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Fiddle with riddles
FEW PLEASURES can surpass the joy of listening to granny telling a story at bedtime. Be it a fable by Aesop of Greece, or a Panchatantra story written by our own Vishnu Sarma -- the stories are best when narrated by granny.
It appears that information technology has decided to finally invade the story-telling realm of granny. Animated Video Compact Discs (VCDs) with stories for children produced by Hyderabad-based S.R.Communications were released by senior journalist, Turlapati Kuthumbha Rao, here last week. Mr.Kuthumbha Rao said television was a powerful instrument to impart education but it was not being put to proper use. He said the Telugu serials were proving to be counter - productive. In the VCD `Chitti Chitti Kathalu' ( tiny stories) there are nine stories, most of them from the Panchatantra and a few others from various sources. The second VCD is a collection of 21 `Podupu Kathalu' which are unique to Telugu language. ''Kita kita thalupulu, Kitari thalupulu, moosukunna chappudu chayyani thalupulu. Guess what ? Kallu (eyes). Podupu Kathalu (riddles) is a unique concept that has been a rage among kids from time immemorial. It spews clouds of smoke from its head and has two red eyes. It goes zig-zag like a snake. What is it ? A train moving on a railway track.
Interestingly, a team of youngsters, most of them based in Vijayawada, have taken upon themselves the task of preserving the noval Podupu Kadhalu by ensuring that every child learns them through these VCDs. M.Naveen Kumar, the driving force behind the production of the VCDs, says that the idea was given to him by his father, a senior journalist, Maremanda Seetha Ramaiah.
One of the objectives of the VCDs was to popularise the stories that were being forgotten due to the rapid change in lifestyle.
Naveen who grew up in Vijayawada, recently completed BCA in Hyderabad. He invited his childhood friend, T.Anil Kumar, to be the music director and other friends like Mohan Simha, Pratyusha, A.Pratyusha, Koushik and Karthika to be members of the team which created the VCDs.
Despite being his maiden attempt in animation, Naveen's efforts are commendable. The VCDs are being marketed by Vijayawada-based Sphoorthi Publications which also deals with educational CD-ROMs.
G.V.RAMANA RAO
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