This happened in the early years
of concert life of Dr. Nedunuri Krishnamurthy, way back around late 1940s. It
was the famous Saraswati Gana Sabha of Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh. Nedunuri was
to give a concert in the hall called ‘Annadana Sabha Hall’, to be accompanied
by his violin-guru Shri Dwaram Narasinga Rao and Shri Palghat Mani Iyer on
Mrudangam. Nedunuri, a young lad walked alone quite briskly into the hall. At
the entrance of the hall he was stopped by a volunteer for he did not have a
ticket, and refused to let Nedunuri in, not knowing that Nedunuri himself was
the artiste of the day. Even when somebody tried to tell, the volunteer did not
believe that such a young man was a artiste to command ticketed programme. In
the mean time a secretary of the sabha Mr. M.V. Sastry garu intervened to
explain the volunteer, ‘this young man is the main artiste of the day, to
listen to whom, many rasikas of the town are buying ticketsâ€. Saying thus he
had taken Nedunuri into the hall.Â
