The Andhra Pradesh government has announced State funeral for director-cartoonist Bapu, in Chennai on Tuesday. Informing this to the Assembly while moving a condolence motion on Bapu’s death on Monday evening, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu said a Minister of Andhra Pradesh would attend the funeral.
A world class cultural centre would be constructed in memory of Bapu and his writer friend Mullapudi Venkata Ramana who passed away three years back. The existing museum at Vijayawada would be renamed after Bapu.
Conceding the demand of Telugu Desam member Gorantla Butchaiah Chowdary, Mr. Naidu said the statues of Bapu and Ramana would come up on a single memorial on the banks of Godavari where several films of the duo were shot. The construction of memorial would be timely because the Godavari Pushkarams were also scheduled around this time next year.
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Mr. Naidu paid glowing tributes to Bapu saying the latter brought world image to his art and artistic style of writing. They were acclaimed as “Bapu bomma and Bapu font”. People did not know how mythological personalities as Ram and Krishna looked like but Bapu gave them a shape through his art.
Rich tributes paid Chennai bureau adds: A steady stream of visitors, including those from the film industry, paid their respects to Bapu. Among the most notable visitors on Monday were matinee idols, Chiranjeevi and N. Balakrishna.
Mr. Chiranjeevi compared him to world renowned painter, Picasso. “He was a multi-faceted personality. He was a cartoonist and was also a great filmmaker. It is a great loss for Telugu people,” he said.
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