Chennai: “Mathru basha (mother tongue) is like eyesight. One should take special care and interest in their language to come up good in life,” asserted Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu, at the platinum jubilee celebrations of Kesari Higher Secondary School at T Nagar Tuesday.
Venkaiah was the chief guest on the occasion and Governor Banwarilal Purohit and Kanchi Seer Vijayendra Saraswathi were the guests of honour.
The Vice-President released a souvenir on the occasion to mark the platinum jubilee of the school and distributed prizes to outstanding students.
Speaking at the event, Venkaiah said, “The city, known as Chennapattinam earlier, set a classic example to show the cordial relationship between the Telugu- and Tamil-speaking people. Dr Kesari, a visionary in education, spread his mother tongue Telugu through his chain of schools in the city and helped generations from his community stay and learn here.”
Venkaiah then cited a few Telugu poems that highlighted the necessity to speak in one’s own language anywhere in the world to bring glory to the mother tongue.
Governor Purohit in his address said Dr Kesari had done a great job of helping the Telugu-speaking community in the city, who were large in numbers, to get quality education in their mother language.
Kanchi Sankaracharya Vijayendra Saraswathi rendered his anugraha bashanam in Telugu which was well-received by the audience.
School headmaster, N Gopaliah, said several former students of Kesari Higher Secondary School have reached respectable positions in society, like former Justice of Supreme Court of India M Jagannadha Rao, former RBI Governor Y V Reddy, former Vice-Chancellor of Sri Venkateswara University in Tirupati, Dr Ramamurthi, and Carnatic musician, Veena Gayathri.
Kesari Education Society joint secretary, S B P Pattabhi Rama Rao, said the society works hard to take the founder’s dream forward and build a sustainable institution to offer good education to everyone.
Secretary of the society, K S V Prasad, appealed to former students to get connected with Kesari Education Society to help present students who need support.