Date:24/03/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/03/24/stories/2008032454460600.htm

Andhra Pradesh

Training in ‘Annamacharya keertanas’ soon

Ramesh Susarla

Shobha Raju

GUNTUR: Annamacharya keertana exponent and popular classical singer Shobha Raju proposes to begin training children and adults in the right way of singing Annamayya krutis very soon through a partnership with some local organisation promoting Annamayya ideals.

The first-ever verses written in Telugu and totally dedicated to Lord Venkateswara, ‘Annamayya Sankeertanas’ did not get much patronage, opined the founder president of Annamacharya Bhavana Vahini in Hyderabad. Except the patronage of Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams in promoting the keerthanas, not much has been done nor did the Telugu people honour their own exponent aptly.

“We must learn a lesson from Tamil Nadu people, who have taken Thiruvalluvar to great heights by naming a transport company, a revenue district and several other areas and streets in tens of their cities,” Ms. Shobha told The Hindu during a chat here on Sunday. She is here to render some keertanas at Brahmotsavam organised in the local Sri Venkateswara Sway temple.

“Annamayya’s keerthanas cannot be popularised like commercial songs or TV shows as this form of singing comes with devotion towards Lord Venkateswara attached to classical singing, so I do not expect it to be done on a mass scale,” she said expressing concern over the current generation, which was aping the west both in music and dance.

“I will be wrong if I totally criticised the youth for lack of interest in Annamayya keerthanas as the ever-growing demand for summer camps at Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam shows that parents are interested in promoting Indian culture and our values by exposing their children to Annamayya keerthanas, but at the same time they wish their kids to simultaneously be practical and go with the changing times,” she observed.

A disciple of Nedunuri Krishna Murthy of Visakhapatnam, she believes it was the Lord’s wish to pursue this kind of singing and He was guiding her even today. It was the impression from the movies like Lava Kusha, Bhakta Prahalad and Sati Sakkubai that made her give up good offers for playback from film industry in Chennai.