NTR Centenary | Pujas, programs and a political biography to mark NTR's 100th birth anniversary

Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao Sr

It was raining celebrities, politicians, and rich tributes in Hyderabad, on May 20, at an NTR centenary celebrations event in which Ram Charan, Venkatesh, Naga Chaitanya, Jayaprada, and Shiva Rajkumar, among others, participated. The speeches were punctuated by much applause and cries of NTR, NTR! from the tens of thousands in the audience to whom NTR is a colossus of films and politics, and a godlike figure they still venerate. Speakers, including politicians from various parties, commended the legend’s ability to galvanize the masses, mesmerize with his films especially in his famed roles of gods and heroes of Indian epics. They eulogized what even his detractors concede: NTR’s legendary discipline as actor and person. A commemorative website, to mark this milestone was also launched by Chandrababu Naidu as was a biography titled Shatapurushudu.

NTR in Daasi, 1952. (Photo: Andhra Patrika via Wikimedia Commons)

Indeed, the celebrations have been building up for a year now.

At his home somewhere on the outskirts of Visakhapatnam,  L.V. Krishnamurthy (55) and his wife Ramalakshmi (51) (names changed on request) are getting ready to celebrate the 100th birth anniversary of N.T. Rama Rao on May 28 with an elaborate puja followed by a lunch for friends and relatives, and later, a dinner for old-age home residents. They have been doing a brief puja and Annadanam  (feeding the underprivileged) every month for a year leading up to this day. Krishnamurthy and his wife are among the thousands of NTR fan-families in India and abroad to whom he was not only a film-star and chief minister but a demi-god whose photograph has had a place in their puja-rooms and altars of worship for years!  The couple is following their parents’ tradition. Thousands of other families have similar tribute-stories to tell.

At Vijayawada, on April 28, at a grand function organized by NTR’s son superstar-politician Balakrishna and other family members including N. Chandrababu Naidu, superstar Rajinikanth led a series of politicians and other celebrities in lavishing praise on NTR and his cinematic achievements, his meteoric rise as a politician and his professionalism on film sets and in personal life. The conspicuous absence of superstar Junior NTR in both these public functions, was, of course, noted by the film fraternity and the public.

HarperCollins India has just released an official biography of the icon titled NTR: A Political Biography by Ramachandra Murthy Kondubhatla for this occasion. A museum dedicated to NTR at Vijayawada is in the planning stage and lifesize statues and busts in public places are getting ready for the unveiling in the months to come.

NTR Memorial Trust celebrations

On its part, the NTR Memorial Trust of which the legend’s daughter Nara Bhuvaneshwari is the managing trustee and granddaughter (Balakrishna’s daughter) Nara Brahmani is a Trustee, has been organizing a series of programmes to mark the centenary year. The organization has already been involved for years since inception, in social-upliftment and educational services; activities like provision of safe drinking-water and disaster-relief; medical services like blood-donation and mobile medical camps including preventive care which have benefited lakhs of persons directly and indirectly. All these activities have been stepped up in the centenary year as a way of paying tribute to NTR. At the forthcoming Mahanadu, a political event of the Telugu Desam party founded by NTR, the Trust members will be organizing health camps.

Nara Bhuvaneshwari, who is also the wife of former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, says that in paying tribute to her father, she is joining countless people who looked up to him as a great artist, politician and human. "Shri NTR was not only a great actor and politician but a humanitarian who worked for the welfare of the people especially the underprivileged, motivated by his belief that 'society is a temple and people are gods'. He was a feminist who granted equal rights to women in property during his tenure as Chief Minister. NTR helped restore Telugu pride globally. Above all, he was a very hardworking person and visionary who rose from one height to another because he felt that no problem was insurmountable if we kept our hope, optimism and confidence alive," Bhuvaneshwari says.

The CEO of the NTR Memorial Trust, K. Rajendra Kumar, a highly decorated retired IPS officer, says: “We, trust members, have been taking forward NTR’s vision of service to the public, especially the underprivileged and coming up with new initiatives every year. In the centenary year, we are expanding the scope of our activities as much as possible.”

An ex-police officer, Kumar is also, at heart, a genuine fan-boy who says with a childlike smile: “I grew up watching NTR’s films and observing his rise to a legend in cinema and politics. NTR’s strict discipline is remarkable. I first met him when I was a young officer, serving as ASP in Jammu and Kashmir, and was awed. So working in this position is a dream come true for me.”

It is widely believed that the Telangana Chief Minister KCR named his only son, currently a high-profile minister in his father’s cabinet, KT Rama Rao, after the towering actor-politician. Indeed, from the man on the street to politicians and film-stars, and bureaucrats to writers, NTR has won countless admirers, ensuring a place for himself in the country’s political and film history.