“A lot of research has to be conducted into the contributions of Tallapaka poets to the Telugu literature. At present, I am on the job of finding the musicological merits of their poetry and discovered seven new songs so far,” says Veturi Ananda Murthy, a retired professor from Osmania University and the recipient of Tagore National Fellowship. Eighty five-year-old Ananda Murthy was in Kakinada last week to receive ‘Dantu Bhaskara Rao Memorial Lifetime Achievement Award in Telugu Literature.’
The second edition of his Ph.D. thesis the impact of ‘Vaishnava’ cult on Telugu literature with special reference to Tallapaka poets was released on the sidelines of the function. Prof. Ananda Murthy has been continuing the legacy of his father the late Veturi Prabhakara Sastry, who had conducted a remarkable research into Telugu poetry with special reference to the contributions of Tallapaka Annamacharya. “This fellowship is like passport for me enter into any of the reference libraries in India to complete my research work. I need to travel a lot and compile volumes of notes to complete this project,” he says.
Besides the poetry of Tallapaka poets, his other interest is conducting a research into the changes in the lifestyle of Telugu people who migrated to Mauritius centuries ago. Prof. Ananda Murthy was the man behind the establishment of department of Telugu in the Teacher Training College in Mauritius during his stint as education officer from 1966-70. Besides having four more years of extended tenure in Mauritius from 1976, he has been continuing his association with the nation by way of attending seminars and workshops there. “While referring to the volumes in the archives, I have found that one Ponnamanda Venkata Reddy of the present Coringa near Kakinada owned four ships and provided transport to the labourers to Mauritius in 1827. His ship’s name ‘Corangi Packet’ was there in the records and 300 labourers were sent to Mauritius in the first trip,” he recalled.
“As they came from Corangi, the Telugu people were referred as ‘Corangis’ in the records. Even now, the names of the first generation labourers were being used as surnames of the present generations. It is interesting to note surnames like ‘Obigadu’ and ‘Appadu’ among the Telugu communities,” Prof. Ananda Murthy observed.
Large number of people migrated to Mauritius from Coringa near Kakinada between 1740 and 1840 and they played a crucial role in the rebuilding of the country from the scratch. The National archives of Mauritius had huge volumes of data pertaining to ships carrying labourers that came from different countries and the details of each and every individual that stepped into the country.
“There is a need to conduct a thorough research into the migration process and a comparative study on the natives and the migrants. I have ample notes available with me and the Mauritius government too encourages such research. It is going to be an
interesting topic for students of linguistics and sociology,” said Prof. Ananda Murthy.
