G. Nirmala Tejasri explaining her drawings exhibited at Bapu museum, in Vijayawada on Thursday. | Photo Credit: V_RAJU.
Satthiraju Lakshmi Narayana, popular as Bapu, introduced a style of painting of simple bright colours. His unique style consisted of economy of strokes, freehand drawing and a lack of background clutter.
It was this uniqueness of his art that fascinated Goddeti Nirmala Tejasri, an engineering graduate nurturing art as a passion, and she began to replicate the maestro’s illustrations using only black pen.
Replicas of Bapu bommalu dotted the auditorium on the premises of Bapu Musum on Bandar Road as part of ‘Bapu Chitra Kala Pradarsana’ on Thursday.
“Bapu focussed on Hindu mythological characters. I have done the same but without using any colour,” she explains pointing to the 300-odd illustrations exhibited in a neat row in the auditorium. “I share my birthday with Bapu, and that perhaps is the pull factor,” she says letting out a smile.
The illustrations include Radha enamoured by Krishna while he is playing the flute, Yashoda trying to put a playful Krishna to sleep, and of course myriad moods and postures of achcha Teluginti ammayi. The big eyes, a sharp nose, curvaceous waist and sensual body structure are all intact in the portrayals.
Father being an artist, Ms. Tejasri says she has inherited his talent. Besides participating in various art contests, she has achieved a unique feat and won recognition from the Limca Book of Records. When she was in 10th class, she took to calligraphy and wrote the entire Quran on a 999-ft-long single sheet of paper in a span of two months. In intermediate first year, she repeated the feat and wrote the entire Bhagawad Gita on an 899-ft single sheet and the next year, she wrote Bible on a 999-ft-long sheet of paper. “It was my small attempt to bring down religious barriers,” she explains.
Besides Limca Record Book, her feat has been acknowledged by several other record-registering organisations like India Book of Records, World Amazing Records, Telugu Book of Records and Global World Record. “Of the 16 such existing organisations, 12 have recognised my feat and I plan to apply for remaining four,” she says.
Tejasri has her next plan in place already. “I intend to visit Araku valley, spend time with the tribal people there and capture their lifestyle in my paintings,” she says.
Tejasri is not a trained artist and it is her innate talent that reflects in her works. She wants to crack civils and serve the society. “But art will always remain an important part of my life,” she declares.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Andhra Pradesh / Vijayawada – December 15th, 2016
In an interesting development related to studies in mental health, virtual patients in psychiatry has been shaped as a new tool for teaching medical students as well as training MBBS doctors who are sent to serve in primary health centres.
City-based doctor and professor of psychiatry Dr C Radhakant has developed this innovative teaching technique through creation of virtual patients using computer graphics. The patients have typical characteristics of schizophrenia and mania and can be used as a teaching tool for identification and understanding of the symptoms and behaviour of such patients. This concept would be useful in training PHC doctors under national mental health programmes as well as medicos in psychiatry in medical colleges.
The research paper ‘Virtual Patients in Psychiatry – Mania and Schizophrenia,’ was published in the International Organization of Scientific Research (IOSR) Journal of Dental and Medical Sciences about a week ago. This study, using computer graphics- based virtual patients of mania and schizophrenia, is the first of its kind in psychiatry in India. Even across the world, there are just a couple of studies on the use of Virtual patients in Psychiatry for post-traumatic stress disorder and bipolar suicidal patient.
Speaking about the methodology and his creation of the virtual characters, Dr Radhakanth said, “It took me several weeks. Characters created on Poser software were imported into 3d studio max software and animated, created into scenes with backgrounds and merging videos, rendered with lighting. Variables into .avi files were then laid out on a video editor software and music track was added. The product is of DVD quality which can be seen on computer, TV or multimedia projector.”
As per the research paper, in Psychiatry, virtual patients instead of live patients offer many advantages in cases of violence, suicide, complex phenomenology and where typical cases are fewer. Virtual patients have been used to teach clinical interviewing skills, bioethics, basic patient communication, history taking and clinical decision-making skills for medical students. Virtual patients offer many advantages to medical schools including: efficiency, standardization, easy accessibility, interactivity, decreased instructor workload, exposure to rare but critical cases, personalized learning, immediate and personalized instruction and feedback, efficacy, improvement of clinical skills in a non-threatening experimental environment.
Computer animation and graphics also have clear cut advantages. The idea is to develop universal norms irrespective of socio economic backgrounds, ethnic or language or regional issues especially in mania and schizophrenia, which were shown to have more or less similar manifestations and prevalence across the world. Hence these two conditions were chosen for exploring virtual patients as a teaching tool.
Of the virtual patients, manic patient called Ravi was portrayed as a fairly well-built young man who is dynamic, hyperactive, elated, confident, brash young man who is shown trying to show his prowess by taming a wild horse to ride but ultimately falling, racing by running against a Formula One racing car, displaying a style of walking and sitting grandiosely and sporting a smile when taking up challenges and showing irritability when failing in them. His lack of judgement is shown in scenes like trying to jump over a racing car and fighting with the horse.
“The study aims to study the feasibility of using computer graphics-based virtual patients as a teaching tool for medical students posted to psychiatry, to evaluate the duration of exposure to basics of psychiatry theory before exposure to virtual patients and to assess the predominantly visual models vis a vis the heavily verbalized mode of psychiatric diagnostic procedures,” averred Dr Radhakanth.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Visakhapatnam News / by Sulogna Mehta / TNN / December 13th, 2016
To mark the janmotsav (birth anniversary) of Lord Khatu Shyamji (Shyam Baba) on Kartik Shukla Paksh Ekadasi, the Agarwal community in the city celebrated the festival on Friday. The community members gathered at a residence to perform the morning prayers and to take part in the rathyatra.
While men and women were seen performing the puja from 6.30 am, the others gathered to decorate the chariot to carry the idol of Shyam Baba. The devotees headed for the Nishan Yatra that started at 8. 30 am. The procession started from Dabagardens and passed through Jagadamba junction, Poorna Market, Kurpam Market and reached the Shyam Baba temple near the One Town police station. More than 200 people in colourful clothes and chanting hymns participated in the procession by carrying saffron flags. The flags were then hoisted on the temple terrace by the priest.
The members visited the temple in the evening for darshan of Baba Shyam followed by the Bhajan sandhya that was performed by a singer from Kolkata. After the Bhajan, the devotees partook ‘chappan bhog’ (56 varieties of dishes).
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Andhra Pradesh / by Express News Service / November 12th, 2016
12 Venetian women sponsoring children of an NGO in Vijayawada visit to connect thoughtful links
In the sixteenth century, Niccolo de’ Conti, an explorer from the Republic of Venice, visited India. He found that the words in the Telugu language end with vowels just like those in Italian and referred to the language as the ‘Italian of the East’. The phrase has stuck ever since and is used whenever Telugu is praised. Vijayawada has been the heartland for Telugu from time immemorial, and has become even more so after the bifurcation of the State of Andhra Pradesh.
Many candidates contesting elections from Vijayawada have promised in their manifestoes that they will transform the city, which stands on the banks of the Krishna river and has two canals transecting it, into a Venice, where citizens can sail the waterways in modern gondolas. The incumbent State government has also promised to make Amaravati, the new waterfront capital, a sort of Venice in which boats will be an important mode of transport.
A group of 12 women travellers from the Venetian town of Pordenone visited Vijayawada as if to renew and strengthen the ancient ties between the two regions. Though their journey to Vijayawada is not as arduous as that of de’ Conti, it is nevertheless an “exploration”.
Calling themselves the ‘Lady Avventura’, the women came to spend time with children they have ‘adopted’, that is, they are ‘sponsors’ providing funds for underprivileged children’s food, education and healthcare via the Care and Share Charitable Trust, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that receives most of its funding from hundreds of Italian sponsors. Several of the children are orphans and over 400 of them are HIV positive. “But for the funds we receive from Italy, these children from the poorest of poor homes would have succumbed to disease,” says Care and Share’s regional director Swati Mohanty.
Members of two working women’s groups — Panathlon International and FIDAPA (Federazione Italiana Donne Arti Professioni Affari) — formed the Lady Avventura group to travel to different countries and reach out to underprivileged children and women. Romanina Santin Nardini, who belongs to both Panathlon and FIDAPA, says that Lady Avventura, which is just three years old, has already made three trips. Beginning with countries in Africa, members went to Sri Lanka the following year, and to Vijayawada this time, drawn by their longstanding connection with the children at Care and Share.
Silvia Gramigna, one of the women, said she had come to Vijayawada more than once. She had been associated with Care and Share for over 20 years, she said, introducing a young man now working for the State Bank of India as her “adopted son”. All other members of Lady Avventura had adopted children in Vijayawada, she said, pointing to the youngsters in tow.
Promise to return
The dozen women spent all of Wednesday with children of different institutions under Care and Share, distributing small gifts and knick-knacks to them. “Giving away the knick-knacks gave us great joy, but we came to see how things were under the new management of Care and Share,” said Ms. Gramigna, referring to the recent change of guard at the NGO. She promised the group would go back to Italy and raise more funds for the children.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Vijayawada / G. Venkataramana Rao / Vijayawada – November 11th, 2016
Deputy Speaker Mandali Buddha Prasad launched the poster of the book titled – ‘Andhrula Samagra Charitra Sanskriti’, written by Dr. E. Siva Nagareddy, a historian, archaeologist and CEO of The Cultural Centre for Vijayawada and Amaravati, here on Thursday.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Prasad said the book contained original and authentic information of the history and culture of Andhras from the pre-historic times till the division of the State which would be very useful for the students preparing for the competitive exams.
Department of Language and Culture director Vizai Bhaskar said Mr. Reddy was an authority on the Satavahana and Vijayanagara dynasties.
Andhra Arts Academy secretary Golla Narayana Rao spoke.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Vijayawada / by Special Correspondent / Vijayawada – October 21st, 2016
Madhira Roja Prasannatha of Vijayawada whistling a song.— PHOTO: V. RAJU
Roja Prasannatha of Vijayawada all set for a record feat this month-end
When she whistles, it is as clean as a whistle – literally.
For the 46-year-old city housewife, whistling has been her passion since childhood. After fulfilling a majority of her responsibilities towards family she is now keen on carving a name for herself in the field of music.
Madhira Roja Prasannatha, who has been enthralling music lovers with rendition of songs through whistling, is all set to enter the record books this month-end.
“I am planning to set a record and I will be singing for Wonder Book of Records, a Mumbai –based outfit which showcases amazing feats and incredible achievements,” she has told The Hindu.
Roja Prasannatha will be whistling as many 42 songs, both in Telugu and Hindi along with Annamayya and Thyagaraja kritis in three hours. “Earlier, I only learnt whistling Telugu film songs and now I have added Hindu film songs to my repertoire. Presently I am learning Carnatic music. I want to whistle songs of different genre,” said the whistling sensation. She is also taking enough precautions to maintain her stamina to successfully meet the challenge.
Popular among music circles
Affable Roja Prasannatha is popular among music circles and exhibits her skills at marriages, house-warming ceremonies, and public programmes. Several musical outfits allot a slot for her to showcase her talent. “Roja madam is well known for her renditions of intricate songs such as ‘Mahaprana deepam’ from Sri Manjunadha film,” says senior artiste H.V.R.S. Prasad of Sumadhura Kala Niketan. Most of the programmes organised by the mahila outfits in the city invariably features a performance by Roja Prasannatha to showcase women empowerment. Roja Prasannatha says that as a teenager she picked up whistling. “My mother used to chide me as she considered the habit not suitable for a girl.”
Undeterred, Prasannatha practised in private. Soon she emerged as a proficient whistler and then began to exploit avenues to exhibit her talent.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Vijayawada / by J.R. Sridharan / Vijayawada – October 14th, 2016
Lensman Ravi Seetaramaiah from Prakasam district who won AICS award
Wins Associate ICS award of US-based Image Colleague Society
A school dropout from a remote Kadavakuduru village, near Chinnaganjam in Prakasam district, Ravi Seetaramaiah has turned challenges into opportunities and matured into a seasoned photographer to win the Associate ICS (AICS) award of the US-based International Society- Image Colleague Society.
The hanging plan for AICS award comprised 12 fascinating pictures, including the ones on the just-concluded Krishna Pushkaram in Vijayawada. The other eye-catching pictures in the plan includes the famous boat race in Alleppey in Kerala and the famous Jallikattu (bull taming event) at Alanganallur, near Madurai in Tamil Nadu to bring to limelight the South India’s unique Dravidian culture.
Turning point
Seetaramaiah had lost hopes when he could not clear X std. in 1995. But the course on photography offered by the Rural Development and Self Employment Training Institute at Vetapalem came as a boon for him, recalls the 40-year-old photographer going down the memory lane.
“I run a photo studio at a remote Sopirala village and specialise in making wedding albums for a living,” adds the photographer, whose skills were honed by, among others, noted photographers K. Sudhakar Reddy from Guntur and Tamma Srinivasa Reddy from Vijayawada.
He has a special interest in taking eye-catching pictures on different themes, including the life style of Chenchu tribals from the Nallamalla forests, fishermen from Voderavu and salt workers from Chinnaganjam in Prakasam district, he told The Hindu here.
“My ultimate goal is to win the Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society, one of the world’s oldest photographic societies in London,” says the lensman, who does not want to rest on past laurels.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> National> Andhra Pradesh / by Special Correspondent / Ongole – September 26th, 2016
Samantha with her mother, Patricia Tavis. Photo: Special Arrangement
Eighteen years ago, Yasamma and Mariyamma Gedala were left in an orphanage in Kakinada. Yasamma, adopted by an American family, and now named Samantha Mari, has lived in the U.S. since 2000, but she still remembers her baby sister. The author pieces together the quest for reunion
On the 10th of June, 1998, in Rajahmundry, Andhra Pradesh, Nagaraju and Gowri Gedala had a baby girl, whom they named Mariyamma. They were very poor, and could not afford to feed her. On December 5 that year, they took her to Missions to the Nations orphanage in Kakinada. Ten days later, they brought their older daughter, Yasamma, born on October 17, 1996, to the orphanage too. The infant and the toddler settled into their life in the orphanage.
Then, thirteen months later, Yasamma’s life began to change again.
Over on the U.S. east coast, Patricia and Richard Tavis, then stepping into their middle years, had decided to adopt another child. They already had two sons, and each of them had a son from previous marriages. They decided to adopt a girl. And they zeroed in on India because, they were told, India did not require them to travel there in order to adopt; the orphanage would send the child to the U.S. “We have a child with autism and did not want to take the chance of something happening to us like a possible plane crash,” Ms. Tavis says in an e-mail interview.
Ms. Tavis contacted an adoption agency she found in the phone book. “Two days later they got back to me and said there was a three-year-old girl named Yasamma. I agreed to adopt her.”
While the adoption process was going on, the Tavises found out that Yasamma had a younger sister, who was also in the orphanage. They asked if they could adopt her too, but were told she had been adopted by a family in India.
A new beginning
Nine months after the first call, Yasamma arrived in the U.S., at JFK Airport in New York. “When I first came to the U.S., everything was big and scary,” she says in an e-mail. “I did not understand what was happening.” Ms. Tavis says, “When she was in the airport and we met her for the first time, we hugged and people clapped. She looked confused and bewildered after her long plane trip.”
The toddler, whom her adoptive family named Samantha Mari, settled in to her very different new life, with a family that doted on her. “When she first arrived, my mother gave her a doll with blond hair and white face,” Ms. Tavis says. “She promptly coloured her face with a brown marker! Today I don’t think it bothers her that we are a different race. We are her family. As she told one of her friends, ‘They are the only family I’ve got.’”
The Tavis family has never visited India, and after Samantha was adopted, she has never returned either. Ms. Tavis has another connection, more tenuous, to India: she began studying yoga, at a local school; she graduated in 2009, and now teaches gentle, chair and special needs yoga.
Samantha is now 19, has graduated from high school, has learned to ride horses at a local riding school, and has as full a social life as any American teenager.
Samantha at her graduation party. Photo: Special Arrangement
Shadows of the past
“My daughter still grieves the loss of her birth family,” her mother says, “and I believe this is the reason for the learning and behavioural difficulties she exhibited from the time she arrived in the U.S. It has been a difficult road; she has a learning disability, which of course, complicates matters. She learned English very quickly, though. She does not spell very well. Even though she graduated from high school, she was in special education throughout school. I hope if we find what happened to the sister, she will have some peace of mind.”
Because she was old enough to know what was happening all those years ago, Samantha remembers those days clearly. “I remember my newborn sister and sleeping in a railway car with my parents and her,” she writes. “I remember the railway car. I remember a boy at the orphanage who would bring me toys. He made me feel like a queen! I think he was my first boyfriend! I remember not having shoes and sleeping on mats. We ate rice. I remember Paparao [Papa Rao Yeluchuri, current director of the Mission to the Nations].” Ms. Tavis adds that she has at times also said that she remembers that she cried a lot, that she remembers being in the street, picking up papers, that she remembers being left at the orphanage.
“As soon as she could speak English,” her mother says, “she told me she was ‘very mad at mommy and daddy in India’ because they left her by herself. Truly this experience scarred her deeply even though her parents put her up for adoption to give her a good life. She has asked about the sister from the time she arrived, always wondering what happened to her baby sister. Even though she was young, I believe these memories are so vivid because they were so traumatic. She would like to know what happened to her, be able to talk and write to her and maybe one day meet her.”
This is something Ms. Tavis vowed to herself that she would do something about. But she had no idea how to even begin looking for Mariyamma; also, what if the younger sister’s adoptive parents did not want her to know she was adopted? She decided that she would wait until Mariyamma was a legal adult.
A quest begins
In June, Mariyamma would have turned 18. And Ms. Tavis made a Facebook post. Along with what little she knew of the Gedala family, she wrote, “I am asking my friends and family to share this far and wide so my daughter might know the baby sister she still remembers and longs to see again.”
That post, and another she made on a page she runs for her yoga practice, quickly went viral. In a couple of days, they were shared over 2,000 times, including in India.
Samantha as a toddler. Photo: Special Arrangement
In an update thanking people for sharing her message, she also addressed the concern about the wishes of Mariyamma’s adoptive parents. “I agree that this is a concern. This is why I waited until her sister was 18. I believe it is a basic human right to know where you come from and who your family is. Because my daughter was old enough to remember her family when she was brought to the orphanage, she has suffered a great deal of heartbreak. I am trying to give her back a little of what she lost.”
Dead-ends
In the days since, her post has been shared 5,327 times on Facebook, aside from numerous shares that did not reflect there because they were made on other social networks. While many reached out to help, the family has not got any leads so far.
The Hindu’s reporters reached out to both Mission to the Nations and the State’s Women and Child Welfare (WCW) department.
Mission to the Nations, an NGO in Kannaiahkapu Nagar, Kakinada, no longer runs an orphanage; they closed theirs some years ago, after an adoption racket surfaced in Andhra Pradesh. The government took over all its records and the organisation now only runs a church and a school. “The adoption was done through the court of law and the communications were made between the embassies of India and the U.S.,” said Papa Rao Yeluchuri, its current director. “Following the adoption, the girl’s parents never visited us in person and we do not have any detail about their whereabouts.” He added that the Supreme Court’s guidelines prohibit the disclosure of the details of biological parents to the adopted child.
In this Yeluchuri seems to be behind the times: there is, in fact, no Supreme Court guideline prohibiting an adoptive child from knowing her biological origins; such knowledge is part of a person’s essential right to know and right to privacy. It is left to the adoptive parents’ discretion to inform their minor child about her origins. There is also no restriction whatsoever on an adult about going in search of her biological parents. The lacuna in law on this aspect was cleared by the Supreme Court in its Laxmikant Pandey versus Union of India AIR 1984 SC 469 judgment. The new Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act of 2015 provides for revamped intra-country and inter-country adoption guidelines. On the rights of siblings, the interest and welfare of the child is considered paramount. There are many laws on guardianship and parental custody, and disputes are decided on a case-to-case basis. The courts are careful to not let the rights of a sibling and the custodial rights of parents cancel each other instead of complementing one other.
Sivanath Yandamoori, chairman of the Child Welfare Committee (CWC), East Godavari district, toldThe Hindu that Yasamma has every right to know about Mariyamma, as the court is clear about retaining the bond between siblings. “This is a rare case,” Yandamoori said, “The CWC can help Yasamma meet her elder sister, provided she comes to India.”
While the Tavises were delighted to hear this, the news brought back an old dilemma.
Photo: Special Arrangement
The family lives a reasonably comfortable life in Howell, New Jersey — “near the famous Jersey Shore,” Ms. Tavis says — but they’re not wealthy. Richard is 62, and recently retired from Pepperidge Farm, where he was a manager. Patricia is 59, and has been running a yoga practice since 2009. An indefinite trip to India without solid leads to follow up on is a prospect that is too expensive for them at their time in life. While their older sons are married and have children, the two younger ones live with them. The younger lad, Christian, 20, balances college and a job at a supermarket. But James, 24, has an autism spectrum disorder. They worry about his future, about who will take care of him when they are gone; he’s also one reason why they don’t like to take air trips. But if they do find Mariyamma, Ms. Tavis says, they will try and help the girls meet. But that prospect is still dim.
Ms. Tavis has also stepped back from her Facebook campaign; the volume of people asking how they could help the family was staggering and touching, but it also brought out the darker side of such Internet interaction: “unwanted attention from men”, as she delicately phrased it, both for herself and Samantha.
The possibility has also come up, as a source (whose name Ms. Tavis does not want to reveal at this time) told her that Mariyamma may have been returned to an orphanage elsewhere and been adopted again. The paper trail is, in all probability, dead. So a documented relationship might be impossible to establish.
Hope lives
But science may be able to help. The least complicated would be a blood test, through which some degree of relatedness could be established. Any decent hospital, and a number of private organisations, would offer more sophisticated methods like genetic testing. A boy, for instance, would inherit his father’s Y chromosome, which is why that method is used to determine paternity.
Then there’s mitochondrial DNA (mDNA), which all humans inherit from their mothers: mDNA undergoes very little mutation over generations, so is considered a very accurate way to determine genealogies. Siblings like Samantha and Mariyamma will share the same mDNA. The tests are simple, but since India’s laws prohibit DNA being exported, Samantha and Mariyamma would need to be tested in labs on different continents.
This is only valuable if — and it’s a very big if — the search does bring forth a young woman who is a likely match. Mariyamma must be found. Which is where you, dear reader, can help. If you have any information for the Tavises, e-mail FindingMariya1@gmail.com or this writer (peter.griffin@thehindu.co.in). Because a story like this really, really needs a happy ending.
With additional reporting from K.N. Murali Shankar and B.V.S. Bhaskar, and inputs from Jacob Koshy and Krishnadas Rajagopal.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Opinion> Comment / Peter Griffin / August 20th, 2016
THE walls of the YMCA Conference Hall were adroned with the photographs of the lifestyle of various tribes in Eastern Ghats on Wednesday. The photographs illustrated the livelihood, festive mood and struggle of the tribes.
The photo gallery has the features of Koya, Bonda, Komu and Gonds. The solo exhibition was put up by BAN Nanda, a builder by profession and photographer by passion who captured the various cultures of tribes of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
“Clicking photographs of tribals is quite challenging and an interesting task as we have to make them feel comfortable and build some level of trust. We have to develop a friendly rapport and it will help a photographer to click photos according to the demand and capturing landscapes in your camera is a wonderful experience and easy too,” said Nanda.
“Some of my photographs have been recognised at international forum and it really motivates my passion,” he added. Various sets at the expo described scenarios of village culture. They portray traditional ornaments, musical instruments, houses, lifestyle, attires, celebration of festivals, farming and landscapes.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Andhra Pradesh / by Express News Service / August 18th, 2016
Art buffs admiring the works at the expo organised at the Bapu Museum as part of Krishna Pushkarams in Vijayawada.—Photo: Ch.Vijaya Bhaskar
Vintage photos, paintings bring to life State heritage
The Bapu Museum looked colourful with various hues on Saturday as dozens of paintings and photographs highlighting the heritage of Andhra Pradesh and the history of river Krishna were showcased both by the Department of Archaeology and Museums and Artist Associations’ Guild as part of Krishna Pushkarams.
Vintage photographs, collected and preserved by the department, brought to the fore century-old temples, forts, wells, inscriptions and places of historical importance in various districts. These works are displayed at the coastal museum.
“This expo is sponsored by the Department of Culture and Language. Around 60 painters representing the guild are also taking part with their works. The works are made of acrylic, oil, water and other multi-mixed paints projecting the sthala purana of the river which flows through Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh before hitting the at Humsaladeevi,” said guild president B.A. Reddy from Pamarru.
He said the theme of the painting was Krishna Pushkarams and the works dealt with temples, idols, rituals, nature and the splendour of river Krishna and leaders who shaped the future of Andhra Pradesh.
Guild formed in 1992
Mr. Reddy said that the guild was formed in 1992 when the State was united. “After bifurcation, the guild was shifted to Guntur. We, as desired by the Department of Culture and Language, took part in the Godavari Pushkars and also in the Ugadi celebrations at Government Music College in Vijayawada. This is the third big event we are taking part,” said secretary Mruthunjaya Rao.
He said that each painting displayed will get Rs.6,000 from the department and on the final day, the guild, in memory of several late painters such as Damerla Rama Rao, Bhagirathi, A.S. Ram and M. S. Murthy will honour the participants with awards and mementoes.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Vijayawada / by Special Correspondent / Vijayawada – August 14th, 2016
