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
