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Kabali's Telangana connection: a book on Dalits

  • In the movie, Rajinikanth is seen holding Satyanarayana’s sensational autobiography in his hands
  • Satyanarayana simply sent him a text message, with trepidation, and forgot about it. In an hour, he received a call from Ranjith.
  • The professor simply asked the director what made him accord such an honour to the book My Father Balaiah. Ranjith simply said that it was the greatness of the book.
telangana book kabala connection

The Rajinikanth-starrer Kabali thrilled this retired Chemistry professor more than anybody else in Andhra Pradesh.

 

A friend, who watched the movie in the first show itself called up Prof. YB Satyanarayana, not a great movie buff, to share his immense joy at seeing the latter’s great book in the hands of Rajinikanth in a scene in Kabali.

 

In the movie, Rajinikanth was shown holding Satyanarayana’s sensational autobiography in his hands in the opening scene of the film. The book was the English version of Maa Naayana Balaiah (My Father Balaiah) released in 2011.

 

In his book, Satyanarayana recalls the trials and tribulations of his Dalit family in Telangana . The book traces the history of four generations of Satyanarayana’s grand and great grandparents in Telangana’s Karimnagar district. 

 

The book, though not critical about anybody, portrays how the low caste untouchable family reached its current status, braving all the odds when it produced four doctorates among its members.

 

Upon receiving the news, the professor, who is in his seventies, caught hold of the phone number of Pa Ranjit, the director of the movie, with great difficulty, to thank him for introducing the book visually to millions of people across fifty countries.

 

Satyanarayana, who thought disturbing the great movie director would be impolite, simply sent him a text message, with trepidation, and forgot about it. In an hour, he received a call from Ranjith. Satyanayarana’s joy knew no bounds.

 

The professor simply asked the director what made him accord such an honour to the book My Father Balaiah. Ranjith simply said that it was the greatness of the book.

 

Talking to Asianet Newsable, Satyanarayana said the book would soon be translated into Tamil. Kalachuvudu publishers are going to release the book in a couple of months. The book is being translated by a writer who also had some role in the preparation of the script for Kabali.

telangana book kabala connection

This is the second book from Telangana to draw admiration from global readers after Prof. Kancha Ilaiah’s Why I Am Not A HinduMy Father Balaiah has already been translated into Kannada, Bengali and Hindi. The book has already become a topic for two PhDs, one in HCU, Hyderabad and the other in Pune.

 

Satyanarayana comes from a Madiga Dalit family in Telangana. Though they were ‘untouchables’ because of their caste, the family escaped the fierceness of the evil practice because of his father’s employment in Nizam Railways.

 

However, caste discrimination chased him wherever he went. “I got the idea of scripting the saga of the Madiga family struggle to escape the agony of discrimination when I went to the US to spend some time with my grandchildren, who are far removed from the social realities of Telangana Dalit society. I wanted to write the struggles of a family which spanned unwittingly to four generations,” he said.

 

The book is so widely read because of the gripping narrative. Some time ago, Tata Group invited Satyanarayana to Mumbai to talk on the social background of the book left untold in the work.

 

The author is still puzzled why, despite the existence of many popular writers, the director chose his book, to present to the world a story of a Telangana Dalit Madiga. But he’s not complaining.

 

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