Palanki Venkata Ramachandra Murthi facts for kids
Palanki Venkata Ramachandra Murthi was a famous author from India who wrote many stories and books for children. He lived from 1909 to 2005. He is remembered for making reading fun and educational for young people.
Palanki Venkata Ramachandra Murthi was born in 1909 in a village called Ravikampaadu. This village was in the East Godavari district, which was part of Madras State in South India at that time. He went to school first in Kakinada and then in Madras city (which is now called Chennai). After he finished college at Presidency College, he started working at the Madras Central Cooperative Land Mortgage Bank.
Writing was his favorite hobby. He wrote thousands of stories for children! These stories often appeared in popular children's magazines like "Bala" and "Chandamama", which were published from Chennai. He also wrote several novels just for kids. Besides writing for children, he wrote many stories for adults too. Some of these were collected into books like "Katha Saagaram". He also wrote a book about his own life called "Jeevana Sravanthi". He regularly contributed to many other weekly and monthly magazines of his time, such as "Soubhagya", Andhra Patrika, "Andhra Prabha", "Yuva", and "Jyothi".
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About Palanki Venkata Ramachandra Murthi
His Early Life and Work
Palanki Venkata Ramachandra Murthi had a great sense of humor and enjoyed using satire in his writing. Satire is a way of using humor to show how silly or wrong something is. He was very good at choosing just the right words, using as few as possible to make his point clear. He believed that to be a good writer, you needed two things: to read a lot and to know your language very well.
He felt that his stories should not only entertain readers but also teach them something. In his children's stories, he often used synonyms (words that mean the same thing). This helped young readers learn new words easily without feeling like they were studying hard.
Popular Children's Books
Some of his most popular novels for children include "Bangaru Thalli". This story is set during the time of Alexander the Great's conquests in India. Another famous book is "Chiru Kappa", which is about a child raised by wild animals in the jungle.
He also gave hundreds of radio talks at All India Radio in Madras until 1956. In 1956, the state of Andhra Pradesh was created. This happened when states in India were reorganized based on the languages people spoke. Because of this, he moved to Hyderabad with his office. His bank was renamed the Andhra Pradesh Central Cooperative Land Mortgage Bank. He was a very dedicated worker. He would often take ledgers and files home from the office and work on them at night. The bank later merged with another bank, the Andhra Pradesh State Cooperative Bank.
His Later Life and Legacy
Palanki Venkata Ramachandra Murthi was friends with many other famous writers and artists. These included the poet Devulapalli Venkata Krishna Sastry, who worked at All India Radio Madras. He was also close with Kalyan Singh, the editor of "Sowbhagya", and Nyayapati Raghava Rao (known as Bala Annayya) and Nyayapati Kameswari (known as "Bala Akkayya"). Other friends included Ayyagari Veerabhadra Rao, Munkimanikyam Narasimha Rao, Palagummi Vishwanatham, Chitta Ranjan, and Balantharapu Rajani Kantha Rao.
He was honored by the Governor of Andhra Pradesh with the title "Bala Bandhu". This special title means "Well-wishing relative of children".
His wife, Palanki Surya Prakasamma, was also very active. She was a keen participant in the Mahila Mandali (a women's group) of All India Radio. She even helped the famous social reformer Durgabai Deshmukh, who worked to make society better.
Palanki Venkata Ramachandra Murthi and his wife were married when they were very young. He was eight years old, and Prakasamma was four years old. This was a common practice in those times. They had four daughters and three sons. He passed away in 2005 in Hyderabad, at the age of 96.
His Other Writings
His writings also include books about three great teachers: Sankaracharya, Madhvacharya, and Ramanujacharya. Even though he was born a Hindu, he believed that all religions share common good ideas. He studied the Bible very deeply and explained its teachings in a way that was easy to understand. He wrote several radio dramas based on stories from the Bible, and these were broadcast by Amruthavani radio station. He also wrote children's versions of famous Indian stories like "Balala bommala Bharatam", "Ramayanam", and "Panchatantram".
