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Articles: Literature | Chillara Devullu
- Dr. Rajeshwar Mittapalli
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An awe-struck Pani admits that anybody entering the hall would certainly accept Reddy to be a great lover of arts. Reddy wants his daughter to learn to play the veena and not the inferior instrument called fiddle. He even proposes that a music school should be set up in the village.
It is not Reddy alone, even the village women too have a highly developed aesthetic sense. Their songs so regale even an aesthete like Pani that he is lost in wonder for a while:
This song has not been composed by pundits. Nobody knows who wrote it. The women singing it have no knowledge of music. They don’t know the science of music. Yet, their song is pleasant like sun-rays in the month of Margasira.
The celebration of Batukamma festival that precedes Dassera by a couple of days is special to the women of Telangana. The most important aspect of this festival is the arrangement of Batukammas with various flowers abundantly found in the Telangana countryside. These Batukammas are ceremoniously carried on the head to a river or lake and immersed there. A lead singer sings and leads the procession and others accompany her by rhythmically clapping.
Before the Batukammas are immersed in the river the women divide themselves into smaller groups, place their Batukammas in a circle and sing songs clapping and going round and round them. It is a song that Manjari sings on the occasion that fascinates Pani and when she seeks shelter from rain under a banyan tree, he copiously compliments her, comparing her voice to that of a koel. This incident marks the beginning of their love affair in right earnest.
The celebration of festivals and observance of rituals also serve to reinforce the authority of the likes of Reddy, the Karanam and the Vaishnavacharya. On the occasion of Dassera it is Reddy who performs puja to the weapons on behalf of the entire village and then butchers a goat. To hail the event guns are fired. Again in the evening Reddy goes to the shami tree riding a horse and wielding a sword. He leads the villagers in ritualistically going round the tree. After returning home he liberally gives away gifts and money to the servants and dependents.
The coming of the Vaishnavacharya marks another ritualistic occasion. The Acharya seems to wield more power than even the high government officials do. The entire village prepares to receive him and cater to his every need. Even Tayaru, who has been spurned by Pani thinks it fit to offer herself to the Acharya and the Karanam can do nothing about it. His secular authority and his razor sharp intelligence do not seem to work here for the first time. The Acharya seems to deliver a death blow to his beliefs and all that he has held high. Tayaru’s sexual gratification of the Acharya marks the Karanam’s spiritual death. His death at the hands of the Lambadas is only a re-enactment of it.
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