Bay Area Telugu Association organized the 10th Annual Ugadi Telugu Mela on April 2nd, 2011 at Sunnyvale Hindu Temple auditorium, California celebrating the “Sri Khara Nama Samvatsaram”.
The hall had a festive look with decoration of flowers, backdrops, and lights; and a daylong cultural program involving four-year kids to adults.
The programs mesmerized the Bay area Telugu people. Attendee’s enjoyed the traditionally prepared Ugadi pachadi.
A special edition of “Telugu Velugu” (BATA Magazine) was released on this occasion. Telugu Association of North America (TANA) co-sponsored the event by presenting the “Dhim-TANA” competitions as part of the celebrations. The evening “prime time” program was attended by more than 2000 people.
The program started at 10:00 am with “Dhim-TANA” competitions. This year TANA 2011 conference is in Bay Area & BATA is the host organization for this mega event.
Sathish Chilukuri (TANA 2011 convener) attended the program & requested everyone’s support in making the conference a grand success.
This year the popular “BATA Youth Talent show” which has been providing a platform for Bay Area telugu youth to showcase their talents in music, dance and other fields partnered with TANA to present the “Dhim-TANA” competitions.
The competitions received an overwhelming response with more than 100 entries & over 300 children participating in Sub-Junior, Junior, Teens and Senior categories.
The parents and dance teachers of the groups did a tremendous job of preparing the children and getting them ready for the competition. The competitions were very efficiently conducted by Vijaya Aasuri, Srilu Veligeti & Sridevi Pasupuleti.
BATA advisory board member and Cultural Chair Ms Vijaya Aasuri started the evening program and stated that the main goal of Ugadi program is to showcase and celebrate Telugu culture while entertaining the audience. The program started auspiciously with Panchaga Sravanam by Priest Sri Marepalli Venkata Sastry garu.
The first performance was the “Yuvatarangam – Dance Masti” by the tiny tots it has foot tapping numbers from the latest movie hit songs like “Bangaru Konda”, “Neela Leeli Mabbulu”, “Telugammayi” , “Bulle Bulle” & “Vastava”.
Kalyan Kattamuri enthralled the audience with a special song “Ee Cup Manadira” congratulating “Team India” for winning the world Cup Cricket tournament.
The next program was a song medley “Bapu Ramaneeyam”, it paid rich tributes to the Legendary writer Sri.Mullapudi Venkata Ramana garu who passed away recently.
This segment included dances to some of the evergreen hits “Gogulu Pooche”, Amma Kutti” , “Nalla Nalla” , “Kanda Gelichindi” & “Seeta Kalyanam” - Mullapudi garu was associated as a writer for these movies. He along with one of the great directors “Bapu” formed a formidable team & entertained the Telugu audience for over four decades.
Ms Anu Mullapudi (Ramana gari Daughter) attended the program and the BATA committee presented a plaque in honor of Sri. Mullapudi garu.
Tollywood actress “Laya” was the surprise special guest of the evening. She acted in more than 40 movies and won the prestigious “Nandi” award 3 times. Speaking on the occasion “Laya” said she is extremely happy to attend the program & wished everyone on the occasion of “Ugadi”.
Next to follow was the dance segment “Jorugaa Husharuga” & “Dance Dhamaka” (New waves), it had hits from movie songs like “Uppennantha” , “Mr.Perfect”, “Ragada”, “Vedam”, “ Okkdante”, “Astalaxmi”, “Nagara Nagara” & “Sidney”.
There were dances by 4-10 years old kids to adults, and some of these kids were first-timers on the stage, who were very well trained by the choreographers Vijaya Aasuri, Srilu Veligeti, Sridevi Pasupuleti & Kiran Vinnakota.
The comedy skit “Silicon Valley Lo Vaikunta Paali (Socio Fantasy Comedy Play)” directed by Kalyan Kattamuri and performed by Ravi, Kalyan, Kolli, Kamesh, Ajay, Anil, Deepika & Deepti was a big hit with the audience. The auditorium was full of laughter during this play with the humorous jokes and dialogues from the play. This was certainly one of the highlights of the evening.
BATA Karaoke team & Virijallu Paadalani Vundi singers performed a song medley with hit songs from 60’s to latest movies. Specially the kids performance to the hit song “Tooniga Tooniga” from the movie “Manasanta Nuvve” received a thunderous applause from the audience. This segment was co-ordinated by Prasad Mangina.
Noted Tollywood playback singer & Music Director “Raghu Kunche” sang some of his recent chart buster songs like “Enduke Ramanamma” etc. He invited all the kids & youth to join him on the stage.
BATA committee also celebrated the Indian team win in the world cup. Everyone cheered & congratulated the Indian Cricket team for their stupendous success.
Speaking on this occasion out-going BATA President Srilu Veligeti, mentioned that she has received tremendous support from BATA Committee & Volunteers throughout the last year. She also thanked all the parents, kids, youth & BATA team for making the Ugadi program a rousing success.
Srilu then introduced the newly elected Committee members of BATA for the year
2011-12 as follows: Srinivas Kolli (President) , Srini Mangipudi (Vice President), Ramesh Konda (Secretary), Kalyan Kattamuri (Jt. Secretary), Kamesh Malla (Treasurer) and Vijaya Aasuri, Sireesha Battula, Yaswanth Kudaravalli & Jyotsna Bendapudi as Nominated Committee members.
Srinivas Kolli (newly elected President of BATA) thanked BATA committee & volunteers for their continued support and encouragement he received since he has been associated with BATA. He also expressed confidence that the new team will continue the activities with the same interest and intensity.
Towards the end of the program, the much-awaited results from the Talent Show were announced by Vijaya Aasuri. BATA committee thanked all the sponsors for the continued support and presented plaques.
The committee also specially thanked all the volunteers who worked very hard over the past month in making the BATA Ugadi program a grand success.
