As they say, all good things have to come to an end. And it cannot be more truthful and painful in regard to the stardom of the writers. The seventies ushered the star system and relegated the writer to the back seat. It also bought into a false myth about the star system, that a star alone could pull in the crowds and win over the audience without the words propping his nature and stature in the movie. The reasons are innumerable and beg to be told. Up until the previous decade, not many people evinced interest in the production of the movies and the existing players were either true lovers of art or atleast ones who respected or valued the art. The business aspect of production was chalked out before hand and complete creative freedom was given to the creator (writer-director duo) team to come up with a sensible theme within those business parameters. It challenged both the writers' creativity and directors' sensibility to fit the drama within the time allotted and the budget allocated. Back in the late 40s, when B.N.Reddy set out to make Swarga Seema, a control was implemented on the amount of raw stock that one could import for a movie. B.N.Reddy, the ingenious mind that he was, paced his movie in such a way, that it never feels that the movie has either ended too early or dragged out at the end. In much the same fashion, K.V.Reddy used to time each scene, and would exactly know the amount of the film that was going to be exposed, before the movie even hit the sets. None of that wizardry would have been possible without the solid backing of their writers.

The star system brought along with it - domination of the lead character, relegation (or lack of equal elevation) of the anti-hero character, glamour doll concept, variety in story and other spices and ingredients. Just because a star had a certain number of successes, an illogical concept, that he can dictate about the look and feel of the entire movie, started to creep in. And the number of people venturing into the production of the movies, certainly did not help reverse that dangerous trend. All the old writers either retired, expired or simply bucked the trend and joined the flow, to feed and fend for themselves. Thus was created the concept "image". Earlier, it used to be the characters marrying the actors and not the other way around. Now stories had to be imagined with a specific person in mind, without letting go of the traits of the character that made him successful in his previous outings. Mannerisms, catch words, styles replaced sensibility, plausibility and subtlety. The producers, in a bid to cash in the success of a star, forced the writer to gimmickize the screenplay to grab and hold the audience attention, to surprise them with something that they had never seen before in the star, and to bring them back for second and third servings. People, who could look through this smoke and mirrors act, stayed away from the movies. Shock value, in the form of logic defying stunts, exotic locales, visceral scenes, sense gratifying acts, were shoved down the audience's throats. Thus was born class system. Money minders started to divide sections of audience into mass and class. That it was the same audience that was enthralled by rich poetry, great aesthetics, was completely forgotten by the producers. The most clichéd statement "the audience wants it" found its roots. Beneath this furor was trampled, gasping for its last breath, the writer's voice.

Amid this chaos, emerged an interesting trend in our neighboring state. Directors started to give a new dimension to the stale and sedated stories. They called it treatment. It consisted ion taking a sub-standard plot and presenting it in watchable way. Telugu film industry slowly caught on to this trend and the focus shifted from the writer to the director.

K.Balachander and Bharatiraja were the pioneers of this trend. During the late 70s, an unknown production house by name Yuvachitra made a small movie with a budding story writer/director, called Tata Manavadu. Dasari Narayana Rao, a one man army helming different important branches of movie making, emerged as a key player, changing the course, path and fate set to the telugu film writer. What is being told gained more importance than how it is being told. Dasari dialogue became a trade mark. His juxaposition, jumbling, mix and match style, was something new and was never heard before, from any professional pen. Case in point, Sardar Paparaayudu. NTR has to denounce the Britisher's tactic of divide and rule and this was what he was made to utter - "nuvvu maa daeSaaniki enduku vaaccav?" "udyOgam kOsam", "kaadu vyaapaaram kOsam.", "naenu maatram udyOgam kOsamae vaccaanu", "kaadu kaadu kaadu. vyaapaaraaniki kOsam vaccina nuvvu, maa lO kalatalani sRsTinci aa viDipOyina vaaLLani neetO kalapukunnav. alaagae talliki biDDaku, biDDaku talliki, annaku celliki, celliki annaku, akkakoo tammuDiki, tammuDiki akkakoo...." and so goes the dialogue. Premaabhishekam boasts of dialogues that haven't aged quite gracefully either. "enduku vaccaav ikkaDiki". "aem raakooDadaa?". "konta konta mandiki konni konni cOTlu unTaayi. aa konni konni cOTlaki aa konta konta mandi manashulaki anumati unDadu". "aa konta konta mandi manushulu, inko konta konta mandini manushulni......". But to Dasari's credit, the stories that he created really stood the test of the time. Meghasandesam and Sivaranjani stand out as his best and continue to remain as one of the sensible movies to come out of those decading decades.

At the same time Dasari was capturing the imagination of the audience, two other filmmakers, with two completely complementing paths vied hard for audience's attention. Raghavendra Rao made his mark with Adavi Ramudu and K.Viswanath won regional, national and internal acclaim with Sankaraabharanam. Even startling is the fact that the same writer worked for both of those movies. The ability to handle a subject as commercial as Adavi Raamudu and as aesthetic as Sankaraabharanam came naturally to Jandhyaala. His pen could come up with a rib tickling "kaLLu kanipincaTam laeduraa, sooryaandhakaaraa" with the same ease as a heart tugging "paschaatya penu tuphaanu taakiDiki repa repa laaDutunna satsampradaaya sangeeta jyotini oka kaapu kaayaDaaniki tana renDu caetulu aDDU peTTina aa maha maneeshiki sirasu vanci padaabhivandanam caestunnaa!". Every dialogue that was written for SankaraabharaNam was memorable, ageless and stimualting even to this day and age, considering that 25 years passed, since the movie was released. Consider this golden nugget, when Sankara Sastry chides the rock and roll group, ridiculing him for his traditions and habits - "Here after, don't be silly, stupid and childish. Music is divine, whether it is western or Indian. sangeetaaniki bhasha bhaedaalu swa para bhaedaalun unDavu. adi oka anantamaina vaahini. ae bhaasha vaadaina ae jaati vaaDainaa aa jeeva dhaara lO daaham teercukOvaccu. oka rakaimaina sangeetam goppa dani, maroka rakamaina sangeetam adhamamainadani nirNayincaDaaniki manem evaram. sajeevamaina ee sangeeta dhaara lO daaham teercukOvaDaaniki, vidaeseeyu endarO vacci, aa pranava naadaanni aalapistoo unTae, meeru, ee daesaalO puTTina biDDalu, daanini avanincaDam, kanna tallini dooshinchinanta naeram, dvaesincaDam anta paapam". During the early 80s, media baron Ramoji Rao entered the filmdom, and brought with himself, the old studio style of film making. He set a budget, offered hands-off production and chose Jandhayaala to weild the director baton and thus was born the film that could be hailed as the funniest movie ever made since the 80s - Sri vaariki Praemalekha. A largely unknown cast, a simple and a fresh theme, loads of inventive and rib-splitting dialogues, and some great tunes carried Srivariki Praemalekha to months of packed houses and remained one of the best comedy movies made till date. Jandhyaala, along with his theater friend Aadi Vishnu and novelist Malladi Venkata Krishna Murthy, treated the entertainment starved with one comedy capsule after another starting from Srivaariki and continuing with rendu rellu aaru, aha naa peLLanTa, jayammu nischayammuraa, shh... gupchup and the like. How he managed to squeeze within his comedy repertoire a Saptapadi, a Saagara Sangamam, a Ananda Bhairavi, a Aapatbhaandhabudu, a Vetagaadu, was unbeknownst to anyone. Though during his later part of his career, bowing to the producer's pressure and the unable to scale the high standards that he has set for himself in the aforementioned movies, Jandhayaala had to repeat himself, his voice nevertheless would remain synonymous with unadulteratd Telugu tanam, healthy subtle humor (suniSita haasyam), touching sentimentality. Jandhyaala - haasya brahma, dhanya janma.

(Contd in Part 4)

Also read Part 1 and Part 2 of this series

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