Says: July 8, 09 at 4:41 pm
Parames(h)wara was a tamil outlaw. Maybe from Mainland Tamil land or SriLanka (at that time predominently Tamil as the Aryans were still migrating there). The Tamils being seafarers, he fled to Sumatra and did what he knows best…became an outlaw there too. He had to flee there too and came to Temasik…Got into trouble there too.
By now he got fed up of running so he sets up base in the jungles of Malaka his hideout. builds a small army of pirates and loots the straits and builds his rishes and declares himself king…
The indian influence is too strong in south east asia to deny this fact…Hinduism, Sanscrit or more rightly tamil (south indian) names, sculptures all the way east in Angkor Wat which is similar to the Tamil sculptures found til date in Tamilnadu India…
Parameswara converted to Islam to get protection from the traders from North Indians (Islamic Sultanates) and Arabs. Then, married a chinese noble lady to get protection from the chinese. Thus, avoiding any conflict or takeover of his small and fragile kingdom Hence, The Malay royality is actually half chinese royalty and half indian outlaw. Assuming any relation to Alexander the Great is just unfounded and ludicrous

thinkingScott Thong Says: July 8, 09 at 4:57 pm
What about the aliens theory? :p
Btw, any links for us to read up more on Parameswara as a historical figure? I’d like to learn more about his pre-Sumatera days.

enkatesulujuval Says: August 8, 09 at 2:07 pm
Parameswara is a Telugu as looking at the name itself, as all tamil names end with n. I have read his articles that says he is a Telugu and his links with Central India (Andhra Pradesih) There are more Telugus than Tamil in this World. Even most spoken language of the South is Telugu, Andhra Pradesh itself about 90 million while 40% of Tamil Nadu are Telugus and what other part of India, Malaysia,Singapore and others

please,leave a comment

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Grand Mega Telugu Show



Malaysia Telugu Sangamu is in the midst of organising a Grand Mega show on 7th of November 2009 at Stadium Negara, Kuala Lumpur and it hopes at least 30 thousands Telugus would gather for this occasion and inviting the Prime Minister of Malaysia as the chief guest of honour together with 1st Telugu statesman, the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, India

www.enkatesulujuval.blogspot.com

Telugu fellowship in Malaysia

For benefit of Telugu Christian brothers and sisters as it is in Telugu

Telugu speaking Expatriates mostly from Andhra Pradesh, India, working in Malaysia holding weekly sunday worship in the Methodist Church, Kuala Lumpur (near Palm Court, Brickfields). Sunday worship is conducted between 4.00pm and 6.00pm. Contact the following members for further information: Sis. Pramila Karunaivell:019-6188343, Bro.Syam Anil