MEN BEHIND THE MISSION

The first week of every year has been  the time for the yearly cultural fest of Ajo Vibho Kandalam foundation since 1993.I have been attending it since 1996 and in between I might have skipped it   twice or thrice.

I met the directors of the foundation for the first time in January 1996 in Thummalapalli Kalakshethram at Vijayawada when the fest was conducted there. The elder person among them was then in his early fifties. Bubbling with enthusiasm and fiery with his firm convictions he was very much like Greek Hero. He is Appajosyula Sathyanarayana, a distinguished professor in the Computer Science Department in Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey U S A .The second and third persons are twins, Vishnubhotla Ramanna and Vishnubhotla Lakshmana who are so identical that it took many years for me to identify them separately. Later I found out that Ramanna is an I T Manager at Alley Bank Rochester Hills Michigan USA and Lakshmanna is a senior Engineer in Austen, Texas, USA. During the early 1990s they were very much like Lava and Kusa in youth.

It is always a festival of four days which is held at different towns of Telugu people. The evenings of the first three days are allotted to the drama competition and during the mornings and the afternoons of those days various seminars on different literary and theatrical issues are conducted.  On The final day a renowned person belonging to the fine arts and social service would be conferred with Prathibhamurthy Life Time achievement Award which would be preceded by a seminar exclusively on the various facets of his genius. (In the beginning it was an award of 50 thousand rupees but now it is raised to a lack.)

When the organizers of AV Foundation had chosen Tirupati as its venue for the 1997 fest I could get the opportunity of observing it from a close quarter. The meticulous planning and the effective execution of it reflected the commitment and sincerity of them. They always took care to keep up a low key in everything. Their names don’t appear on the invitation brochure and I have never seen them sitting on the dais at any time. After a few years Rammanna and Lakshmanna preferred to take a passive role but Kandalam Ramanujacharya effortlessly filled the void created by them. He is also senior professor in USA. At present he is on the faculty of the department of Chemistry in Rowan University, Glassboro, New Jersey.

Within three or four years I could realize that I was very much fascinated by the personalities of these men behind the mission. In the beginning they used to plan everything from USA and come to India a few weeks earlier to arrange everything properly. They attend every programme and never lose even a second of it as I find them enjoying every minute of it. The love they have for their mother tongue, culture and literature is quite remarkable. The friendship and affection   they have for each other is astounding. Scores of people meet them during those four days and they are always hospitable and considerate to every one of them. It is a feast to the eyes to watch them on the final day of the fest. They take every precaution to make Prathibhamurthy recipient extremely happy and they plan everything in such a way that the total attention and focus should be on him alone. And I found Appajosyula Satyanarayana always in an electrified and elated mood on that day. He gets so focused and attentive on the aura of the Prathibhamurthy that it becomes impossible to approach him on any other reason however important it may be. Sincerely believing that they were divinely blessed to felicitate the Prathibhamurthy they prostate before him with complete reverence and fervent ecstasy.

Besides the Festschrift on the Prathibhamurthy and the anthology of the plays produced in the respective year, AVK foundation began publishing many books. It was AVKF who published the great autobiography of Thirumala Ramachandra, Hampi Nunchi Harappa Daakaa, for which the central Sahithya Academy award was given later. They published many good books like Marapurani Maneeshulu, Mrichchkatikam and Kathayathra.

The establishment of AVKF Telugu Books Book link Website, an on-line book store with largest collection of Telugu books in the world, is another important service they have rendered to Telugu literature. I know that Prof .Satyanarayana has spent more than six months, working more than ten hours for day, for programming the entire AVKF Book Links Website. He planned many things like detailed analyses of the masterpieces and comprehensive reviews on important books. A separate office for procuring the books and for sending them to the customers in India and abroad is established in Hyderabad.  It was managed by Sri Kandalam Janakiramachary, the father of Ramanujachary for many years. He voluntarily took the responsibility of it after his superannuation and discharged that duty in such a humble and dedicated way that can be found only in fiction.

When I went to USA I noticed that these people were not among the American affluent class and they belong to the scores of Middle class people. They spend their hard earned money as they deem it not merely their responsibility but also a privilege to continue their mission.

They are molding their programmes according to the times and trying to make it more efficient every year. They are presenting Rangasthalasevamurthy Life achievements right from the beginning, three persons on three days every year.  They introduced Visishta Sahithi murthy Life Time Achivement award from the year 2003. To encourage the young writers they launched Sarileru Neekevvaru Award from the last year. They made many experiments like Story based Plays and Myth based Social plays to modernize Telugu drama.

Though his university honored  Sathyanarayana with emeritus professorship  which allows him to be a professor there as long as he wants, he voluntarily left it recently and he has been staying in Chirala, his native place most of the time and leaving for USA only for a few weeks to spend his time with his family. He built a three storied house there, the first one for literary meetings, the second one providing accommodation for the guests and the third for himself. He is catholic in his approach not only tolerating the difference of opinions but also respecting the people who contradict his beliefs. For him the conviction, the genius and the humanism of the person are more important. He has been conducting regular and periodical meetings, literary and spiritual, in Chirala and of late writing poetry (Padyams) also. It’s no wonder that a person who has been studying traditional poetry with lot of passion for decades writes poetry in the due course.

Meeting them provides lot of optimism and inspiration. By their work and action they illustrate that the man can be still cultured and civilized and the world is not so bad to live in. It is precisely because of these reasons that I always wait for the first week of the year and do meet them in a new place to which I don’t have any other pretext to go.

                                                      -MADHURANTHAKAM NARENDRA

 (The writer is a bilingual short story writer, novelist and poet, writing in both Telugu and English)