Gussadi Raju wants ethnic dance form preserved for posterity

Asifabad: What does the lone Padma Shri awardee selected from Telangana State, Kanaka Raju, want and what does the award mean to him? The octogenarian, Kanaka Raju, who won the award for making the ethnic dance form Gussadi popular says he will be happier if the government could provide him food and shelter for the rest of his life.

Gussadi is the ancient Gond community's dance form. Talking to The Hans India, Raju poured out his woes and said that it had become impossible even to lead a normal life.

He has no proper income and housing. He is still living in a thatched house and looking after his 11-member family who rely on the 6-acre land for livelihood.

Raju said that it has become difficult to run a big family with no proper income source except teaching dance classes to the local children who pay a small honorarium. At other times, Raju works as a cook on daily-wage basis at a tribal welfare hostel in Marlavai village in Kumaram Bheem Asifabad district.

Raju said he worked with Madari Tukaram, the first Gond IAS officer in the early 1980s to give a style and system to Gussadi dance. In 1981, he performed Gussadi dance during the Republic Day celebrations in New Delhi when Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister.

He also took part in the official celebrations in the national capital and received appreciation from President APJ Abdul Kalam, the Padma awardee said he trained hundreds of youth in the tribal dance for the last 40 years.

Thanking the Union Government for recognising his services in preserving the oldest dance , Raju appealed to the State Government to promote the dance form by establishing special institutions in the tribal dominated old Adilabad district and help provide employment to the trained youth.