Telugu
© Thomas Wilson Shawcross 12 Oct 2005
Yesterday evening, after driving home from work, I decided to while away a few pleasant hours doing my writing, engineering, and philanthropic work. Then, an idea struck me.
“Hey, why not listen to some Telugu songs while I work at the computer?”
I had only recently learned of the Telugu language, from a co-worker, Sharanya Muppidi, and I was keen to learn more about it.
The online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, says the Telugu language belongs to the family of Dravidian languages and is the official language of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, (A. P., as Sharanya calls it). But here is the intriguing part – Wikipedia says that Telugu is called the Italian of the East as all Telugu words end in a vowel sound. Telugu has sixteen vowels.
Immediately, this conjured the image in my mind of an A. P. family gathered around the kitchen. In this fantasy, the father looked like an Indian version of the Mario character from Nintendo, with a Mario-like handlebar mustache. Using his hands for emphasis, he was talking to his wife (I will translate from Telugu for you):
“That’s-a spicy Mirchi ka Salon, mama! Pass-a the chianti, and how about-a some more pasta?!”
On second thought, I realized that A. P. men probably bore no resemblance to the Italian cartoon character of Mario, and for that matter I had never seen any Italian men who did either, but that didn’t stop the mental image from jumping into my head.
It would definitely be interesting, however, if scientists someday discover a gene that combines a liking of vowel sounds with a preference for spicy cooking . . .
But, I digress. Wikipedia went on to say that say that some 70 to 80 million people speak the Telugu language! That astounded me, as I had never heard of Telugu until this week. Where have I been?
It turns out that Telugu is the second largest language in India, next only to Hindi (which I had heard of). Sharanya gave me the address of a web site that was devoted to Telugu films. Here, she said, I could listen to sound tracks from Telugu movies. I hadn’t realized there were Telugu movies. I was aware of the Hindi-language movies made in Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay). The film industry there is so large, it has been nicknamed “Bollywood” a conflation of Bombay and Hollywood. Well, it turns out that Bollywood, when combined with “Tollywood” (the Telugu-language films) and the other Indian films made in Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam, and Kannada, is the largest film industry in the world, in terms of number of movies made and the number of people who see them. One can purchase these films on eBay India.
Sharanya said her favorite Telugu movie was the 2004 musical Aarya. So, I logged on to Telugufm.com and listened to a few songs from it, namely You Rock my World, Nuvvunte, O My Brotheru, Thakadhimithom, Feel My Love, and my personal favorite Aa Ante Amalapuram.
source: http://cgi.ebay.in/Aarya-Telugu-Movie-VCD_W0QQitemZ6437473727QQcategoryZ88408QQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting
Cast: Allu Arjun, Anuradha Mehta, Shiva Balaji, Sunil
Synopsis: Ajay (Siva) is a spoilt brat and is the son of local MP Avataram (Rajan P Dev). He likes Geeta (Anuradha Mehta) and proposes her. When she refuses, he threatens that he would jump from the college top. Being a meek girl, Geeta accepts the proposal and starts dating him.
Arya (Allu Arjun) is a carefree guy with positive attitude. He falls in love with Geeta at the first sight. He proposes her in front of her boyfriend. She bluntly refuses. The rest of the film is all about how he wins Geeta with his attitude and positive outlook.
I was especially interested in hearing these songs, because of a strange theory that I have. A woman in South Dakota once told me that whenever she looks at old black-and-white photos from the late 1800’s, she always searches the faces of the now long-dead people, looking for a match to a currently living person. Her theory is that, unlike snowflakes, faces repeat themselves from time to time.
I have a variation of this theory, based on music. I suspect that some songs have been invented, then forgotten, and then reinvented over the years. I expect there will be a movie made some day when someone rides a time machine back to the Middle Ages and discovers a court musician playing “Satin Doll” on a lute, only the court musician knows it as “Prithee Wench” or some other such title.
Well, I can’t go back in time and discover these invented-forgotten-reinvented songs, but I could listen to Telugu songs and see if any of the songs I knew had been reinvented in Telugu. It turns out they hadn’t, but the Telugu songs made enjoyable listening. They were catchy and danceable.
Today, I told Sharanya that I had listened to songs from Aarya and mentioned that Aarya could be purchased at eBay India. She then informed me that Telugu movies could be watched here in South Florida, via Satellite Dish! Shades of parallel universes!
I have long been intrigued by the concept of parallel universes. Some Physicists believe they exist. Me, I am not so sure, but then again, Sharanya had just demonstrated to me that there is a parallel Telugu universe all around me, but I had been unable to detect it. It was akin to the feeling I got when I learned that airlines had secret lounges inside airports for VIP travelers, or that department stores offered “personal shopper” services. Where had I been? And now, I find out about Telugu. Come to think of it, today I learned that the fourth floor of the building where I work has a better selection in its vending machines. I am riding a wave of discovery!
The world is finally revealing its secrets to me. I can’t wait to see what I will discover tomorrow . . .
Yesterday evening, after driving home from work, I decided to while away a few pleasant hours doing my writing, engineering, and philanthropic work. Then, an idea struck me.
“Hey, why not listen to some Telugu songs while I work at the computer?”
I had only recently learned of the Telugu language, from a co-worker, Sharanya Muppidi, and I was keen to learn more about it.
The online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, says the Telugu language belongs to the family of Dravidian languages and is the official language of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, (A. P., as Sharanya calls it). But here is the intriguing part – Wikipedia says that Telugu is called the Italian of the East as all Telugu words end in a vowel sound. Telugu has sixteen vowels.
Immediately, this conjured the image in my mind of an A. P. family gathered around the kitchen. In this fantasy, the father looked like an Indian version of the Mario character from Nintendo, with a Mario-like handlebar mustache. Using his hands for emphasis, he was talking to his wife (I will translate from Telugu for you):
“That’s-a spicy Mirchi ka Salon, mama! Pass-a the chianti, and how about-a some more pasta?!”
On second thought, I realized that A. P. men probably bore no resemblance to the Italian cartoon character of Mario, and for that matter I had never seen any Italian men who did either, but that didn’t stop the mental image from jumping into my head.
It would definitely be interesting, however, if scientists someday discover a gene that combines a liking of vowel sounds with a preference for spicy cooking . . .
But, I digress. Wikipedia went on to say that say that some 70 to 80 million people speak the Telugu language! That astounded me, as I had never heard of Telugu until this week. Where have I been?
It turns out that Telugu is the second largest language in India, next only to Hindi (which I had heard of). Sharanya gave me the address of a web site that was devoted to Telugu films. Here, she said, I could listen to sound tracks from Telugu movies. I hadn’t realized there were Telugu movies. I was aware of the Hindi-language movies made in Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay). The film industry there is so large, it has been nicknamed “Bollywood” a conflation of Bombay and Hollywood. Well, it turns out that Bollywood, when combined with “Tollywood” (the Telugu-language films) and the other Indian films made in Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam, and Kannada, is the largest film industry in the world, in terms of number of movies made and the number of people who see them. One can purchase these films on eBay India.
Sharanya said her favorite Telugu movie was the 2004 musical Aarya. So, I logged on to Telugufm.com and listened to a few songs from it, namely You Rock my World, Nuvvunte, O My Brotheru, Thakadhimithom, Feel My Love, and my personal favorite Aa Ante Amalapuram.
source: http://cgi.ebay.in/Aarya-Telugu-Movie-VCD_W0QQitemZ6437473727QQcategoryZ88408QQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting
Cast: Allu Arjun, Anuradha Mehta, Shiva Balaji, Sunil
Synopsis: Ajay (Siva) is a spoilt brat and is the son of local MP Avataram (Rajan P Dev). He likes Geeta (Anuradha Mehta) and proposes her. When she refuses, he threatens that he would jump from the college top. Being a meek girl, Geeta accepts the proposal and starts dating him.
Arya (Allu Arjun) is a carefree guy with positive attitude. He falls in love with Geeta at the first sight. He proposes her in front of her boyfriend. She bluntly refuses. The rest of the film is all about how he wins Geeta with his attitude and positive outlook.
I was especially interested in hearing these songs, because of a strange theory that I have. A woman in South Dakota once told me that whenever she looks at old black-and-white photos from the late 1800’s, she always searches the faces of the now long-dead people, looking for a match to a currently living person. Her theory is that, unlike snowflakes, faces repeat themselves from time to time.
I have a variation of this theory, based on music. I suspect that some songs have been invented, then forgotten, and then reinvented over the years. I expect there will be a movie made some day when someone rides a time machine back to the Middle Ages and discovers a court musician playing “Satin Doll” on a lute, only the court musician knows it as “Prithee Wench” or some other such title.
Well, I can’t go back in time and discover these invented-forgotten-reinvented songs, but I could listen to Telugu songs and see if any of the songs I knew had been reinvented in Telugu. It turns out they hadn’t, but the Telugu songs made enjoyable listening. They were catchy and danceable.
Today, I told Sharanya that I had listened to songs from Aarya and mentioned that Aarya could be purchased at eBay India. She then informed me that Telugu movies could be watched here in South Florida, via Satellite Dish! Shades of parallel universes!
I have long been intrigued by the concept of parallel universes. Some Physicists believe they exist. Me, I am not so sure, but then again, Sharanya had just demonstrated to me that there is a parallel Telugu universe all around me, but I had been unable to detect it. It was akin to the feeling I got when I learned that airlines had secret lounges inside airports for VIP travelers, or that department stores offered “personal shopper” services. Where had I been? And now, I find out about Telugu. Come to think of it, today I learned that the fourth floor of the building where I work has a better selection in its vending machines. I am riding a wave of discovery!
The world is finally revealing its secrets to me. I can’t wait to see what I will discover tomorrow . . .
posted by Tom Shawcross | 11:13 PM
2 Comments:
Hello Tom
Very interesting post!
I am Kiran, and my mother tongue is Telugu. I was living in NY for the past 2 yrs..recently shifted to Bay Area, CA.
You may like to check out my page 'Telugu - Italian of the East'
www.telugutanam.com/italianofeast
, and also my blog telugutanam
Nice to see your interest in this language. You can see in the above site, that there are lot of Telugu organizations all across USA! If you have any questions, or want to know more about Telugu, feel free to contact me at kiranvaka@rediffmail.com
Haha, this is interesting. I'm of telugu origin, and I was wondering about its origins and stuff, and came across this blog. You should listen to the sountrack of Bommarillu, its enjoyable.
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