Desperate times for cultural artistes

Puttaparthi (Anantapur): More than 200 traditional cultural artistes, once actively pursued their ancestral occupation of playing mythological roles in drama theatres, Harikatha and Burrakatha performances and folklore dance artists are struggling for their survival.

They are in the evening of their life and hardly get any offers for theatrical performances. Until 2010 things were not as bad as they are now. But, now even in the villages, the people lost their love for the ancient arts, says 65-year old drama artiste Raghunath Reddy.

During festival times, cultural programmes used to be organised for Ganapathi festival, Srirama Navami and Sankranti festivals. We used to be busy with programmes. But now, we are not patronised anymore.

Even if performances were arranged, nobody would come as everyone is stuck with TV movies, shows and serials, he said to The Hans India. Siddaiah Babu of Narayanapuram village, another drama artiste says that the government pension of Rs 1,500 has come to his rescue, otherwise he would be begging like many others, who are not yet covered under the government's pension scheme.

He said that there would be nearly 200 artistes, who are not covered under the pension scheme. Recollecting the good old days of his youth, he says “Days have changed, and so did people's tastes and people are interested in modern and western arts. The modern generation have no taste for anything mythological whereas all our programmes are centred around mythological characters and that made us outdated,’’ he said.

“We are clinging to these performances as they are intricately connected with our unique Indian culture around which the Indian fabric was founded but we have reached a stage where we have failed to patronise the artforms and on the other hand we are mocking the ancient artforms,” laments Babu.

Assistant Director of Information and Public Relations K Jayamma, who is also the convenor of the department of Cultural Affairs told The Hans
India, that as of now as many as 233 cultural artistes have been receiving monthly pensions. While there is demand for more pensions, the government is yet to give approval for increasing the benefits to others.

The state government and the district administration at the local level were utilising the services of the cultural artistes in government programmes and during Independence Day and Republic day apart from state festival celebrations.

She said that even leather puppetry artistes numbering about 400 families are dependent on their ancestral profession. While some are receiving patronage from the Central government’s Ministry of Cultural Affairs, others are purely dependent on local support.

By Ravi P Benjamin