Sphoorthi Theatre

“ Unnolani Kottindu, Lenolaku Pettindu Pandaga Sayanna Vadu Rajulaku Monagudu”                            ------------Telugu Verses “Grabbed from the haves Distributed to have-nots                                 That is Pandaga Sayanna Greater than Kings”. He grabbed, seized, robbed, and looted the wealth from big shots and distributed it equally among the poor, deprived, and have-nots. He along with his gang blocked the highways and looted the wealth. Who is he???? These are the first four lines of the first stanza of a heroic ballad on Pandugolla Sayanna sung by a Dakkali folk artist using the Kinnara Instrument. Pandugolla Sayanna or Pandaga Sayanna belongs to Pa...

Happy Ganesha Chaturthi!!!! Here is the picture of Clay Ganesha Making Procedure. Its nice to make our own Ganesha with our own hands and also teaching our children. Its fun with clay. This exercise also helps in learning about clay-its properties and playing with clay. Every year I get the country clay from the Potter and make Ganesha. I learnt it from one of my neighbours at my home town. They in fact use to prepare the soft wet clay with Black/Red soil. Mixing saw dust, cotton and kneading it for hours together to get the soft texture. It would take not less than a weeks time. This involves lots of procedure and requires patience too. However, I do get soft wet clay readily available from Potter's bunk and make Ganesha.  Below pictures are of Ganesha making. Me and Anirudh have made two Ganesha's and Two Mushika Vahana.  I am engaging Anirudh in making clay Ganesha when he was just 5 years. I don't use artificial colou...

Puppetry is  the oldest form of Folk Theatre in India. India is blessed with different forms of Puppets performed in different states. Andhra Pradesh is well known for Traditional Shadow Puppetry and Wooden String Puppetry. Wooden Puppets are called as "Koyya or Chakka" meaning piece of wood. " Bommalata " meaning play of dolls-puppets. Mothe Jaganathan and troupe from Ammapur Village, Warangal District of Andhra Pradesh is the only family still practicing wooden string puppets. The troupe consists of 10-12 members who are again interrelated to each other. All artists are singer, narrator, musician and also puppet manipulators. Most of them are men with 2-4 women also accompany during performance. There is one more group near Tirupati, Chittor District, Andhra Pradesh is also giving  the wooden string puppetry performance. However, not much is known for the moment and it is also believed that they no more operate in a troupe and are disintegrated. T...

Who are Great Grand Parents? Simple definition says- A simple definition says-'Parents of your Grand Parents" One afternoon in 1990-1991 (I don't remember the month exactly) we received a letter from my cousin Jai (Jayashree Akka- we all love calling her Jai) stating that next morning she will be arriving at my place along with her sons and her mother. Her mother is my paternal aunt (Father's Sister-we call Athai). All these years she had no plans of visiting us, and all of a sudden she planned to visit-without any purpose?  I realized, after going through the letter  that her purpose of the visit was to show her kids our grandparents-who are their Great Grandparents. It was in Bharath's Class that the class Teacher asked them: "Have seen your Great Grand Parents?" And only two- three students put their hands up and they were declared as the most LUCKIEST Children in the class. Back home when Bharath shared this with Jai and Jai was upse...

I had my schooling at  Kendriya Vidyalaya-No 1, Hubli. Hubli is a town in Northern Karnataka which comes under Dharwad District. Dharwad is quite famous for Literary and music. Famous Hindustani Musicians like Sri Bhimasen Joshi, Smt. Gangubhai Hanagal, Sri  Mallikarjun Mansoor, D.R.Bendre, Girish Karnard and myself all belong to Dharwad. Dharwad also famous for sweet called "Pedha" and also known as educational centre. Hubli is a business center. Well, back to school days. Co -Curricular Activity - CCA period was held every Friday with lots of competitions conducted like Recitation of English/ Hindi /Sanskrit Poems, Storytelling, Shlokas, and so on. The condition would be that no poems from the school textbook were allowed in  the recitation competition. Though the competition was open for all, not many would participate-they would say they are stuck by "stage fear"!!!!!  It would my mother's job to search for good poems, sto...