The three day celebrations of American Telugu Association (ATA) 25th Anniversary concluded on early hours of Monday at Chicago.Thousands of Telugu speaking people have participated in the concluding session on Sunday night. On this grand finale occasion ,there was a controversy occurred surrounding Telangana MLA and Singer Rasamayi Balakishan group.Some section of people on social media are instigating people of Telangana against ATA by saying Balakishan was humiliated. Adding fuel to the propaganda, a prominent website has carried out a false report “Telangana Singer Insulted at ATA ?”.
Click here to read complete report of ATA event in Chicago
On this context, Telugu360 is presenting a fact finding report to our readers. The root cause of this controversy had occurred when every one tried to get maximum visibility on prime time,Sunday 9PM to 11PM, of the ATA event’s Grand Finale. As the organizers mismanaged the time, program was running well behind the schedule. Majority of the 4,000 odd audience out there became restless, began booing at speakers and organizers.Feeling the heat from audience, organizers first requested YSRCP MLA Mrs.Roja to end her marathon speech. Mani Sharma musical show, which was supposed to start at 9PM, did not even start at 11PM. At that point of time, around 11 PM , organizers had called Mr. Rasamayi Balakishan and his group to the stage to perform Telangana songs.
Rasamayi Balakishan group had performed eight minutes of song and dance sequence, and then Rasamayi began his speech. At that point, one of the organizers had walked towards Rasamayi,whispered in his ears to end the speech in one more minute. Rasamayi had announced in the mike that he has been asked to stop in one more minute, but will continue for five to ten minutes more. After speech, disregarding organizers request, his group continued to perform another song and then mike was cut by organizers. That is certainly a humiliation to Rasamayi Balakishan and his group, but one needs to understand the circumstances out there. Rasamayi was given prime time slots at ATA event even on Friday, Saturday and Sunday as well. Despite that, when organizers respectfully asked him to end his group’s program, after nine minutes , in grand finale, he used Telangana card to instigate the public.
Click here to read complete report of ATA event in Chicago
After turning off audio, Rasamayi had argued with the coordinators and got back the audio to his group. After a minute , the lights on the stage were turned off to forcibly stop them but Rasamayi did not concede. He even threatened this will be the last Telangana program at ATA events. He reminded the organizers that he is an MLA, and cabinet rank position holder as ‘Telangana Sanskrutika Radha Saradhi’. Finally after full twenty minutes of stage time, Rasamayi had stepped down.Despite the controversy his team’s songs entertained the audience, they got good applause from audience.
In web media, few people are circulating edited videos in which the scene begins when organizers ask Rasamayi to stop his speech. Because of this edited video,it appears that ATA has insulted. But, the fact only an unedited video would reveal is he has been asked cut short only after nine minutes. In addition, his total performance on Grand finale was twenty minutes which is very lengthy.
However, at the end, organizers had apologized to Rasamayi to quickly end the controversy. Also, ATA has felicitated Rasamayi Balakrishna as you can see in the picture. Those who attended the event or those who had watched full program, also know that Rasamayi team got prime slots in all three days and crowd enjoyed his and his team’s songs. Gossip websites, people on social media should show restrain while reporting sensitive issues.
