If you were a Telugu teacher in the good old days, you were singing in the class room. Well, it wasn’t exactly singing in the strict sense of the word, but one would tunefully recite the poems from the text. A Telugu teacher who could not ‘sing’ a poem was considered a blot on the fraternity. But then, those were the old days where the Telugu pundit was a pundit in the real sense of the word, knowing both his ancient literary texts and the basics of music.
Nowadays, this singing has almost completely gone out of the curriculum. Not only because the contemporary teacher cannot sing poems, but also because the syllabus has become more modern with blank verse, short story and essays occupying quite a significant. But there is one place where the Telugu poem is still sung and enjoyed both by the singer and the listener. That is the Padya Natakam in Telugu. Telugus are extremely proud of this poetic heritage. Padya Natakam, which we claim as a unique genre not to be seen in other languages, has its origin from the late 19th century. In a play of not less than 3 to 4 hours, there are just a few dialogues in between and a series of singing poetry. All the major dialogues are in poetic form; the characters burst out singing as in opera; these actors need to be proficient in literature, music apart from the four Abhinayas. They need to concentrate at one and the same time on emoting, speaking, singing and gesturing. All this makes it a unique performing art. Starting from Vemuri Gaggayya, Peesapati, Raghuramaiah, Sthanam Narasimha Rao (to name a very few) to the present day Gummadi Gopalakrishna there have been a number of excellent artistes. The duo who made this poetic play a household name are Tirupati Venkata Kavulu. Their poetic play based on Mahabharata, and especially the scene where Arjuna and Duryodhana visit Krishna to ask for his boons, and the famous scene in which Lord Krishna visits Duryodhana’s court to make an ‘amicable’ settlement between Pandavas and Kauravas are known as classics in this genre. In fact, there is hardly any Telugu person alive who does not know at least one poem from this text, written in the beginning of the 20th century.
This poetic play or Padya Natakam can be naturally adapted to a mythological subject because the themes obviously belong to the classical literary age. But the response to this genre was so huge in the early 20th century, that even social plays (like Vara Vikrayam on dowry system or even Sambuka Vadha, a critique of mythology) were written in this form. Though the craze for Padya Natakam waned after 1940s when social plays with natural dialogue took over, in the past few years the interest in this performing art has been revived. In a way, the ‘natural’ acting school of thought has done some good to this stylised poetic play too. Earlier, the lesser artistes were more engrossed in showing their musical skills than actual performance of the character. The influence of social plays made for a change for the better in Padya Natakam, so that a balance between real performance and singing was evolved.
Today, the surprising factor is that, on the one hand, agitations are going on regarding the text book syllabi in schools and colleges where certain groups demand more modern genres and less of classical poetry. On the other hand, masses, including the younger generation, are thronging to the theatre where a poetic play, (read classical poetry) is performed. But now good performers are less in number. As said earlier, Padya Natakam is all about stylisation in acting. Earlier artistes needed no training to be part of this play. But, what with modern theories on acting gaining ground, now there is a need for learning and getting trained in the art of Padya Natakam. Potti Sreeramulu Telugu University is offering a course in this art which is much in demand and hopefully, this art, which is definitely a pride of honour for the Telugus, will regain its glory.
