Celebrations of Sri Nanda Naama Samvatsara Ugadi were conducted with fanfare in Columbia, South Carolina, USA by the Telugu Association of South Carolina (TASC) on March 24th, 2012.
The program started with Deeparadhana by women and Maa Telugu Talliki song by Smitha Anchoori & Gatyari Valluri.
Cultural Secretary Ramesh Tippabhatla welcomed the audience and introduced executive committee.
President of the committee Aravind Duggirala addressed the gathering. Cultural program included many classical and modern dances by both children and adults in groups as well as solo.
There were four bharatnatyam items of which 3 were group dances by different groups of 10-15 young dancers and the fourth one was a solo dance - Varnana (Ganesha Vandana) by Rashmili Vemula.
Group dances called “Thodaya Mangalam”, “Mookaambika Ashtakam” and “Krishna Leela” were grand and spectacular. All these dances were choreographed by Smt. Rajini Satish and the audience were spellbound by them.
Dances for movie songs included several groups with single song or a remix of two to three songs from mostly recent movies like “Raccha”, “Dookudu”, “Badrinath”, “Rangam”, “Kantree” etc.
Solo dance performance for movie songs were done by Krishna Teja, Abhijit, Aditya and Akhila. A dance for a song from “Rojulu Maaraayi” brought old reminiscences. All these dances were thoroughly enjoyed by the audience.
There was also a classical music item in which kids sang “Paluke Bangaramaayenaa” - a Ramadasu Kirtana . There were 3 skits among which the highlight was a skit called “Vikatakavi” based on pupolar stories about Tenali Ramakrishna. This was done by kids who learned Telugu poems for this purpose. Simran Tippabhatla gave an extraordinary performance as Tenali Ramakrishna. Second skit called “Smoke TV Channel” was a satire on Telugu news channels and was performed by Satya Kadali, Ramesh Tippabhatla, Ramesh Arumalla and Venu Vellampalli.
The last skit titled “maa aayana bamgaaram” was a satire on the attitudes of Indian husbands in US and was performed by Madhuri Vemula, Shashi Tippabhatla, Sunitha Guntupalli, Satya Uddhandapu, Aruna Oddiraju and Swapna Munugala. All 3 skits were a big hit with the audience.
Anchoring was done by Himabindu, Akhila, Nikhila and Pranathi. A few couples also acted as guest anchors. Ramesh Tippabhatla and Sabita Aluri were felicitated for their outstanding contribution to the Association. Satish Kudaravalli offered the Vote of Thanks.
The program attended by more than 300 people was conducted in an orderly and timely manner. This was made possible by relentless efforts by various volunteers like Sudhakar Samanthapudi, Sarat Gotrrepati, Satya Kadali, Ramesh Arumalla, Sundar Pasala, Raju Mancham, Venu Vellampally, and Ravisankar Vinnakota. All the kids that participated were given trophies by Lakshmana Rao Oddiraju and Raghu Korrapati.
After cultural program, the guests were treated with an authentic South Indian dinner.
