An Objective and Obviously the Most Unbiased Look At the Atlanta Sahitee Sadassu (A very long post. You are fore-warned: Please Read At Your Own Risk) My Dear Absentees: I am really glad I made it to the First Telugu Literary Symposium in Atlanta. And, I am doubly glad that I have read two reviews of the Sadassu, both highly slanted! If I were not one of the fortunate attendees, like the lost soul Kanneganti Rama Rao, I would have to swallow hook, line and sinker, these "reviews(?)" posted by Paalana & Jampala V( I know what V stands for, but won't let the cat out of the bag, yet!) Chowdary. The Symposium started about 45 minutes late, because vangoori CiTTen rAju and pemmarAju vENugOpAla rAvu had a fierce, almost fist-fight as to who should first go to the podium! ciTTen rAju, having 'rAju' as a part of his name, made a highly unreasonable demand (my opinion!) that he, should take the role of the legendary upanishad king janaka to start off the aswametha yaaga, sans horse, because shooting horses is a crime in this US of A but, shooting bull is not! He began alluding to the brihadaaraNyakOpanishad. On top of it, he started reciting the kaarikaas that refer to the creation of the four castes by the prajaapati. vEnugOpaala raavu, being of secular mind, refused to listen and relent. Since, he is the 'brahma,' the prajaapati, the ominicient Creator of this 'midhya' namely, the Symposium, he should have the first and the last say. As this fight was going on, people who did not pay for the registration, started printing their name labels at a desk opposite to the original registration desk, which wasmanned by one viswanAth. This 'counter' registratration went on with the connivance of kiDAmbi raghunAth, who was suspected to be a staunch vaishNavaiT with secret ambitions of hijacking the show to New Jeresey! Some people who pre-registered were denied admission, because they have not filled in the application properly, although the said application appeared in the electronic media umpteen times, posted by a dozen or so enthusiasts, who have the foggiest notion about the whole affair! Those who failed to fill in the section on their religious affiliations, political preferences, caste, sub-caste, etc., were denied admission. Some were genuinely embarrassed! They did not know where to mark their sub-caste, since there were only four slots on the registration form, for the four major castes first cited in the purushasooktaM. Pandemonium prevailed. Suddenly, some one by name paalana came in the disguise of paalana with an unshaven face and flowing hair, almost resembling the satya saayibaabaa, (minus the beard!). This person, rushed into the hall with two of his pupils in silk saffrons, both suspected to be mlEcchaas, started driving out all the holy cows, sans gold ornamnets on their horns, that were reserved for the yaj~na. He claimed that he was the yaaj~navalkya, and shouted that his maitrEyi is still resting in the microtel motel! One of them spoke German more fluently than Telugu!! At this point pee. vee. jee. raavu and vaM. ci. raaju made peace with each other such that they could get rid of this fake yaaj~navalkya. The meeting got a start with about 100 tired literary enthusiasts, a few of them from the motherland, who looked totally lost, because they were never invited to sit on the stage, as was the custom in the motherland! They were in a shock to find not a single chair ( I'll talk about the Chair in a bit!) on the stage. Finally, the meeting began without an official prayer. The fake yaaj~nvalkya started reciting: "yasya j~naana dayaa sindhOr - agaaDhasyaanaghaa guNaa sEvyataamakshayO dheeraa@h .....," then, for got and filled in with "gODa daaTitE adEsandoo!" But, some one outside the hall started reciting at the top of her voice, "nEnu saitam prapaMcaagniki samitha nokkaTi dhaarapOSAn..." A few of the attendees thought, that it is a prayer befitting the occasion! She was labeled as a 'feminist' and was unceremoniously shoved out! One of the highlights is that a pupil of paalana-look-alike, started asking the folks, their family names and entered them into a database in the making on to his Toshiba. According to his yet to be published report, there were about 65 brahmins, 6 kshtriyaas (not including chiTTen rAju and his family, vaanapalli manga raaju and his family!), 9 reDDIs, 7 chowdaries(not to be confused with the Bengaalee baaboos!). Unfortunately, the affiliation and the caste sub-divisions of the rest of the attendees was totally shrouded in mystery, and is left as a research topic for the posterity! (On the second day, some one was whispered that one of the un-classified fellows was actually registered as Mohammed Ghouse Rats-Tayeeya, and he was suspected to be a Pakistani agent employed by the CIA.) As to the proceedings, the less said, the better. The theme was exactly the same as some one has predicted way back in one of these lists. By the way, what was his prediction? Every one, reiterated, directly or indirectly, that telugu is the greatest of the languages that was ever invented by the homo sapiens. (One must not forget that there was dEvabhaasha, invented by the gods for the benefit of a few!) No body provided any proof as to why telugu was touted as the greatest of the languages. It could be traced to some British conspiracy, or to the classical explanation of Brownian motion! But, all of them agreed , that they have to seriously strive, at any cost, to preserve and freeze the telugu culture for posterity. Some one from the audience even offered to import sesame seed oil, red peppers from gunTooru, and salt from danDi for this sacred act of preservation. A motion to use vinegar instead, has been unanimously rejected for religious and unknown cultural reasons. Almost every one present read poems, short stories or songs. Some came too close to sinaarE's gajaLLu. There was a long poem read by a new poet waiting with his other works on the assembly line, entitled 'paaTalO EmuMdi nA boMda.' It was given standing ovation for its complex and highly sanskritized alliterations and anupraasa! Every critic in the audience thought, that this poet has a great potential, political future, and could even be our next j~naanapeeTh awardee, if and only if he immediately returns to India, finds a mentor and publish there at least one book a year, like aabdeekaM! On the second day, again this fellow paalana who disguised himself as paalana forcibly occupied the stage and started reading his jamukula paaTalu and would not relent. The audience enjoyed, but the organizers wanted him to quit. He went on! Actually, he felt that he was in ganjaam or some where in those tribal areas, and started driving on the wrong side of the sadassu! He used simple and basic monosyllabic words from the east coast, akin to savara bhaasha! in his poems. Purists were shocked and got scared because there were not a single sanskrit word in the entire piece!! Yet, he had the gall to call it poetry! One chando-enthusiast was seriously trying to apply the classic rules of prosody to find the verse form, but was completely lost. I have stealthily told him that this is an old vRttaM, known as gaddaravikreeDitam! On grounds of poor statistics and bad logic, only one person rejected the idea of putting even a single chair on the stage, although he did not object to either the mike or the rostrum, or to the import of palm-leaf mats from aakiveeDu or gOkavaram, in lieu of Chairs! He even cited the poor state of the Polish, the sad situation of the Sicilian mafia, who never could put a single Chair on the stage; and questioned why should we? His voice was lost in the din, but he made his point in the most resounding fashion! Almost all the folks who were awarded prizes were absent. One fellow from Atlanta, a member of the organizing committee, who was present to take an award of third prize for his brother, (the prize is a certificate on a foam plate signed by the chef who cooked the lunch!) was mad and stole a gold medal that came all the way from India, and ran away. The gold medal should have gone to some one in Austin Texas, who registered but never showed up! ( Several Austinites were happy that they have bagged almost all the prizes second time in a row, were drunk with joy, found jay-walking in the Atalanta Downtown! Their absence was severely felt the second day!) A police report was lodged by the organizers. Until the medal is recovered, the first prize winner who will have to be satisfied with another certificate signed by the assistant chef who fried paapads and prepared saambaar. velcEru naaraayaNa raavu held his court during the first night at the micromotel, and it seems, it went on and on into the wee hoursa of the next morning! Those who met naaraayaNa raavu for the first time got thoroughly flabbergasted and remembered nothing of what prof. velcEru said! Those who knew it, never made to the show!! All these folks, made it to the second day a couple of hours late!! (We were told that iMdragaMTi padma was taking notes at every opportunity!) For my part, I have brought my imported vaikuTha paali ( also known as paramapada sOpaana paTham!), minus the dice (gavvalu) and there was no one to play. I have played against myself, improvising with Georgia peanuts as dice, and have been bitten by the big s7nake twice, even though, I cheated my imaginary opponent several times during the games! Finally, A quiz to Kanneganti Rama Rao: ( Kanneganti Chandrasekara Rao is disqualified from participating!) 1. The 'V' in Jampala Chowdary's name: a) Venkanna b) Venkayya c) Veeraiah d) Victory e) none of the above 2. How many toupees did Bapa Rao wear during the two days? a) none b) one c) two d)eleven d) several but they are optically invisible 3. Did Veluri mention sinaare even once, with a glitter in his eye? a) Yes b) No c) Veluri started reading the 102 pages of maTTI manishee aakaaSam and fainted after the first page 4) Who won the first prize for guessing the name of Suresh's wife? a) Suresh b) Suresh's wife c) The 'Iceman' for the Wedding Cake d) The proprietor of Haveli Restaurant e) Not me That's about it. Have fun. V R Veluri > >