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| Veturi Sundararama Murthy |
Tenali located in Guntur district in AP, in a Telugu Brahmin family. Veturi is a relative of the late Sri Veturi Prabhakara Sastri.
Native Place is Peda kallepalli near Mopidevi located in Krishna district in AP.
Career and Life in brief
He worked as journalist for prominent magazines like Andhra Patrika and Andhra Prabha before becoming a lyricist. While working as a journalist, Veturi got his first break in movies through Dr.K.Viswanath. Later, he would go on to pen hundreds of songs. Veturi wrote a large variety of songs ranging from classic poetry to the folk and mass ones. He is also the second lyricist from Telugu film industry to win the National Film Award for Best Lyrics for the song Raalipoye puvva neeku ragaalenduke from the Movie Maathrudevobhava (Music: Keeravaani MM, Director: Ajay Kumar, Producer: Rama Rao K S) in the year 1994. However, he gave back the award since Telugu was not recognized as an ancient language then.
Veturi cherishes his professional relationship with the national award winning Telugu film director, Dr.K.Viswanath and the renowned music composers K. V. Mahadevan & maestro Ilaiyaraaja.
He went on to work great film directors and music directors in his long cherished career as lyricist.
The great lyricist died of heart attack in a hospital at Hyderabad on 22nd May 2010 at age 74 years.
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Personality & Style
Veturi has lot of respect for his seniors. He often says Gatamantaa shrutam naadi, prastutaaniki adi punaadi (I heard (learnt) lot of things from great people in the past and I use them as my present base), which shows his humbleness. He has great respect for lyricist Atreya whom he considers as his mentor and Guru. He once even said in an interview with Gemini Television - Atreya is a much greater lyricist than me. You may find beauty of words and phrases in my lyrics, but Atreya's lyrics have "life" in them. And this comes only from real experiences and Atreya had much more "life experience" than me.
His relation with veteran composer Illayaraja is another instance of his dignity and friendly nature. It is well-described in his book "Komma kommakO sannaayi".
Veturi has a unique style which few have been able to emulate. He has an amazing facility in language as well as a vivid imagination combined with creativity. His style is romantic, with deep, heart-felt emotions.
His turns-of-phrase are sometimes as delightful as mystifying; an example is: gasagasala kougilinta, literally "embrace of the poppy seeds" but more meaningful as your hug is as intoxicating as opium. He conveys the most inexplicable feelings in simple words. An example is: anagala raagamai toluta veenualalarinchi, analEni rAgamai maralA vinipinchi which translates to (the music of your flute) pleased my ears once, later it resounded in my heart as an inexpressible feeling.
His knowledge in classical telugu poetry is evident from the figures of speech (alankaaralu). Here are three verses from the same song: acceruvuna acceruvuna viccina kannulachUDa (They watched Lord Krishna in wonder dancing in the lake), aabaala gopaalam aabaalagopaaluni (everyone watched the Little Krishna), aaradha aaradhanaageeti palikiMci (Radha sang a devotional song). It can be observed that the same word is juxtaposed with different meanings (a figure of speech in Telugu, yamakam).
He uses a lot of classical objects in fresh similes. Objects like ponnacheTTu, tyAgarAjakIrtana (Tyagaraja's song), Rutuvulu (Seasons), Raagas have all been used extensively in his songs. One such song from SundaraakanDa uses all grammatical rules of Telugu in a romantic conversation between lovers (Ex: mattuga mallelu attaru chindE vELa champakamaalalu sompulakistaavaa,Ne layalu hrudayamuna yamunalaina samayamuna). These songs stand as proofs of his knowledge in various subjects.
His imagination ranges from most creative similes like bhoodari lo neelambari, maa seemake cheenambari to rather base comparisons like muDideeste moopuram, paruvaala gopuram. Particularly when it comes to writing more serious lyrics like those of Shankarabharanam, his prowess has been proved a number of times. Here are a few examples:
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