July 10, 2005 was a beautiful summer day in Boston.  Hundreds of Telugu families from the New England area reached Littleton High School Auditorium at 4 pm on that day to participate in the Summer Celebrations organized by the Telugu Association of Greater Boston (TAGB). The main attraction of the evening was the Telugu Comedy Show by Tollywood Stars. The large auditorium (seating 740 people) was overflowing with adults and children.

Ravi Pattisam, Vice President of TAGB welcomed the gathering and invited the TAGB president, Baburao Polavarapu and the chief guest, Mrs. Neduramalli Rajyalakshmi to the stage. Mrs. Rajyalakshmi is currently the minister of school education, Government of Andhra Pradesh. In a brief speech, she praised the role of NRIs and their contributions to developments of technology and other fields in the US and in India. She inaugurated a website to facilitate NRI’s contributions to the development of primary education in Andhra Pradesh.

Character actor cum comedian, Mr. Tanikella Bharani directed the comedy show. In his introduction, he talked about the Telugu language, culture and women’s role in preserving the Indian culture. He impressed the audience by reciting the longest poem written in Telugu during the 15th century by Allasani Peddana and a modern one written by Sri Sri (Srirangam Srinivasa Rao). The show started with dance by actress, Abhinayasri for the song, Nuvvastavante. She danced to two more songs (E zilla e zilla and Aa ante amalapuram) during the show. Each of the dances pulled the audience from their seats and pushed them into a frenzy of claps and whistles. Venu Madhav, who is both a comedian and a mimicry artist, lifted the spirits of the audience with his solo performances. He also joined other comedians, Krishna Bhagavan, Kondavalasa, Ravi Kumar and Anuradha in several small comedy skits, which were equally hilarious.

In the second half, heroine Laya sang a song (Okka Kshanam …) from K. Viswanath’s musical, Swarbhisekham. It was a pleasant surprise for the audience to hear the melodious singing by Laya. During the interactive session the audience also learned that Laya is multi-talented – a classical dancer and an engineering college student, continuing her studies for MCA degree, in spite of being one of the top heroines of Tollywood. The famous Parachuri brothers (movie dialog writers and actors), who spoke eloquently in Telugu without using a single word of English, reminded what we are missing by staying away from Telugu Talli (Telugu Land), and cajoled us to return after a successful stint in the US.

Grand sponsors, Mohan & Shama Nannapaneni of Southboro, Prakash & Shailaja Reddy of Canton and Arjun & Geeta Rao of Lexington presented mementos to the artists and guests. Mohan thanked the audience, and urged everyone to come together as one big Telugu community and actively participate in the future functions. President Baburao expressed happiness at the successful conclusion of the well-attended TAGB function and thanked all the volunteers.

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