Shankarabharanam creator K Vishwanath’s Sivakyam

2^nd February, 2023 is one of the saddest days for Telugu movies goers when one of the greatest sons of `Telugu kalamataalli’ Writer, Director and Actor K Vishwanatnath passed away after a long and fulfilling life of 92 years.    He achieved everything what one could imagine and much beyond and called it a day graceful and left the world peacefully without much  of pain leaving behind legacy of masterpieces which will be referred to by generations to come.  

One of the Greatest :  K Vishwanath is unarguably one of the greatest Directors Telugu cinema and Indian cinema has produced.   Many people follow a trend and succeed, few create a trend which others follow but the greatness of K Vishwanth lies in the fact that he created a trend which no other could follow either his contemporaries or Director who came to the industry much later.  He only had that conviction and competence not to follow the trend and express helplessness and blame the audience for their poor tastes.  He stood out to create a new trend lapped up by the audience during same period when decay has started.     In 70s and 80s when action movies full of violence and vulgarity were at their peak and used to struggle to get censor board certificates even with huge cuts (Sholay and Quarbani to name a few) K Vishwanath has made movies in dozens with central themes of classical singers, classical dancers and other performance artists, women oriented movies and many socially relevant subjects.   Most of the movies were made at shoestring budgets but turned out to be not only super hit commercially but won many state and national awards for him, actors, singers, music directors and other technicians.  

The following facts will make him stand towering over many of the run of the mill Directors and he does not have peers in this respect.

·        Most of his movies did not have an action director, action scenes or murders or killings.

·       No club dances/items number in any of his movies

·      Whether it is a Telugu movie or Hindi movie released in 80s and 90s also, his heroin always wore Sarees, put big bindis, bangles and other ornaments.   Who says cine goers did not have taste?

·      None of his movie were made on a huge budget, no big sets, no shoot in foreign locales, no special effects

·     Most of the songs of his movies were based on classical ragas and none had any disco music or pop songs

·    Almost of all movies have social relevant topics like untouchability, plight of classical singers, dancers, musicians, specially challenged people like blind, dumb etc.    Any other producers and director would have been scared on thought of making a movie on such subjects and K Vishwanath has made movie after movie on these subjects.

·      In all his movies the hero, heroin and leading actors are absolutely normal and the like we find next door and mostly deglamourized.   Its is true not only to newcomers, and small actors but to the top stars like Chiranjeevi, Kamal Hassain, Mamoothy, Anil Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor, Jaya Prada, Vijaya Shanti and Bhanu Priya

The following additional information will show how much conviction he had in the subjects he chose, his commitment in sticking to the central theme without any commercial compromises and pulling out super hits movie after movie:

1.     Sirisiri Muvva (later remade in Hindi as Sargam) : Heroin is a dumb daner

2.     Shankarabharanam : the story of a classical singer who struggles to uphold the glory of classical music diminishing in popularity under the influence of western music

3.    Sagara Sangamam : The story of an young talent classical dancer who is denied his well deserved recognition turns alcoholic and gets recognition while on death bed

4.    Srutilayalu : the story of classical singer who wants to set up a Music school and his own sons trained in classical music but commercialise their talent to become rich.

5.    Saptapadi : Untouchability and story of a temple priest getting his daughter in law remarried to an untouchable whom she loves before her marriage to his son.

6.   Swarna Kamalam : Story of poor plight of classical dancer and artist and his daughter of  disliking classical dance seeing his poor financial status

7.       Swati mutyam (remade in Hindi as Eeswar) : story of a mentally challenged adult taken care of a lady

8.       Sirivennela : story of a blind flutist.    Hari Prasad Chaurasia played plute for this movie

9.       Swayamkrushi : story of rags to riches of a cobbler who believes in hard work

10.   Swatikiranam : story of a classical singer suffering from inferiority complex with a child prodigy forcing him to commit suicide

These are few of the examples of how K Vishwanath chartered a path very successfully which no other director could ever follow and preferred to churn masala commercial movies.  

Early career : Like many film personalities,  K Vishwanath too had a very modest beginning.   He started his career as Assistant Director of iconic Telugu movie Patala Bhairavi.   For some strange reasons, despite the stupendous success and cult status of Patala Bhairavi, K Vishwanath, stayed away from Direction for over 14 years and focused on being sound recordist.   He debuted as Director in 1965 with ANR starrer Gauravam, which was not only a huge commercial success but won Nandi award for best Telugu movie of that year.    Between 1965 and 1980 he made many successful women-oriented movies like Chelleli Kapuram, Kalam Marindi Sharada, Jeevana Jyoti etc.  All these four movies apart from being commercially successful won Nandi awards.  

The Stupendously successful Shankarabharanam :  When we talk about K Vishwanath career or Telugu cinema we refer to two eras – the Pre Shankarabharanam and post Shankarabharanam.   Written and directed by K Vishwanath, the movie shows the plight of a famous classical singer’s desperate effort to save classical music from being swept away by the influence of Western music on youth.    As if taking a huge risk of picking up such subject for a full length movie is not enough, after considering top stars like A Nageswara Rao and Shivaji Ganesan, he zeroed on J Somayajulu, who was serving as a Government servant and debuted with the movie.   It was K Vishwanath talent in spotting talent and carving them which brought best out of J Somayajulu to make every cine goer felt that he was born for that role and no one else could suit better than him.   Though he was tad unluckly to miss national award by whisker, his performance was rated by Forbes as 25 greatest performance of India cinema.   Not only J Somayajulu every actor who acted in the movie were small time actors and when it was released without much fan fare after initial uncertainty it hit like tsunami not only in Andhra Pradesh but all over India specially Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala.   It has been screened in various international film festivals and won awards.   In poll conducted by CNN IBN Shankarabharanam came eleventh in greatest Indian films.    It has won 4 national awards and 7 state Nandi awards.   It was the first PAN India movie which word we started listening post Bahubali.   Understandably it has become a successful formula which though none of his peers in any language could follow, but he belted over a dozen successful movies in similar themes in the next 15 years which can be referred to be the Golden Era of Vishawanatham.

Director the captain of the ship :  One of the greatest services done by K Vishwanath was bringing back the glory to Director.    After greats likes B N Reddy in 1950s, its during Viswanath era movies started to be referred and sold with name of Director.   This legacy was taken ahead by his contemporary Director Bapu and Raghavendra Rao, Dasari and now Rajamouli who followed him.  Producers, any actor of any standing like Chiranjeevi and Kamal hassain had so much faith in his conviction on a subject of a movie they used to surrender themselves.    Every actor used to consider it an honour to work in a movie directed by K Vishwanath and never bothered about their image in commercial movies while working with him in off beat low budget movies.   As can be expected, for all these top stars the movie they acted under his direction remained landmark movies in their career.   But K Vishwanath never signed any actor who has not suited the character he conceived.    He never banked on the star power to pull his movie though he directed all tops star viz., NTR, ANR, Krishna, Shoban Babu, Chiranjeevi, Kamal Hassain, Venkatesh, Mamoothy, Anil Kaoor, Rishi Kapoor, Jayaprada, and Vijayashanti .    Whether giving break to old and pot-bellied J Somayajulu in Shankarabharanam or signing up an unknown Bannerjee in Sirivennela, debutants Ravi shankar and Ravikanth in Saptapadi he always went for those who suit the role.  

Another best quality of K Vishwanath was apart from the leading actor assaying the main roles, all other support actors used to have definite roles and he extracted best out of them.   His direction and conceiving of the roles used to be so impactful that many actors who had even 5 minutes roles are remembered after many years – Whether it is Alluri Ramalingayya and Sakshi Ranga Rao in Shankarabharanam, Mitra in Swarna kamalam in 5 minutes role as a Government officer who insults a scholar, or the young boy who takes photos of Kamal Hassain in Sagara Sangamam.

Hands on Director: Every actor who has worked with K Vishwanath vouch that he is a hands-on director.    He used to conceive entire scene to be shot and not only explains to the actors but act and show it to actors.   Many actors used to get amused that if in a scene there is a lead actor, actress and comedian he used to act the part of all 3 and show and never leave till actor delivered the way he conceived the scene.  

Great Human being : K Vishwanath was known to treat not only the leading actors but everyone on the sets with lot of respect and affection.    There was a time when all the support staff on the floor other than actors were required to wear khakhi dress.   Only producer and director were exempted from this requirement.    But K Vishwanath, to make every technician to treat him as one among them and to ensure that arrogancy of being Director and captain of the ship does not go to his head, he always wore Khakhi dress while on the floor for shooting.  

Ear for Music : Being trained and worked for over 14 years as a sound recordist, K Vishwanath has a fantastic ear for music.   In almost all the 52 movies he directed the music and songs were super hit and were the life line of the movies and contributed a lion’s share in the success of his movies, specially after Shankarabharanam.   First he used to sit with the lyricist like Veturi, Seetarama Shastry and others and get fantastic lyrics written and then sit with music directors and singers for hours together till he got what he wanted.   With Shankaranabharanam, K Vishwanath has given a new lease of life to S P Balasubramaian.   By his own admission SPB was not sure of his ability to sing purely classical based song and requested him to take Yesudas or Ramakrishna who had strong classical background.   But K Vishwanath had more faith on SPB than SPB had on himself and trained him under Puhalendi (assistant to music director KV Mahadevan) and made him sing all the songs and as they say rest is history.   Not only songs of Shankarabharanam became sensational hits but SPB has won National award for the song of the movie.   Dozen movies after Shankarabharanam directed by K Vishwanath were sensational music hits.   For most of his movies music was scored by his favourite music director K V Mahadevan, after his death he collaborated with Illayaraja for Sagara Sangamam and Swati mutyam and then with Keeravani.

Foray into Hindi industry : Besides 42 Telugu movies, K Vishwanath has directed 10 movies most of them remake of his successful Telugu movies.   Out of Hindi movies directed by him Sargam, Kaamchor, Shubkamna and Eeswar were popular and hit movies.   

Awards galore: K Vishwanath has won national award 5 times Nandi award 7 times, Filmfare award 10 times in Telugu and once in Hindi.   He was conferred Padmashir and Dada Sahedb Phalke award, and Raghupati Venkayya award.    He also won international awards – Prize of Public at Film Festival, France and special mention at Moscow International film festival.

Apart from K Vishwanath, many who worked with him in his movies also won many prestigious awards.  Some of the national awards won:

Vani Jairam – won 2 national awards for Shankarabharanam and Swati Kiranam

SPB - won 2 national awards for Shankarabharanam and Sagara Sangamam

Illayaraja - won 1 national award for Sagara Sangamam

KV Mahadevan - won 1 national award for Shankarabharanam

Edida Nageswara Rao - won 1 national award for Shankarabharanam

 

Besides this many have won State awards and film fare awards.

Withstood caste discrimination: Howsoever people may deny, the Telugu industry is rife with caste politics by Kammas and Reddys earlier and Kapus later.    Others in the industry belonging to other castes specially Brahmins were looked down upon, supressed and not allowed to come up.    They and their talents and command over language were used only for story writing, lyrics and dialogues.   K Vishwanath has not only withstood the discrimination but also encouraged Brahimin artists and maintained excellent relations with all others.    S P Balasubramaian and Chandramohan (both his cousins), and many artists, lyricist got great support from K Vishwsanath.  K Vishwanath's greatest gift to Telugu industry has been two gems of lyricists Veturi Sundararama murthy and Sirivennala Seetarama Shastry   

Commanded respect:  One of the best qualities of K Vishwanath is that though he was in the film industry for over 60 years he stayed away from any controversies and commanded respect from actors, producers, fellow directors, music directors, lyricists and singers.  It was not only during  his prime as director but till he breathed his last.   Not only top actors like Chirajeevi who are in Hyderabad used to visit his house frequently specially on his Birthdays, but actors like Kamal and Anil Kapoor used to make it a point to visit and take his blessings whenever they used to come to Hyderabad.   Politicians across all parties including both CMs KCR and Jagan used to visit his house and felicitate him.  

My Father favourite: K Vishwanath is a favourite of our entire family, Even our father who was not a big-time movie buff used to like him and his movies and when he retired in 1990 we purchased dozen video cassettes of all Vishwanath movies and he used to watch them often including Shankarabharanam and Sagara Sangamam   

K Vishwanath has stopped directing for somewhere around 2000 and for next 10 years and assigned some memorable roles including Shuba Sankalpam.  It is a sheer coincidence that the movie which brought fame Shankarabharanam was released on 2nd February, 1980 and he died on the 40th Anniversary of its relase on 2nd February 2023.  The contribution of K Vishwanath to Telugu and Indian film industry is enormous and path breaking.    There is no parallel to him in providing clean and whole some entertainment.   As long as film industry is there, K Vishwanath name will live on.  

I strongly feel Government of India or atleast the Telugu State Governments should constitute an award for best direction in the name of K Vishwanath.  

Om Shanti

S. Prabhakar

3.2.2023