The second day of the International Conference

 The second day of the Third International Seminar on Empires and Kingdoms of Dakshinapatha, was equally interesting. Though we were there from nine thirty to seven in the evening, one never got boared for a second for the panels were very interesting. There was so much one learnt from Archeology, to  Numismatics, to Iconography, to Jewelry. It was great to know how much work on Telengana was  happening in France, in US and in Cambridge University in UK. The hight light of the Seminar were the two special lectures in the evening. The first was by Dr. Marcella Sirhandi who spoke about a painter Abdur Rahman Chughtai, who was invited by the Nizam to paint for him. When the partition took place he left for Lahore leaving behind more than one hundred water colour paintings, which were then distributed between Hyderabad, Mahboobnagar and Mysore. The paintings were really very beautiful and I clicked few of them. The next special lecture was  by Guru Kalakrishna, who has revived the Perini dance.  Though this dance was performed only by men before going to war asking for blessings of Shiva, there were references in Telugu literature about female performers. We hear about this dance form under Kakatiya rulers and then it disappears and was not performed.  Now he has revived it by looking at sculptures and literature of the period. We also saw the performance and it is very different from Bharatnatyam and Kuchipudi. Even the dress and jewelry of both men and women was copied from sculptures and I could identify this as having seen in some sculptures earlier. The female dance is very graceful with a lot of leg movements and the male dancers performance has  a lot of energy. The evening saw a performance of all these artists and I reached home only at ten at night. A wonderful seminar and I really appreciate the efforts made by the Director, Ms. N. R. Visalatchy, to make this department so filled with activities and also bring out reprints of many publications. She has made this seminar truly an interdisciplinary one and brought in so many scholars to a single platform. I am sure this is one of  the most vibrant among all  the Archeological departments through out the country and we in Telangana are very proud of this fact.