Re: pAta candamAma kathalu
Ramakrishna S. Pillalamarri (pkrishna@juno.com)
Mon, 8 Sep 1997 19:00:42 -0400
On Sat, 6 Sep 1997, Ramana Juvvadi wrote:
> Oh! I wish I can read "rAti ratham" again with its heroes khaDga varma
> and jeeva dattuDu.
Well, it is xxxxxx for me.
Ramakrishna "I can't believe I forgot the name!" Pillalamarri
PS: But not entirely. I understand it was made into a movie by Vijaya
folks
recently, into "bhairava dweepam". Not having seen it, though it was
discussed quite a bit in SCIT two-three years ago, I am not sure if it is
the same as the serialized novel I read in candamAma or not. The novel I
read
had a "good" wizard called caturnEtruDu, and a "bad" wizard called
"EkAkshi".
It was of course complete with damsels in distress, princes coming to
their
rescue, secret passageways in palaces, ...
Coming back to candamAma, which I read quite a bit, the names of citra
and
Sankar who drew the pictures, were mentioned. Over the years, I realized
that citra always drew the pictures for the stories with kings, queens,
palaces, etc,and Sankar drew pictures for stories with social themes. I
remember reading a story, and later, much later, recognizing it as that
of
hawthorne, "the great stone face'.
While Kutumba Rao was the editor of the magazine, he did not "inject" his
socio-political agenda into the stories, whether he edited them or not,
for style/grammer reasons. He kept that aspect for his own writings.
I remember two features. One was a story purportedly explaining an old
belief,
or somesuch thing. Such as hy there is a spot on the moon, why the
gurivinda
ginja is so, why the camel's neck is so stretched, etc... The story
didn't have
to be "true" in any sense, but had to be a "good story". Another feature
was
on magic, by PC Sircar. I still remember couple of tricks, and frequently
try one on unsuspecting folk.
Oh, another was that they publish two photos, and one had to come up
with two somewhat connected captions for them. The winning entry was
rewarded,
and those pictures were carriedin the inside cover pages.
Around this same time, I read (very good) translations of western novels
in
Andhra patriak. Such titles as - karpUra dweepam, vicitra vyakti,
ghanTArAvam,
renDu mahAnagarAlu, adde bOTulO muccaTagA mugguru, ...
Ramakrishna "Those were the days" Pillalamarri