Name: Sree Rama Chandra Murty Sistla

(Sree Sistla)

Date of Birth: 28^th July 1938

Place Of Birth: Secunderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India

Native Place: Brahmana Kodur, Guntur (Dt.), Andhra Pradesh, India

Place Of Residence: 72 Daventry Crescent, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K2J 4M8

Current Status: Took Early Retirement in July 2000

Citizenship: Canadian Citizen

Telephone: 613-823-6541

My web site: SrIharidAsa Lyrics

• Ottawa Hindu Temple/ management(after retirement) to organise and conduct various religious functions on day-to-day basis as well as for special festivals.
• Technical and project assessment/ management, with 20 years of experience in telecommunication industry.
• Specialized in SONET/ATM/DWDM -based private and public network planning and design for IP-based multi-media services involving MPLS technology

• Technical design support for Network Management of ATM networks.

• Specialized in functional and architectural design and performance analysis of ATM-based switch, multiplexer/concentrator, cross-connect systems.

• On-going design and performance analysis support for SONET/ATM transport systems for BC Tel and Stentor member telephone companies.

• Network planning, modeling, traffic engineering/DMS-100 & GTD-5 switch dimensioning for advanced services (CSS7, ISDN, 800, CLASS, etc.)

Senior Consultant Start-up Company, Ottawa area, Jan 2000 - July 2000

Chief Architect Megaxess Inc., Germantown, MD, USA, May '97 - Dec. '99

Senior Consultant SCEC, Owner, Jan.,’96 -- April '97 Tellabs, Ottawa area

Broadband Manager Fujitsu Network Systems Inc., Dallas, TX, USA, Dec., ‘94 -- Dec., ‘95

Senior Consultant SCEC, Owner, Jan.,’94 -- Dec., ‘94

Senior Systems Engineer: MPR Teltech Ltd., Ottawa, Canada, '85 -- ‘94

Member of Scientific Staff: BNR Ltd. (Nortel Networks), Ottawa, Canada, '81 -- '85

Senior Systems Engineer: Continental Page Ltd., Vienna, VA, USA, '79 -- '81

Research Assistant: GW University, Washington, D.C., USA, '73 -- '79

Assistant Professor: Regional Engineering College (JNTU), Warangal, India, '66 -- '73

Research Engineer: Bharat Electronics Ltd., Bangalore, India, '61 -- '66

D.E. (Communication Eng.) GW University, Washington, D.C., USA, '79

M.S.E.E (Microwaves Eng.) Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, '61

B.S.E.E (Telecom) Engineering College, Andhra University, India

• Currently, with the Grace of the Lord, a set of lyrics, entitled, SrIhari Bakti tattva gAnAnamda lahari were also composed in Telugu with Hindi, English Transliteraions as Part IV of SrIharidAsa samkIrtanamulu, web-ready version and are included in the above quoted web page.

How Did I get into the lyric Compositions:

Till recently (i.e., up to July 2000), I was a Senior Systems Engineer specialized in Telecommunications, providing technical support in the Telecommunications Network Design and Implementation of emerging new Technologies for the national and international Communication Networks. I took early retirement from professional jobs.

Regarding my background, I am neither a musician nor a poet. As a matter of fact, my literary pursuit of Telugu stopped with high school graduation. I studied Hindi as a second language in Intermediate. After that, I studied engineering and that was the end of reading Telugu and Hindi books.

l am a great fan of music and poetry. While working as an engineer in Bharat Electronics Limited, Bangalore, India in 1960, myself and my friend K. S. Ramanujam used to go for long walks in the evenings, not knowing what to do. One day, my friend suggested "Why not we go and learn music from a great violin master Sri R. R. Kesava Murty?". Myself not even knowing that there are seven fundamental notes which make the music, I said "why not". Thus, I was prompted by the Lord via Ramanujam to learn music (Violin) from Sri R.R. Kesava Murty in 1960. I failed to learn music, as I happened to be a dull and aimless student without any focus on my goal. But the association with the great Guru, helped me to understand and appreciate classical music for the first time in my life. Later in 1960, I moved to Warangal A. P. as an Assistant Professor in Regional Engineering College. There my music pursuit ended.

I moved to USA in 1973 where I came across SrI vishNu sahasranAma samkIrtana, M. S. Subbalaksmi's audio tape, given by my friend Dr. Modali Brahmananda Sarma. That was the first time, I heard SrI vishNu sahasranAma samkIrtana in musical form on a small tape recorder (I happened to possess for the first time) and I got hooked on to it. Thus, I started chanting SrI vishNu sahasranAmamulu.

In 1981, I moved to Ottawa, Canada and I was persuaded to become executive member of the South India Cultural Association in 1983 - 1984 time frame. During that time, I collected several audio music concert tapes and bought a good audio system. I started hearing classical music for several hours every day at home or at the office. Sometimes, I used to hear the same audio tape (using the Auto-play mode) several times while working with my office project. My wife used to comment "Are you not tired of hearing the same tape on and on". But to me, the music is a stress reliever and keeps me focused on whatever job I do.

I successfully wrotet a musical skit on rAmadAsu (written by me) on stage in Canada in 1983, while I was an executive member of South India Cultural Association, Ottawa, Canada. Later, I started writing a musical - dance skit on annamAcArya. I got stumbled in the first scene looking for a Bajana song. I looked in many books and I was not happy and my wife suggested "Why don' you write a Bajana song". I strongly feel, the Lord prompted me through her. That is how, I started lyric composition by God's Grace without any proper background in either music or poetry. Later, I finished the skit.

I started composing lyrics (SrI haridAsa padamulu) with the Grace of the Lord on different deities. Later in 1985, when I visited India, I showed those lyrics to my niece, Lalita who was learning music at that time. She took interest and tuned some of the songs and I audio taped them. I played that tape to my co-son-in-law Late Sri Cheruvu Parthasarathy in Vijayawada. He presented me the SrI vishNusahasra nAma BAshyam . I brought the BAshyam with me to Canada. Because of my regular chanting of the SrI vishNu sahasranAmamulu, I was curious to read the BAshyam. I did read the BAshyam several times. Surprisingly, one day, an idea flashed in my mind "Why not I compose lyrics to expose the meaning of each nAmam?". I tried to do so and I miserably failed. I must be kidding myself. After all, who am I -- no body -- nobody, an insignificant fellow. But I kept on reading the BAshyam and tried to comprehend the contents. Several BAshyAmulu for SrI vishNu sahasranAmamulu and SrImadBagavadgIta were read to understand the meaning of these masterpieces. One of the ways to understand the Lord is to know the meaning of these masterpieces and transform one self as per the golden letters written in the master pieces. All of a sudden, by God's Grace, to my surprise, I started to compose the lyrics on the SrI vishNu sahasranAmamulu.

The lyrics were composed by the Grace of The Lord within six months (i.e., by early part of 1986) in spite of my awfully busy office schedules. It took almost two years to develop the desk top version of Telugu manuscript. Thanks to the immense help of Sri Tirumala Krishna Desikachary (who is a very good scholar in Telugu and Sanskrit), Winnipeg, Canada. Sri Desikachary is a Database Manager by profession, Telugu poet (author of three great poetic master pieces: hanumappanAyaDu, Rutu samhAram, and amara Silpi jakkana) and the inventor of Telugu (pOtana font) and Hindi/Sanskrit (vAlmIki font) for Desk Top Publication for PCs and Macintosh computers.

With the Grace of the God, I thus happened to get into the hobby of composing a set of lyrics in chaste Telugu (i.e., Sanskritized Telugu) entitled SrI haridAsa samkIrtanamulu. I am lucky to be blessed by the Lord -- may be due to my regular chanting of SrI vishNu sahasranAmamulu, SrI LalitA sahasra nAmamulu, a chapter of SrImadBagavadgIta and Sai nAmastuti.

These lyrics bear "haridAsa" as the "mudra" and they are organized into three parts:

• The first part exposes the meaning of each of the SrI vishNu sahasranAmamulu as I understood (constrained by my limited knowledge) in lyrical form.

• The second part describes the glory of the lord in lyrical style and the lyrics are called as SrIharidAsa padamulu.

• The third part exposes the meaning of SrImadBagavadgIta as I understood (constrained by my limited knowledge) in lyrical form and the lyrics are called SrIhari gItAnamda lahari.

• The fourth part exposes the aspects of SrIhari Bakti tattva as I understood (constrained by my limited knowledge) in lyrical form and the lyrics are called SrIhari Baktitattva gAnAnamda lahari.

I hardly know few rAgAs and simple basic tALAs. The various rAgAs assigned for the SrI haridAsa samkIrtanamulu (Parts 1, 2,3 and 4) are due to the constant hearing of the taped music from veterans. I claim myself as a rasika only. As you all know, the rasika need not know how to cook different delicious dishes. As a matter of fact, he may not even know the ingredients and the correct recipe required for cooking a delicious dish. I claim myself such a simple rasika.

Each lyric is assigned a rAga and tALa in order to expose the BAva of the lyric as per my heart-felt feelings (manOdharma). The rAga and tALa assignment should be considered as purely suggestive in nature. A musician may feel (as per his or her manOdharma) that a different rAga and tALa are much suitable to a particular lyric as opposed to the assigned ones. So he or she is free to improvise his choice of rAga and tAla !!!.

With the blessing of the Lord, the lyrics from Part I and Part II were released at S. V. Temple Pittsburgh in the form of a book on August 4, 1990. On that occasion, some of the lyrics were tuned and sung by Smt. Rasmi Venkateswaran of Ottawa, Canada as part of a classical music concert under the auspices of S. V. Temple. Some of the lyrics (tuned by my niece Smt. Lalita) were sung by my wife Smt. Varalakshmi who was a constant source of support and inspiration to me.

With the blessing of the Lord, several 0f these lyrics (from Part 1 and Part 2) were released to the public domain in the time frame of 2nd week of December '89 to 3rd week of January '92, when I visited India. I presented these lyrics at Madras (under the auspices of Indian Fine Arts Society, and C.P. Ramaswamy Foundation), in Tirumalai and Tirupathi under the auspices of TTD Tirupathi, in music halls at Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Guntur, and Visakhapatnam. These concerts were lecture cum demonstration type by me accompanied by music by my niece Smt. V. Lalita and her teacher Smt. S. Vasundhara Devi. Some lyrics were tuned by my niece Smt. Lalita and some by her teacher Smt. S. Vasundhara Devi to expose the style/elegance/grandeur of the lyrics, which were reviewed by many critics.

Dr. Bala Murali Krishna made the rendition of some of the lyrics on SrI vishNu sahasranAmamulu in three Audio Cassette tapes. Smt. C. Sundaramma, an AIR artist of Hyderabad, made the rendition of some lyrics on SrI vishNu sahasranAmamulu in one Audio Cassette tape. Rendition of two Audio Cassettes on SrIharidAsa padamulu was made by my niece Smt. V. Lalita.

The book entitled "SrI haridAsa samkIrtanamulu" containing SrI vishNu sahasranAmamulu (Part 1), SrIharidAsa padamulu (part 2) and the audio taped music by DR. Bala Murali Krishna were formally released at Visakhapatnam on January 5, 1992 under the auspices of the Bharat Cultural Integration Committee (BCIC) celebrations conducted by Sri. T. V. K Sastry of Madras. They were formally released by Sri P. V. R. K. Prasad, Chairman of Port Trust Visakhapatnam and Sri B.D. Jettl, former Vice President Of India, before a large audience during Balaji Kalyana Utsavam under BCIC celebrations.

Recently, English and Hindi transliteration, (using ITRANS version 5.3 scheme) of the SrI haridAsa samkIrtanamulu lyrics (Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4) was completed and some of the lyrics were undergone minor revisions. By the Grace of the Lord, I am publishing these lyrics on the web for general access by the people who are interested.

One can access these lyrics by going to the web whose details are given below. Each Part of the SrI haridAsa samkIrtanamulu is subdivided into several Sections in order to reduce the computer disk space and also for the ease of downloading the following web pages, whose bookmark is:

If the BAvArtham of the lyrics is exposed well in the lyrics, the credit goes to the Lord who blessed me. On the other hand, if there are blunders in exposing the BAvArtham of some lyrics, I am fully responsible for the blame due to my half-baked knowledge of the SrI vishNu sahasranAmamulu and SrImadBagavadgIta. My attempt of composing these lyrics is to be considered as a very modest venture as I am insignificant (anAmaka) in attempting to expose the Glory of the Lord (sarvaj~na) while struggling daily with mundane life. I am like a small innocent kid playing with shiny pebbles on the sea shore, while precious gems and diamonds (hiraNmayam) lie deep down the sea. Only kAraNa janmulu like puramdara dAsu, annamayya, rAmadAsu, tyAgarAja and other great haridAsulu can only reach the hiraNmaya, the Lord.

I am sure the blessings of the Lord will shower upon those who make an effort to understand the meaning of the SrI vishNu sahasranAmamulu and SrImadBagavadgIta as well as on those who sing these lyrics.