Vanarasa Govinda Rao · Telugu History

Vanarasa Govinda Rao is remembered as the man who turned a family of puppet players into the Surabhi theatre.¹² The Surabhi companies were family troupes in which, unusually for the time, women played the women’s parts.³¹ This page follows the account of Bhargavi Kaveti, who wrote a history of the Surabhi stage in 2020.⁴

The puppet family

The Surabhi families belong to the Aare community, people of Marathi origin who had settled in the Telugu country.⁵⁴ Kaveti, quoting the theatre historian M. Nagabhushana Sarma, names the Vanarasa family as the forerunners of the Surabhi stage.⁴ The Vanarasas made their living with tolubommalata, the leather-puppet show.⁶ They became famous in the Bellary, Anantapur and Kadapa country, and liked best to play in Kadapa district.⁷

One day, at a village called Hanumagundam, the family found an orphan boy named Pakeeranna.⁷ Venkoji of the Vanarasa family adopted him and named him Govindappa. The boy soon learned the art of the puppets.⁷

Running away to the stage

The family asked the villagers for alms after each show, and the boy felt this as a disgrace.⁷ When he could not make them stop, he ran away from home at about eighteen and reached Nandyal, in Kurnool district.⁷ There he saw a play by a local company, the Jyothi Subbaiah Company. Its owner came from the Kalavantula community of performers, and his actors were all women.⁷

Govindappa asked for any small job in the company. To hide who he was, he worked under the name Govinda Rao, and it stayed with him.⁷ He learned to stitch costumes, to make necklaces from coloured glass, and to make wigs and crowns. He also admired the way the actors made up their faces with zinc powder.⁷¹

He went back to the puppets only when Venkoji and Ramoji promised that the family would stop begging after shows.¹ He also made them promise to take up the stage whenever they had the chance.¹

The play at Sorugu, 1885

The chance came in 1885. Two rich landlords of the village of Sorugu invited the family to give a puppet show at a wedding between their children.¹ Peda Ramaiah, the head of the troupe, planned to show the story of Kichaka from the Mahabharata.¹ Govinda Rao urged that the same story be acted as a play. The landlords agreed, pleased to be the first in their taluk to give a stage show at a wedding.¹

The words and the casting stayed the same as in the puppet show, but now the family spoke them in front of the audience.¹ Kaveti notes that the women’s parts were played by women, which few drama troupes then allowed.¹ The Sub-Magistrate of Pulivendula, a guest at the wedding, advised the landlords to adopt the troupe.¹⁸ They gave the family a house in the village. In thanks, the families added the name Surabhi, the village’s new name, to their own.¹⁸

Building the company

In 1889 the playwright and singer Rapatati Subbadas became the company’s first director, and trained the family in the verse drama (padya natakam).⁸ Govinda Rao made the ornaments and crowns, since he was already skilled at it.⁸ With China Ramaiah he replaced the old walls of their travelling hall with zinc sheets.⁹

By 1910 the family had grown and set up separate companies in different regions, all under the old name of Sri Sarada Manovinodini Sabha.⁹ In 1927 China Ramaiah left Govinda Rao’s guidance to start his own company. Govinda Rao then founded the Govindaraya Surabhi Natyamandali, the first company to carry the name Surabhi. The other branches followed.⁹

Surabhi Day

Kaveti names Govinda Rao first among those whose efforts made Surabhi a great family of the stage.¹⁰ Since 1960 the Surabhi Nataka Kala Sangham, the union of the Surabhi companies, has kept the anniversary of his death, 19 December, as Surabhi Day.²

For the Surabhi companies and the stage of their time, see Telugu theatre and early cinema.

Where the sources disagree

Who made Surabhi. Kaveti gives Govinda Rao the idea of acting the Sorugu play.¹ But she also quotes an earlier account that gives the credit for making Surabhi accepted outside the family, “to a great extent”, to the director Rapatati Subbadas.⁸

When the stage began. Kaveti dates the first Surabhi play to 1885.¹ Elsewhere she says the company toured Rayalaseema “during the period of 1860–1900”.¹¹

Kaveti, “Surabhi Drama” (2020), p. 116 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴
Kaveti, “Surabhi Drama” (2020), p. 121 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩²
P. T. Raju, Telugu Literature (Andhra Literature) (Bombay: International Book House, 1944), p. 72 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩
Kaveti, “Surabhi Drama” (2020), p. 113 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³
Bhargavi Kaveti, “The Stage Craft of Surabhi Drama: History and Evolution”, Kakatiya Journal of Historical Studies, Vol. XV, No. 1 (2020), p. 112 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩
Kaveti, “Surabhi Drama” (2020), p. 114 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩
Kaveti, “Surabhi Drama” (2020), p. 115 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸
Kaveti, “Surabhi Drama” (2020), p. 117 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵
Kaveti, “Surabhi Drama” (2020), p. 119 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³
Kaveti, “Surabhi Drama” (2020), p. 122 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩
Kaveti, “Surabhi Drama” (2020), p. 118 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only. ↩