VISAKHAPATNAM: As artists across the globe come together to celebrate the power of music and rejoice it on World Music Day, 64-year-old Nukala Prabhakar along with his fellow singers from diverse backgrounds are on a mission to promote and safeguard the pristine essence of the Telugu language through the timeless melodies of the yesteryear via their initiative, ‘Ghantasala Gaana Nidhi’.“The goal is to safeguard and uphold the unity and essence of the language. When the significance of a language is compromised, the culture gets jeopardised,” Prabhakar, a retired BSNL officer, told TNIE.
Prabhakar, along with others, organises musical concerts in Vizag and Hyderabad and live streams them on YouTube through the Ghantasala Gaana Nidhi. Recognising the significance of safeguarding the classics, Prabhakar took the initiative to digitise 2,500 songs by Ghantasala Venkateswara Rao, a veteran Indian singer and film composer, back in 2006.
“Today, cassettes and CDs are not widely used anymore. Even though these songs may not be popular now, a time will come when they will be valued. That is why I decided to digitise these songs 17 years ago. I did it out of my love and respect for the language,” he expressed with joy.
Moreover, Prabhakar and his team have been consistently encouraging young children to participate in their musical concerts, regardless of their singing ability or pronunciation. “Merely listening to music brings immense mental peace, and this experience is further enhanced when one sings,” he stated.
Speaking about the impact of technology, he remarked, “Live streaming on YouTube enabled us to carry on with our concerts online during the pandemic. I discovered the means to live stream duet songs without lag even when I was in one state of the USA, and my singing partner was in another.”
Reflecting on his time at a glass factory in the USA, Prabhakar recounted, “During a demonstration of glassware preparation, we observed that the instructions were given in two languages—English and Chinese. While we could comprehend the English instructions, we could not understand Chinese. While we should learn to speak English, we should not do so at the expense of compromising our mother tongue.”