All in the FAMILY

CHENNAI : It is hard to separate Tamil Nadu from the Telugus. The community has been a part of this state for so many centuries and generations, that it is almost impossible to differentiate where one culture ends and the other begins. And that is how most Telugus, who have made Chennai their home, feel.

The Telugu community's entrepreneurial skills are well-known , foraying into hotels, hospitals, movie studios, businesses and the textile industry. నల్లి కుప్పుసామి చెట్టి (Nalli Kuppusami Chetty), owner of the famous Nalli store, calls himself a Tamil though his impeccable Telugu might give him away. A Telugu Chettiar, who belongs to the weaving community of Padmasaliars, Kuppusami's origins lie in Kancheepuram, from where his grandfather నల్లి చిన్నసామి చెట్టి (Nalli Chinnasami Chetty), a weaver, came to set up the pioneering brand in the city in 1928.

"Our shop's USP continues to be wedding sarees. We get four generations of customers," says 67-year-old Kuppusami , who has also authored about 20 books. Nalli saw a major expansion under the third-generation Kuppusami, who took over in 1956. The business which started as a 250 sq ft shop earning Rs 25 lakh per year, is now worth Rs 450 crore with branches all over India.

His eldest son Ramanathan K Nalli, 49, looks into the export side of the business . "Youngsters do not think Nalli is a 'cool' brand," says Ramanathan. And that is what Nalli Next intends to address, with its selection of sarees that will convey the message of being hip. His daughter and president of Nalli, 23-year-old Lavanya R Nalli brought about the corporatisation of the family-run business. Her pet project , Lavanya Nalli, an independent venture , hopes to bridge the gap between luxury brands and mass retailers. "They will be designer saris without the designer tag. Right now, the market is only flooded with embellished sarees that pose as designer sarees," says Lavanya.

Part of the same weaving community is K Rajaram, 49, from Kumbakonam, who set up an exquisite silk sari boutique named after his wife in 1998, which is now well-known as Sundari Silks. Talking about the trade's challenges, Rajaram says, "Sadly, the cost of living has gone up, and everyone is interested in technology . Soon, power looms will take over."

"There is great demand but no supply ," says Nalli Kuppusami. "Weaving is skill-intensive and takes years of training , and very few are interested in continuing the tradition."

Competition and inflation also threatens the retail industry but it does not worry Aravind Ramaswamy, owner and MD of Naihaa, a unit of Naidu Hall. Naidu Hall was set up in 1939 by his grandfather M G Nehru, a tailor from Gudiyatham, which started by selling ready-made blouses and bras. Aravind joined the business when he was in class VIII to help his father Ramaswamy. From taking care of the whole marketing division to designing ad layouts, he relies on technology to take his business forward . The turning point was in 2001 when his father passed away. The business split in 2005, and with that he embarked on giving new meaning to the age-old brand. Decentralisation and expansion plans followed - there are now 11 Naihaa stores and 20 FG (Feel Good) shops, which are his brainchild. So are the women's lingerie store Mermaid, and the new baby store Bloo-Pink . Future projects include hotels, cafes and stationary shops. With the next-generation continuing to better their trade, the family businesses are in safe hands.


FILM FARE

In the 70s, Casino theatre was the place to go for spine-chilling Hitchcock thrillers and Eastwood westerns. Today, the rundown theatre is frequented only by those who want to catch Telugu movies. Jayaseelan, manager, Casino, says the theatre has been screening only Telugu movies since 2003, playing four shows a day.

The mushrooming of multiplexes has hit the business of the single-screen Casino theatre. The theatre has screened blockbusters such as the Chiranjeevi-starrer , 'Shankar Dada MBBS' and Trisha's 'Pokiri' and 'Varsham' , and the recently released 'Ready' . "These days, if a movie runs for 25 days, it is equivalent to 100 days for us. We cannot afford the advance fee for either Tamil or English movies but by playing Telugu movies, we survive," says Jayaseelan. "If a Trisha movie is being screened, we get a large Tamil audience too. Otherwise only Telugus frequent this place," he says.

KNOW THE TELUGUS

The major influx of Telugus into the Madras province took place around the 15century under the rule of the famous Vijayanagara king, Krishna Devaraya The community is made up of several sects that include Kamma, Reddy, Raju, Vellamma, Kapu, Chettiars, Naidu, Brahmins who are into hospitality, healthcare, entertainment and judiciary For many Telugus, the ritual of tying the sacred thread or mangalsutra is secondary.
Foremost is the practice of applying జీలకర్ర బెల్లము (jeelakarra bellamu) - a paste made from cumin seeds and jaggery - on top of each other's heads which signifies the intricacies of marriage పప్పు చారు (Pappu charu) , a thinner, diluted version of sambar (without sambar podi) is the staple diet in most homes.

పెసరట్టు (Pesarattu) , a variant of dosa prepared from moong dal is a signature breakfast dish. It is often served with upma and known as MLA Pesarattu The pachadis and pickles of Andhra are equally popular; the most well-known being గోంగూర పచ్చడి (gongura pachadi) (made from a sour spinach) and the ఆవకాఇ (avakai) (mango) pickle The wafer-like పూతరేకులు (pootharekulu) , or paper sweet from Rajahmundry made from thin foils of rice paper interspersed with finely ground sugar is much relished by Telugus and non-Telugus . The West Godavari బొబ్బట్లు (bobatlu) or sweet puris made with maida and Bengal gram is another sweet that is sure to melt in your mouth

Courtesy: TOI

Telugu unicode on 3G iPhone's browser

Discussion in తెలుగుబ్లాగు group

తెలుగు లో Google Talk చ్యాట్

ఇప్పుడు Transliteration Bots ఉపయోగించి Google Talk లో తెలుగులో చ్యాట్టింగ్ చెయ్యవచ్చు


Steps:

1) First add the Telugu transliteration bot en2te.translit@bot.talk.google.com to your Google Talk friend's list
2) Start a chat session with your friend
3) Convert the chat session to a group chat and invite the bot to it.

Telugu Cultural Center and Library in Coimbatore

Coimbatore, Aug 16 : As part of promoting Telugu language and culture, Hyderabad-based C P Brown Academy has opened a cultural centre and library in the city.

The main objective of the Centre was to help create a learning infrastructure for the benefit of Telugu children and help them understand, appreciate and stay connected with their rich, linguistic literary and cultural heritage, Dinakar Rao, Director, Alpha Foundation, which runs the academy, told reporters here today.

The academy is collecting and consolidating data bank for Telugu literature already available and taking steps for digitizing fresh literary works for establishing a comprehensive resource centre and physical library, which Rao said would become operational in five months.

Stating that the Academy has instituted an award తెలుగు భారతి (Telugu Bharathi) on the lines of Jnanpeeth, he said that it proposed to open centres in various parts of the country, where Telugu diaspora was living in sizeable numbers.

The Academy has also plans to start centres and libraries to promote Urdu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Marathi, Rao said, adding libraries would be set up in Rajapalayam and Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu shortly. -Agencies

Courtesy: ChennaiOnline

A Titan gets his dues

C Mrunalini

Telugus are generally pulled up for not having a sense of pride in their culture. They don’t do enough to preserve the contributions of their cultural or literary figures. This observation is not far from the truth, but a few of the present generation are making sincere efforts to hand on the literary legacy of Telugu stalwarts to future generations. One such attempt appears in the form of anthologies of published and unpublished works of great Telugu writers, which also put them in a historical perspective. The work of Sri Sri, considered the greatest modern Telugu poet, was preserved in many volumes by his friend Chalasani Prasad. The latest one to hit the stands in this endeavour is an exhaustive and heavy (literally and figuratively) book on రచకొండ విశ్వనాధ శాస్త్రి (Rachakonda Viswanatha Sastry) (1,372 pages) by Manasa Publications. This eminent writer was born on July 30, 1922, and died on November 30, 1993.

Raavi Sastry, as he is fondly referred to, was a writer who got away with incomplete novels on more than one occasion. Readers waited with bated breath for the second part of his Raju-Manishi and Rattalu-Rambabu, but did not actually mind his not writing them ever. They went back to the first part and relished it again. He was a master of characterisation and style and could convey more in a single sentence than a lesser writer might in a whole story. He was a novelist, short story writer, playwright, essayist, and right up there with the best in every category. He was a man who knew his genres, who knew what he wanted to write and how he wanted to write. He was not a writer who assumed content was enough, that form would take care of itself. He placed great emphasis on form and created a novel or a short story that was impossible to imitate or emulate. An anthology such as this is valuable because it traces the evolution of a writer, from one who enjoyed writing sex-and-thrill stuff as a teenager to one who became a committed Marxist novelist.

Raavi Sastry was a humanist to the core. He himself was a part of the legal system that worked better for the rich. He took up the cause of the poor both in his life and his writings. Most of his short stories and novels described the exploitation of the poor by middlemen, the flourishing trade of the bootleggers, the lumpen class and the innocence of the common man. His skill as a writer lay in his unwavering commitment to the downtrodden and an extraordinary command of language and style. His language was a combination of realism and grandeur, a feat that none in modern Telugu could match. Though his subjects were serious (how money power and muscle power ruin the poor and disadvantaged) his tone was often satirical, and he used both the regional dialect and scholarly tone with equal felicity. It made for a deadly combination, with the people whom he was deriding themselves enjoying the portrayals. The influences he acknowledged were many, ranging from Charles Dickens to Chekov to Sri Sri to James Joyce. But the end product was his own, where you found few traces of any influence. A spontaneous writer, he has been sometimes accused of making all his characters talk like him (an allegation not without foundation). Whatever his faults, his impact on the reader is undeniable.

In his short stories, he comes out alternately as sensitive and a satirical; in his novels he is a hard-hitting Marxist philosopher and he is at ease in every genre. He has been translated into English, though his style does not lend itself to translation. Of course, the translations do give a glimpse of his genius as a prose writer and his commitment to an egalitarian society. His quote, “a coward can never become a good human being. You need to be brave to be good” is one of my personal favourites in Telugu.

C Mrunalini is a well-known writer of short stories, a translator and a critic
mrunalini8@gmail.com

Courtesy: NewIndPress

Telugu TV Industry: The battle for eyeballs

There is a mad rush to grab eyeballs in the Telugu TV industry and how. After all, the largest spoken language in the country after Hindi, the six-crore plus population in the state and a huge diaspora is any adman's and marketer's delight.

In the last few months alone three new channels have been launched and more are waiting to go on air. Nine months ago, Rachana Television Private Ltd launched NTv , a 24-hour news channel and Bhakti Tv , a niche devotional channel. Around the same time, Shreya Broadcasting Pvt Ltd launched TV5, a 24-hour news channel. Now the market is abuzz with the impending launch of Saakshi TV after Saakshi daily by chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy's son Y Jaganmohan Reddy sometime in October-November.

Among the national players, Zee TV, after its foray into Teluguland three years ago with its Zee Telugu, a general entertainment channel (GEC in industry parlance) is soon going to launch its Zee 24 Ghantalu (hours in Telugu), a 24-hour news channel in October. Similarly AsiaNet , which has a bouquet of channels in Malayalam is all set to launch Sitara, its Telugu channel. Giving a twist to this TV saga is Star TV that is reportedly eying AsiaNet , which will enable it get a footprint south of the Vindhyas, according to market observers.

Interestingly, while some are high profile people behind the channels, some are hardly known outside their business circles. However, promoters are looking at various benefits— including political clout— some say pejoratively, in a state that is highly stratified along regional and caste lines. More interesting is the timing of most of the channels' launch in the next few months.

"Elections," quip analysts. The state is slated to go in for elections early to mid next year. The Lok Sabha elections too could be around the same time. Of course, the local players are more keen on the Assembly elections.

There is another reason for this Telugu channel boom. "The Telugu 'bidda' has tasted the quality of the world. If you look around, every fourth or fifth family in the state has a member in the US," says A S Raghunath, a Delhi-based media consultant. In fact, cable and satellite penetration (C&S) in the South is much higher than in the North and AP's C&S penetration is 92 per cent, the highest in the country, aver industry experts.

Channel struck 

While the total advertising market (print and television) in the state is put at about Rs 890 crore, of this the television advertising market alone accounts for a mouthwatering Rs 460 crore per annum, according to market estimates. Predictably, everyone wants to get a slice of that pie.

"Having a GEC channel under Zee Telugu , we decided to have a 24-hour news channel as it adds to our bouquet of channels. Even before that for Zee, the strategy was, after going national and international, the next destination in expansion was South and we started with Zee Telugu ," explains T Sanjay Reddy, CEO, Zee Telugu. He claims that Zee Telugu already has four per cent share of that Rs 460 crore in 2007-08 and is confident of doubling it to 10 per cent.

"But the Telugu TV market is one of the most saturated ones," differs a veteran TV executive. Then why are so many players rushing in? "It's sheer optimism that they will succeed. Interestingly, everyone is lured by the example of TV9 which found a place for itself after Etv ," she explains.

Another reason for national broadcasters to get into the regional space is: the regional advertising market, which is increasing every year showing traction and growth while the national advertising pie is under pressure. Moreover, national advertisers drove broadcasters in a way to go regional as well. The reason? "Earlier, pan-India advertisers did not get their money's worth. With a bouquet of channels including regional ones, they assure advertisers more bang for their buck," says an industry source.

Different strokes for different folks 

While for national broadcasters it's a need to have a pan-Indian footprint, albeit driven by advertisers, the reason for local players to take on the airwaves is mixed. For some it's a pure business opportunity that has to be cashed in.

"Our vision is to plan and concentrate on niche channels. We launched NTv with a clear focus on news. Ditto with our Bhakti TV , the niche devotional channel. In fact, I'm seeing a fall in viewership of GEC channels and news channels are taking away the viewers from GEC channels," observes D Rajendhira Prasadh, COO, Rachana Television Pvt Ltd.

True, as one need not be a couch potato to surmise that these days news channels have become the index of general entertainment channels because much of the content of the general entertainment channels (GEC) is being packed as news genre. And who better than Rajendhira Prasadh knows this truth as a veteran of Telugu television business first with Citi Cable in 1993 and then as a co-promoter of Maa TV which became a popular GEC until he sold his stake to exit it even as megastar Chiranjeevi, actor Nagarjuna and N Prasad of Matrix Labs (also known as Matrix Prasad) invested in the channel.

"For us this is the business of news and we are focused on Andhra Pradesh. We do not have any other agenda. If you see our news, it is neutral and unbiased and we give a platform for all political parties in a fair manner. That's why we have already shot into the third place in the state with our TRPs (television rating points) in just nine months of our launch," says B Surendra Nath, vice chairman, Shreya Broadcasting Pvt Ltd, promoters of TV5 .

While national broadcasters are heading to Hyderabad, in a strange move, homegrown Telugu channels are headed out. TV9 is a case in point. Launched in 2004, it soon emerged as a prominent news channel in the state. Recently it launched TV9 Kannada and Gujarati and is now reportedly launching an English news channel too. However, in the GEC segment ETV launched Marathi, Urdu, Kannada and Bengali versions among others a few years ago.

Making business sense, locally 

Interestingly, the model of localization with district editions across the state so that viewers get more local news has attracted more advertisers. The concept pioneered by Eenadu and followed by others is now being replicated by some new entrants.

According to sources, the soon to be launched TTv is going for localization where it is going to have programmes for the three regions of the state - Telangana, Coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema - which are distinct socio-economic regions with their own dialects. This will cater to both viewers and advertisers. However, primetime programmes will be common.

"Our focus is regional, covering districts. While our news is local, we have also been focusing on local advertisers in a big way. In fact, we worked hard to remove the perception that TV advertising is expensive by making it affordable," says TV5's Surendra Nath.

As more channels hit the airwaves in the next few months, "there is of course going to be a clutter," quips Zee’s Sanjay Reddy. And there will be— like in other industries—a wave of consolidation faster than before when big players will gobble up smaller ones in a bid to enlarge their bouquets. Even before that, channels will have a tough job holding that notoriously fickle viewer attention. Or, face the axe of the remote as viewers simply flip to some other channel.

Courtesy: TOI