Getting news of singer @shobha_raju being made the Asthana Vidwan of the Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanam. For the past three decades she has been tirelessly working to propegate the compositions of poet composer Tallapaka Annamacharya.
Well-deserved!
The TTD, time and again honours artistes with the title of 'Asthana Vidwan' for their services towards spreading awareness about the music of Tallapaka Annamacharya. In the past they have given the same title to Sri Rallapalli Ananthakrishna Sarma, Veturi Prabhakara Sastry,
Dr Mangalampalli Balamurali Krishna, M S Subbulakshmi, Nedunuri Krishnamurthy, Garimella Balakrishna Prasad and many others. Most of these were classical musicians. @shobha_raju is the first non-classical musician in a long time. She trained under numerous Gurus.
She hails from a Ratnakaram Raju family in Chittooru. She became extremely popular on television and radio with her numerous programs based on the music of Annamayya. Her own sister Dr Sumita Guha is a Hindustani classical vocalist.
Every year on Annamacharya Jayanthi, @shobha_raju does a Nagara Sankeerthana from the Venkateswara temple in Chikkadpally to the statue of Annamayya on the Tank Bund. She has established an Annamayapuram in Hyderabad too. Training a number of students in the songs of Annamayya.
For her services to music, @shobha_raju was honoured with the Padma Shri award by President of India Pratibha Patil.
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Wrestler, Trader, Ayurvedacharya, Bone-setter, staunch Vaishnava, Mysore Samsthana Raja Vaidya and finally a legendary brand in his own lifetime!
The iconic “Ustad” Kayangadi Papanna!
🤩🙏🏼🤩🙏🏼🤩
Wondering if i should put a thread! 🙆🏻♂️🤔
Papanna’s ancestors migrated from Andhra to the Mysore Kingdom about four generations before him. They belonged to the Telugu Balija community. Many members of that community migrated to the Karnataka region including the saint Kaiwaram Amara Nareyana Swamy.
For that we have to go to the great Maratha rulers of Thanjavur region. Especially the versatile King Sahaji (1684-1710). He was not only a benevolent ruler but a man of arts. He was well-versed in literature and composed musical operas in Telugu, Marathi and Sanskrit.
Sahaji was a great patron of artistes, scholars and Pundits. In 1693, he donated a village Tiruvisanallur to 46 families of learned Pundits. The village was renamed Sahajirajapuram. Great scholars of Sanskrit, Veda, Shastra and other allied traditional knowledges lived there.
So, this young (and restless) couple keeps on posting their every other image on SM. Them eating, walking, cooking, cleaning etc. They had twin kids.
Pictures kept coming! Everyone found it cute and all that. Hundreds of comments. They were encouraged to post more.
Few of us told them not to overdo things. They argued and fought. From one week total silence. Rather unusual for the SM addicted couple, I thought. Just checked with a common friend to see if everything was alright. I thought they were travelling or something.
The friend tells me their twin kids suddenly developed a strange fever one evening and it became so serious they had to be rushed to a local hospital. One of them didn’t survive. Other one is in coma.
Feeling terrible for them. They didn’t listen to anyone!