Telugu should be looked in a flabbergasting manner

Hyderabad, December 20 (INN): With the landscape of film making changing drastically, Telugu language has to be looked at in a flabbergasting manner as the idiom has changed drastically in verse and prose as well.

With World Telugu Conference just a week away, efforts are on to celebrate the event in style as the language has acquired ancient language status some four years back.

Literature in films was never a flavour, but in the hay days, Pingali, Samudrala, Tapi Dharma Rao, Malladi, Sadasiva Brahmam and the like upheld the beauty of the language even in films.

The second generation writers like Atreya, Sri Sri, Arudra, Veeturi, Dasarathi, C Narayana Reddy and others had brought in melodrama into the film songs and dialogues took the colloquial line from the grammatical form.

In the later years, Veturi Sundara Rama Murthy took the industry by storm while the art of film making was taking a new turn and shifting totally into a commercial mode.

High remuneration of stars has changed the film making and hero worship, has become order of the day. Producers and Big actors started calling the shots and punch lines became popular.

The hero is always recognized by his punch line and no one else could utter a good line though it is permitted in the comedy track. However, songs went awry and are just sprinkled to fit the beat to suit the jutting of the hip of heroine.

Item song culture too came up and the lines have been going into meaningless and at times demeaning trends. Good songs are few and far between.

It is heartening to note that many of the heroes are not very proficient with Telugu, leave alone heroines, singers and artistes. It is a common sight at audio release functions that the language is abused or not used at all.

Comedy is reduced to mockery and lampooning and heroism is elevated to larger than life image with even verbose dialogues being rendered like a surge without catching the meaning or modulation.

NTR was at his best in verbose dialogues but he knew the meaning and the weight of each word, unlike many of the present day actors.

To sum it up, Telugu language has stooped to low levels in majority of the present day films and many objectionable words have come to acceptance.

World Telugu Conference is been organized at a time when Mandali Budha Prasad is the head of the Official Language Committee. It was his father Mandali Venkata Krishna Rao, who held the first Conference in style in the city.

At that time literary giants and cultural czars even from film land took part and enthralled the audience. What the present day stars and writers have to offer is something we have wait and watch.