BRAOU To Confer Honorary Doctorate on B. Narsing Rao
Narsing Rao has earlier received honorary doctorates from Morocco, the Philippines and Venezuela.
HYDERABAD: Filmmaker, writer, painter, photographer, theatre practitioner, musician and cultural archivist B. Narsing Rao will receive an Honorary Doctorate (Honoris Causa) from Dr B.R. Ambedkar Open University (BRAOU) during its convocation on October 7.
Narsing Rao has earlier received honorary doctorates from Morocco, the Philippines and Venezuela. The BRAOU honour will be his fourth and the first from an Indian university.
Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, he said, “I have received similar honours from other countries earlier, but this is the first time I will receive one from India. It feels different.”
Born on December 26, 1946, in Pragnyapur village, Rao studied painting at the Government College of Fine Arts and Architecture, Hyderabad. He staged a play at Ravindra Bharathi in 1965 that changed his career. “Later, I started learning many things, not to master them but to understand different forms of art. That led me to work in several fields,” he said.
His association with theatre took him across Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, organising live performances and extempore plays. In the late 1960s and 1970s, he founded and led the art lovers’ association in Hyderabad, encouraging experimentation in literature, theatre, visual art and cinema.
As producer, writer and composer of Maa Bhoomi (1979), he brought Telangana’s rural society and peasant struggle to the screen. His other films include Rangula Kala (1983), The City (1987), Maa Ooru (1987), Daasi (1988), Aakruti (1989), Matti Manushulu (1990) and Harivillu (2003).
He has also worked extensively in painting, photography, poetry, curation and cultural documentation, earning the description “Telangana’s Renaissance Man.” He has written books on cultural traditions including Bonalu and Sammakka‑Saralamma, and is working on a book on Kaloji. “I work hard, do quality work and live a simple life,” he said. On the younger generation, he added, “I do not want to criticise youngsters. As times change, generations also change.”