Another feather in his cap

The Hindu, By GUDIPOODI SRIHARI, June 13 2003

Sukanya Art Theatres, known for staging novel programmes of social and cultural impact, got up last week at Ravindra Bharathi a musical night with the title “Cinare Kalam – S.P.Galam” which means Narayana Reddy’s pen and Balu’s voice, that came together in this programme.

C.Narayana Reddy penned all the songs S.P.Balasubramanyam rendered in this programme. Akkineni Nageswara Rao and another stalwart actor Gummadi Venkateswara Rao attended the function organized on the occasion. And those songs which were picturised on these two actors were sung.

The Art Theatres made it a point to felicitate S.P.B. on this occasion by presenting him with a gold medal, named after Narayana Reddy.

This medal called Cinare Cine Swarnapatakam will be given to a person from the musical side.

The general practice is to institute gold medals after names of the dead. Here the medal named is after Dr.C.Narayana Reddy who is alive.

A.Nageswara Rao himself noted this peculiarity and said this broke the general tradition and opened a new way of presenting gold medals named after living legends. “If Ghantasala can be regarded as a great structure of a temple, S.P.Balasubrahmanyam is its extension,” he said. Balasubrahmanyam’s career extended into various languages and fields, unlike any playback singer of the past and present.

He is a man known for perfection in everything that concerns song and its rendition. As usual S.P. sounded quite humble when he received the award from ANR. He said he had to go a long way in the field of music.

Balu also rendered a ghazal written by Cinare. K.S.R.Murthy, Ramana, Chintalapoodi Suresh, Sasikala Swamy, Himabindu, Kiranmayi, Soujanya and others also rendered some songs.