Greater Indianapolis Telugu Association

 History of GITA:
Last Updated: September 12, 2008

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Claimer kAni Disclaimer:
At the request of our Founder Sri Vidyasagar Tumuluri,  and our current
President Sri Dilip Vadlamudi, I started daring to write this info.
With in put from some of our past Presidents, I collected, complied,
edited, added my own masala and prepared this 112 page document.
This is a start.  We all can make this better and complete.
This is the final draft form as of September 12, 2008.

I, Mohan Devaraju, solemnly declare that I am totally
responsible for all the errors on this Landing page, History of GITA. 
I hole heartedly take all duushaNa bhuushaNamulu , as your sincere love towards GITA!  But, please let me know how I can make this more correct, complete and concise! Every constructive comment will be addressed
for possible incorporation in next edition.
If you want to change some thing here, please work with web committee directly.
bhava dIyuDu
mOhan dEvaraju
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Founding Members:
Sri Vidyasagar and Smt.  Rohini Tumuluri
Sri Ramachandra & Anjali Reddy
Sri Ranganath & Smt Krishna Kumari Vedala

  Past Presidents of GITA:First to Latest  

1979:  Sri N. Ramachandra Reddy

  We were only few telugu families in Indianapolis during
entire 70s.  Sri Vidyasagar Tumuluri and Ramachandra Reddy
were requesting and forcing us to take the Presidency for
TAGI.  Due to growing family needs were not taking it up.
Finally I accepted it in 1980 calendar year.  Even then
we had the concept of Regional representatives from Muncie,
Lafayette, Terre Haute and Crawfordsville. We use to meet
almost every other month in a church, or Jenn Air Club,
or in the basement of a bank at the South west corner
of 126th street and Gray Rd in Carmel IN.  We used to
have always pot luck dinners only. I introduced
showing 16 m.m. Telugu movies in Black and White.
While the President does almost all tasks in conducting
these meetings (including thrash pick ups) ladies took
care of dinner arrangements.  We used to p[lay cards
after dinner.Total member ship no more than 15 families.

1980- Sri V. Srinivasa Rao

1981:  Smt. Vanaja Rao

  I was also forced to take the presidency, since my
husband did not want to do for one more year. 
I just did what my husband did. While we enjoyed
the fun of meeting the people we felt that it was
taking too much time.  Again, I had to request and
force Smt. Lakshmi Rao to take up the Presidency.

1982:  Smt. Lakshmi Rao
 
1983:  Smt. Shanta Reddy
 
1984:  Smt. Padma Ellur
 
1985:  Sri D. Ramalinga Reddy
 
1986-1987: Smt. Annapoorna Sarma
 
1988-1989:  Smt. Lakshmi Anne
 
1990-1991:  Smt. Punyavati Moorthy.
 
1992-1993:  Smt. Krishna Kumari Vedala
 
1994-1995:  Smt. Gayatri Rani Devaraju
 
1996-1997:  Smt.Anuradha Brahmamdam
 
1998-1999:  Sri Siva Vavilala
 
2000-2001:  Smt. Krishna Kumari Vedala
 
2002-2003: Sri Raghu Patibandla

2004-2005:  Smt. Madhavi Jasti
 
2006-2007: Sri Raju Chintala
 
2008:  Sri Dilip Vadlamudi

 We moved to Indianapolis in 1974.  At that time, we had very
few Telugu families in central Indiana. 

The India Association of Indianapolis was showing Hindi movies
once in two weeks and conducting functions like Republic Day,
Independence Day, Holi, and Diwali.  We could not understand
Hindi movies particularly the jokes, so we used to laugh along
with the rest without even understanding it. For five years we
felt isolated and frustrated.

In December 1979, we had a get together of few telugu families
in the library auditorium of Beech Grove, Indiana with a “pot
luck” dinner and a 16-mm Telugu movie (Malleswari). And our
Telugu association was born on that day. I was asked to be the
first president of the association, but, I could not accept
the position as I was very busy in my practice of hand surgery. 

We elected N. Rama Chandra Reddy as our first president of our
telugu association. After his term we used to play a key role
in finding the president for our association every time until
2002. 

We also played a key role in bringing many cultural activities
to our city and hosted them in our house, like Kuchipudi Dance
Drama of Sri Vempati China Satyam, Sri Bala Murali Group,
Cine Playback Singers like Sri Rama Krishna, Smt. P. Leela,
Sri Madhapeddi Satyam, Mandolin Srinivas, and Nookala
Satyanarayana. 

From 1979-1982 we used to have pitch-in dinners, 16-mm Telugu
movies, and playing cards “Rummie”, under the leadership of
Sri Venkiah and Smt. Kamala Yedla.

In 1983, Rohini, Shanta Reddy, and late smt. Annapoorna Sharma
organized children cultural activities such as drama, dance,
and fashion shows.  Rohini directed the first children drama
in   Telugu with boys --“Brahmadu-Meka”. The children used
tiny cue cards with their part written in English. The last
drama was “Vapasu”.  Shanta Reddy organized an Indian bride’s
fashion show. Annapoorna Directed the dance programs for girls.

In 1982 “Shankarabharam” movie was shown in a regular movie
theatre in Carmel for the first time in the history of our
telugu association.

For the last three years we lost our regular job of searching
for a president of our association.

In addition to “Sahitya GITA” and “Sangeetha GITA” as wings
of GITA, we also like to see origination and development of
Sashtreeya Sangeeta GITA and Sashtreeya Nrutya GITA as wings
of our association.

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Past Leaders and Major Milestones in the History of GITA: