Hemanth Paranjee a freelance News editor who works for NBC and ABC networks in USA foundly remebers about Shoban babu garu..
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For 32 years he was my hero. I always wished I was as good looking & as attractive as him. He was a voracious reader, a good writer, a vocal philosopher, a silent philanthropist, a man with both foresight & hindsight, a great planner, a wonderful executor and a strict disciplinarian. I always wished I could have a mind like his.
It all started one day in January 1976 when I was watching
Pichchi Maaraju (Sudarshan 70mm,
Hyderabad). In the film he pretends to be a psychiatric patient and the audience doesn't know that until the scene just before the interval, when he calls the Police Commissioner & says,
"Nenu CID officer Gopi sir. Radha hathya chesinatlu oppukundhi sir". The screen froze with the superimposition of the word
Vishranthi. The lights went on but no one got out of their seats !!! The sudden plot point was too stunning !!! A few seconds later the 70 paisa ticketwalas started going beserk followed by the three ruppee fifty paisa walas. As a gullible 15-year old, that situation did impact me. For days I would go about enacting & re-enacting that sequence. A few weeks later
Iddaru Iddare released and from then on I became a big fan of his.
In March of that year a charity cricket match was played between Telugu filmstars & Hindi filmstars. I paid thirty ruppees for a 'gallery seat' just to see him in flesh & blood ! There were two entertaining moments for me during that match. One was Sobhan Babu affectionately lifting Vanisri & 'cradling her' while the audience roared in reaction and the second one was when a couple of hindi heroines held his hand & refused to let go of him ! The most forgettable moment was when he was out caught by
Shabana Azmi of a
Saira Banu delivery to the very first ball he faced !!!
He was one of those who appealed both to the gandhi class & balcony class. He had an aura of elegance even while doing a mass role. He brought about a new way of acting to the telugu film industry called Casual Acting. He had no stereotypes in any of his portrayals, that's why till date - though many have tried - nobody has been successful in imitating him the way they imitate his three contemporaries. He could fit into any of the genres - mythological, folk, family &
dishum-dishum.
He wrote a series called
Nenu Naa Kathanayikalu (on his heroines)
for a magazine called
'Screenplay', that's when I realised he was a good writer. On his 50th birthday, he wrote about his reflections in
Vijaya Chitra (January 1987). Till date I haven't read an article of such high literary standards from any other actor. It was awesome. Even my dad, who still hates films & film culture, was appreciative of that.
