CAN TELUGU INDUSTRY EVER PRODUCE ANOTHER `SAVITRI’?

Budding and struggling actress Sri Reddy over the last one month or so has opened `can of worms’ and exposed the rut in the Telugu film industry.   I want to start with a disclaimer that by no stretch of imagination I support her top less half nude act in  public to bring focus on the casting couch and denying opportunity to Telugu girls in Telugu cine industry.   But yes I do share her anguish why for decades opportunities in featuring Telugu films are denied for Telugu speaking girls and film after film year after year absolutely mediocre non Telugu speaking actresses are promoted by top heroes, producers and directors .

The Role and contribution of the Actresses in Telugu Industry

There is no denying that like in any other language, the Telugu film industry is also predominantly a hero dominated industry.   But traditionally the role and contribution of the Actresses in Telugu industry used to be very significant and they used to give run for the money to the Heroes.   

It started with actresses like Khanamba, Anjali Devi and Bhanumati who played significant roles with the then first star hero Nagayya, Peketi, lateron NTR and ANR.    Then came the Golden Era of 50s and 60s in Telugu film industry which saw the rise of NTR and ANR (who had the longest run in the industry and treated to be two eyes of the Telugu film industry).   Around the same time Telugu film industry has seen the best phase for heroines with leading ladies like Savitri and Jamuna which continued till late 80s.  The heroines had almost equal length of roles like heroes and commanded star billing.   Apart from acting Anjali devi and Bhanumati have started producing movies.  Bhanumati has gone on to handle almost all departments viz., Acting, producing, directing, writing story, screenplay, dialogues and singing. The popularity of Savitri and Jamuna has soared to such heights that author backed roles were writing for them and there were many heroine oriented movies which racked mullah at box office.   Both of them enjoyed super star status.   They were so gorgeous, talented and commanded such huge fan following that for some reasons when NTR and ANR ganged up and boycotted

Savitri

Jamuna and did not act with her for about four years at peak of her career she still could withstand and survive and bring them around to agree to act with her again.  They were beautiful, graceful, had expressive faces and possessed great acting abilities.  The physical features were not given that importance in those days and only the ability to act was the prime criterion.   The fact that their part was so critical for the success of the movie can the gauged from the fact that there used to be special shows exclusively for females and even in other shows first tickets used to be sold to females first and only after all the females got tickets the remaining tickets were to be sold to male patrons .  Can any Telugu movie fan can imagine Gundamma Katha, Missamma, Maya Bazaar, Mooga Manasulu,.  Devata,

Jamuna

Devadas, Pandava Vanavasam, Mangamma Sapadham, Dr. Chakravarthy and Rakta Sambhandam without Savitri and Jamuna though all these movies featured NTR or ANR or both.  

Vanisri

Sridevi

Closely followed on their heels was the era of Vanisri, Jayalalita and Sharada again very dominating female actresses with huge fan following specially female fan following.   They had more than a decade run with NTR, ANR, Krishna and Shobhan Babu.   Come 80s a new crop of heroines have hit the Telugu industry viz., Jaya Pradha, Jayasudha, Sridevi and Vijaya Shanti, all of them were extremely talented and had the ability to shoulder equal responsibility with the heroes of that time.   With producers becoming more prolific and most of the super hit Telugu hit movies being remade in other languages specially Hindi, these actresses specially Sridevi and Jayapradha had crossed over to Hindi film industry.  Sridevi had not only settled in Bolloywood

Jayaprada

but has also become most successful and top heroine.  

Start of the worst trend

Chiranjeevi

By late 1980s NTR has left movies and gone into politics and the aging ANR, Krishna and Shoban Babu have slowed down and the Telugu industry was looking for new stars.   New crop of heroes viz., Chiranjeevi, Nagarjuna (son of ANR), Balakrishna (son of NTR) and Venkatesh (son of famous producer Rama Naidu) have found their footing and started establishing their fan following base.   Of the four Chiranjeevi definitely was head and shoulders ahead of others churning hit after hit which made fans confer him the titles of `Supreme Hero’ first and then the `Mega Star’.   He to a great extent could fill the vacuum created by the exit of NTR atleast for the mass fans.   So a phase has come in Telugu industry where like in case of NTR, producers were ready to accede to any demand of Chiranjeevi to get him sign on the dotted lines for their next movie.    NTR at his peak was known for peculiar demands of asking producers to make Mohd Rafi sing for him (which was no mean feat at peak of the singer’s career) or Shankar Jaikishan score music for his movie or Helen/Aruna Irani do item numbers in his movies.  Following in his footsteps Chiranjeevi started the trend of asking producers to sign Bollywood established stars to be signed opposite him which was never the trend hitherto.   So Bollywood actresses like Nagma, Sonali Bindre, Ravina Tandon, Juhi Chawla, Anjala Zaveri,  Sridevi (as a comeback to Telugu industry after establishing in Bollywood).   Producers not only used to shell out huge amounts compared to what has been paid to Telugu heroines but used to put up with all sorts of unreasonable demands of the Bollywood  heroines.   It might be possible that the other top heroes might have taken it as a prestigious issue that they should also get Bolloywood  heroines opposite them.   Nargarjuna immediately followed suit with Nagma, Tabu, Ranjni etc., and Venkatesh and Balakrishna also joined the band wagon thus opening flood gates for Non Telugu speaking heroines at the cost of Telugu speaking actresses.  

Around that time the death of Shaudarya and super stardom of Vijaya Shanti and her decision to

do solo movies with the tag of `Lady Amitabh’ has created a vacuum of Telugu speaking heroines in Telugu industry.   This added to the penchant and craving of Telugu heroes for Hindi speaking actresses unfortunately have brought down curtains on the opportunity for Telugu speaking budding heroines.   The trend of every film/every hero having a new non Telugu speaking heroines got so entrenched that it has been over two decades that a new Telugu speaking heroines has ever been introduced in Telugu films.   With over 120 movies being produced in Telugu every year they could not get that many established Bollywood heroines, so slowly they started giving break to the new and budding aspirants from Mumbai, many parts of Punjab, Bengal, Gujarat, and name any state in India except Andhra/Telangana. 

What lead to this unexplainable craving and worst trend

No one could put a hand what lead to this rut in the State of Andhra/T which produced most talented actresses like Savitri, jamuna, Vanisri, Sridevi, Jayaprada, Jaya sudha and Vijayashanti could not produce one single actress in more than two decades.   

I personally feel that it is a result of sense of inferiority complex of our heroes post 1980s.  As explained above the heroines of Telugu industry were extremely talented and fantastic actors,

dancers and could garner huge fan base.   The actors of yester years like NTR and ANR working in  disciplined atmosphere in banners like Vijaya, Vahini, Gemini and AVM used to take lot of efforts in perfecting their diction, dialogue delivery modulating and orientation. It was reported that for mythological movies NTR used to take tutorial from Tirupati Vekatakavulu and used to make lot of efforts to get perfection in delivering Sanskrit and Chaste Telugu dialogues.    Compared to this the command over the Telugu and dialogue of Chiranjeevi, Balakrishna, Nagarjuna and Vekatesh in 90s and Ram Chanran, Allu Arjun, Mahesh Babu, Prabhas now is anything but perfect.    They bank heavily on their stardom rather than acting abilities.   Under these circumstances it is not in their interested to be pitted against heroines who have a command over Telugu language, good in acting and dialogue delivery.   If they succeed and attain stardom then they may start demanding meaty roles, scenes, dialogue and there is always a chance of their overshadowing these mediocre heroes.   The best and easiest way to come over this risk is to take Non Telugu speaking and new heroines for every movie.  All these plastic faced non Telugu speaking actresses look and sound so awkward in the absence of lack of understanding of the languages, struggling to lip sink and emote.   So neither these heroines have any substantial role, meaty dialogues nor any significant part to play in any movie.   Their role is reduced to being oompish,  go through few song and dance sequences invariably at foreign location for reasons best known to the heroes and be around in absolutely unavoidable scenes in the movie.   Though many of the heroines have been acting for years in Telugu movies their dialogues get dubbed by dubbing artistic who in most cases mess it up.   The simple strategy being followed by our great heroes is `long line and short line formula’ – shorten the line of heroines so that their line looks longer/bigger.   As a result of this strategy, in the last two decades more than 100 new non Telugu speaking heroines were introduced in Telugu films (a new heroin in every second film) and not even a single Telugu speaking girl was given break.   With these non Telugu speaking girls being new to State/place being among unknown people unknown language always live on the edge and treat the heroes larger than life and as their `masiahas’ which surely massage the king size ego of our heroes.   Moreover, there are about eight top heroes and every new entrant whose first couple of moves hit the bull’s eye pair atleast once with all the eight top heroes then get degraded to the second string of actors and within four years it is pack off time.   That allows our heroes with king size ego breathe easy.   This suits these young girls who come down to the state by dozens as they make fast buck and pack off to do some business in their home states.  This disease has spread so much that not only the leading heroes but the second and third string heroes and even the comedians turned heroes ask for and get a non Telugu speaking heroines imported from North.   Apart from the roles of heroines for other small roles also non Telugu speaking girls are roped in.  

Others Imports from Bollywood:

The import from Bollywood started with heroines did not stop there.   The heroes, producers and directors got so carried away by the recognition they get amongst Bollywood folks who work in Telugu films,  and `jee hoojuri’ they get from Non-Telugu speaking guys that apart from heroines they started hiring Non Telugu speaking guys for Character actor and Villain roles also.   Barring exceptions like hugely talented Amrish puri (who not only acted in `Jagadeka Veerudu Atiloka Sundari’  but also took lot of efforts in dubbing his own dialogues) most of the villains and character actors look very odd and out of place and a limited number of dubbing artists doing dubbing for them becoming very irritating.   Pretty ordinary actors like Sharad Saxena, Mukesh Rishi, Shinde and Ravi kishan are taken as main villains (incidentally the later two completely left Bollowood and settled in Telugu industry).    Actors like Jackie Sheroof, Anupam Kher, Sudhir Mishra, Ashish vidharthi and Paresh Rawal look absolutely pathetic.    Once in an interview Anupam Kher made fun of his outing in a Telugu movie and explained the difficulty he faced in lip sinking dialogues and the directors suggesting him to just count 1,2,3,4,5,6, upward and downwards and rest we will take care in dubbing.    What is the compulsion?  Why producers have to put up with all these nonsense.   Compared to Telugu actors these imports from Bollywood charge a bomb and producers have to put up with their tantrums all the time.   What a fall from extremely talented villains and character actors like

Rajanala, the greatest Ranga rao, Nagabushanam, Satyanarayana, Rao Gopal Rao and Kota Srinivas, who stood so strongly against NTR, ANR, Krishna, chiranjeevi, etc.  They became hugely popular and became household names.    

The same goes as far as singing is concerned.   It is a shame that a State which produced God of Film Music Ghantasala, the sweetest voice P.Susheela,, SP Balasubramanian, who sang the highest number of songs and S Janaki  cannot find good Telugu speaking singers in the last fifteen years.   The less said the better how Hindi singers like Adnan Sami, Mikka, Kailash Kher, Udit Narayan murder Telugu songs.    One really has to struggle to find out Telugu words in their songs.   Someone should educate our stupid music directors that out of 7 editions of Indian Idol two winners (Sriram and Revanth) and one runner up (karunya) were Telugu speaking guys from Andhra.   Are these young singers who are talented enough to win an all India singing competition in Hindi, but not fit to sing Telugu songs?.

Who will bell the bit bad cat?

The entire Telugu film industry is completely in the vicious grips of four filmy families and a cartel of producers.   What they wish is the Rule and they do not let anyone raise their head or voice.   Sri Reddy is now being branded in many ways negatively and brushed aside by the powerful MAA (Movie Artists Association) by denying her membership.   The casting couch which she threatens to expose is not new to Telugu industry or to the entire film industry in India or world over. Many leading Hindi actresses and even Hollywood actresses have come out against exploitation.  Why the top actors or MAA didn’t address her question why opportunities are not given to Telugu speaking budding actors rather than finding fault in what she did.   If the Telugu film industry cannot survive without importing stars from Bollywood then why heroes are not imported from Hindi and other languages in place of our heroes.   Maharastra Government was worried about the labour class in the state is being dominated by people from UP and Bihar and there were so many protests on this issue.    In America when more than 30% of soft professional are from India the Trump Government is worried and put so many sanctions in place.   But in Telugu film industry 100% of heroines and villains are imported from Non Telugu speaking states for last two decades.  Shouldn’t that bother anyone?    After all it is a matter of employment to the locals.   I am all for right for employment anywhere in India but surely not cartelisation to complete deny opportunities to Telugu speaking actresses. 

Both Andhra and Telengana Government should take note of this in all seriousness and insist that Telugu speaking artists and technicians should be used atleast in those movie which claim subsidies from the state Government.    When we talk of up liftment of the Telugu language, it should be in all walks of life including film industry.   The audience should do their bit by boycotting Telugu films featuring non speaking heroines and villains/character actors.  I would like to see another Mahanati Savitri, Jamuna and Bhanumati in Telugu Industry and another `Gaana Gandharva’ Ghantasala and SP Balasubramaniam.  

S. Prabhakar

9.4.2018