A quintessential mimicry legend

“During my visit to Pietermaritzburg in South Africa, I just noticed a hoarding, ‘Warangal Road.’ Enthused by it, I just got down from my car, took a photograph covering the sign board. I understand, there are about one lakh Telugus living there who invited me for the mimicry shows in their migrated land,” revealed legend of mimicry and versatile Dr Nerella Venumadhav while sharing one of his experiences. Though, the Telugus settled there long back, several decades ago, their love for mother tongue is intact and they evinced keen interest in connecting to their roots and culture. It’s an awesome experience, he felt.

Venumadhav grew up as a normal person, yet he was endowed with the skills of superbly mimicking what is real or reel life in action and more so in voice. Name any celebrity or politician, he would observe them once and imitate them in much the same way, to the merriment of his audience. The secret of his huge popularity: His performances used to be mixed with a great sense of humour and would evoke applause from crowds.

Madhav was born on December 28, 1932 in Warangal. He once recalled how he had to put a ‘comma’ to his education at Intermediate after his father and a 6-language scholar Nerella Srihari had expired, to join as teacher at Government High School at Mattewada in Warangal. He made a brilliant use of his teaching profession, which offered him ample time and a great scope for practising various art forms, more of mimicry. Along the way, he went on to do graduation and bachelors in education during the service of the noble profession.

The young Madhav drew inspiration from his father who spoke English like British, Urdu like Muslim and flawless Telugu like a pundit. He shared an incident when his father acted as a guide to the visiting dignitary, the Prince of Wales, who came visiting a popular tourist destination, Pakhala Lake in Warangal district.

Impressed by his communication skills, the Prince asked Srihari whether he had his education in London. “Initially, I started imitating relatives and others as part of my daily routine. I recall my father occasionally imitating the people in daily life. I think it is just hereditary as our genes make-up contains tremendous potential for creativity. I make it sure to add comic situations to all the imitations to make it more vibrant and awesome.”

Ask which country he had not visited. The answer is he toured most of the world, especially the ethnic Telugu-populated foreign lands to perform for them exclusively a number of times. Fiji Islands to City of Vancouver in Canada. US, Australia, Britain wherever Telugu or Indian population was in good numbers, he had the honour of presenting his mimicry shows.

There were felicitations galore for him and the universities raced to honour him with honourary doctorates, which included Kakatiya and Andhra Universities. He was conferred with Padma Shri by the Government of India in 2001 in the performing arts category. He was nominated as an MLC after a trip to United Nations, with the active support of the statesman and then Chief Minister P V Narasimha Rao.

The Music Appreciation Club of UNO saluted the mono actor ‘for extraordinary performance by a gifted artist who greatly performed several things including Shakespeare’s plays’ on October 28, 1971. He preserved a copy of the letter written by Ceser Giraldc, then president of UN MAC.

What is the secret of the success for a man who was looked up to by senior as well as budding artists? His answer was his voice which he claimed was hereditary and that the rest was a good practice and inclusion of certain situations involving absolute local slang of the place where he performed.

The unforgettable moments in his life were many; for his prominence, he was felicitated with Gajarohanam at Tirumala temple, a rare honour given during the tenure of K V Ramana Chary as the EO of TTD. Another, during a meeting with the then President of India, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, the latter asked him not to speak in English as he was bored of the language and said to him: “Let’s talk in authentic Telugu.”

Madhav framed syllabus for the diploma course in mimicry course offered by Telugu University, which included imitation of leaders, actors, nativity, animals or birds and instruments.
Nerella, with the able support of his wife Shobavathi and children Srikanth, Laxmi Tulasi, Vasanthi and Radhakrishna, would honour poor and old artistes with cash prize and citation on his birth day at Kalapranganam named after him at Public Gardens in Hanamkonda.

He strongly disliked qualities of arrogance or jealousy and his piece of advice for artistes was not to suppress the talent of budding artistes but to encourage them well. His wife had great appreciation for hubby that he picked up only positive traits of the individuals and he never uttered negatively about anybody. Movie thespian Akkineni Nageshwar Rao’s words that Nerella is a combination or mix of all the arts and also of artistes sums up the life and contributions of the legendary mimicry artist who was a multifaceted personality.

By: G Hemanth Reddy