Movie Retrospect
Retrospect: Nelavanka (1983)
By Sri
Jan 16, 2010 - 1:06:28 PM

Sri Murali Krishna Art Creations
Nelavanka (1983)

Technical: 35 mm
Color
Reels: 14
Censor Date: October 14, 1982
Release Date: January 25, 1983

Cast:
Gummadi Venkateswara Rao ... Srirama Raju
J.V. Somayajulu ... Raheem
Rajesh (debut) ... Saleem
Kiran (debut) ... Kiran
Tulasi ... Lalita
Rajyalakshmi ... Savitri
Master Ali ... Ali
Muddali Susheela ... Rameswari
C. Rammohana Rao ... Brother of Srirama Raju
K. Sambasiva Rao ... Servant Seshayya
Prameela Rani ... Srirama Raju's wife
Potti Prasad ... Gurrala Guravayya
Eswara Rao ... Ravi
sutti Velu... Ayurveda doctor Dongre Sastry
sutti Veerabhadra Rao ... Dongre Sastry's compounder
Gangarathnam ... Raheem's mother
Other Cast: Shyam, Sakshi Rangarao, Vinnakota Vijayaram, Dham, Balaji, Nagamani, Sabharanjani, Sivaramireddy, Ch. Krishnamurthy

Editing: Gautham Raju
Assistant Editor: Mutyala Naani
Art: Thota Tarani
Lyrics: Indraganti Srikantha Sarma, Udaybhaskar Rao ( sutti song)
Songs: S.P. Balasubrahmanyam, S. Janaki, Prakash Rao, Jitmoham Mitra, Ramola
Camera: S. Gopala Reddy
Associate Cameraman: M.V. Raghu
Assistant Cameramen: Diwakar, Srinivas Reddy
Music: Ramesh Naidu
Co-Director: U.V. Pani
Associate Directors: E.V.V. Satyanarayana, B.S. Nishtala
Assistant Directors: Battula Ramakrishna, J. Pullarao
Producer: A.S. Anjaneyulu, M. Narasimha Rao
Story, Screenplay and Direction: Jandhyala

Songs: enta cheppinaa vinavEmiraa ( lankaa dahanam tOlubommalaaTa)
Playback: Ramola , Jitmohan mitra, Prakash Rao
Cast: Rajesh, Master Ali, etc.

gO gummaDi gO gummaDi
Playback: S.P. Balasubrahmanyam, S. Janaki, Jitmohan Mitra, etc.
Cast: Kiran, Tulasi

mehfil mE aaj dhoom uThii ( ee gaaraala sirimogga mee eduTa poochindi)
Playback: S. Janaki, S.P. Balasubrahmanyam
Cast: Rajesh, Tulasi, Kiran, etc.

sogasari bomma kOyilallO
Playback: S.P. Balasubrahmanyam
Cast: Rajesh and group

kanubommala pallakilOna kanne siggu vadhuvayindi
Playback: S.P. Balasubrahmanyam, S. Janaki
Cast: Rajesh, Tulasi

Edi matam, Edi hitam?
Playback: S.P. Balasubrahmanyam
Cast: J.V. Somayajulu

sutti Song
Playback: S.P. Balasubrahmanyam, Prakash Rao
Cast: sutti Velu, sutti Veerabhadra Rao

Story:
Srirama Raju (Gummadi) is the zamindar of the village. Raheem (J.V. Somayajulu), his classmate and a friend, also works as his carriage-driver. The zamindar has two daughters Savitri (Rajyalakshmi) and Lalitha (Tulasi) and a son Ravi (Eswara Rao). Savitri is a born mute, while Tulasi goes to college. Tulasi meets Kiran (Kiran) who traps her in the name of love and later marries Savitri for money. Raheem's son Saleem (Rajesh) rescues Lalitha from Kiran. A couple of villagers who had grudges on Raheem create Hindu-Muslim clashes between the otherwise peaceful villages. How all issues were resolved and what price they had to pay to regain peace in the village as well as in their lives forms the rest of the story.

Kiran and Tulasi in Nelavanka

About the film:
This was Jandhyala's fourth film as a director. The film was mostly shot in Muktyala palace owned by Vasireddy Rajyalakshmamma. Like most of the Jandhyala's movies, even this film was completed in a single schedule. The film was started on the new moon day of June 23, 1982 in Vedadri (symbolizing the movie's title) and completed the shooting part by August 5, 1982.

S. Gopala Reddy did a wonderful job in the movie with his camera. In the song kanubommala pallaki lOna... , a stanza mentions "kanureppala goDugu" (meaning eyelash-umbrella), Tulasi is shown below Rajesh's eyelashes superbly! Associate cameraman M.V. Raghu became a cameraman later and worked for films like Vamsy's Sitara and then later became director with the films Kallu and Arthanadham. Recently, he worked as the cameraman for A.S. Geethakrishna's Koffi Bar using RED Camera. Two other assistants who worked under S. Gopalareddy for this film, Diwakar and Srinivas Reddy, also became cameramen later. Srinivas Reddy also became a producer and made films like Balakrishna's Krishnababu. Co-director U.V. Pani later assisted Mani Rathnam for some films and is presently living a retired life in Guntur, away from filmdom. Associate Director E.V.V. later became a popular director and is directing his 50th film Buridi at this time. Another Associate Director, B.S. Nishtala, is a close friend of S.P. Balu and looks after the latter's dates now. For Assistant Director J. Pullarao, this film marked the debut. He later produced films along with his brother Bhagavan and eventually made films like Juniors; they are planning their next movie now.

S. Gopal Reddy introduced Rajesh to Jandhyala Rajesh, the son of Late Amarnath (and thus the brother of popular comedian Sreelakshmi, who also shot to fame with Jandhyala's movie Rendu Jella Seetha), noted artiste and hero of yesteryears. (Amarnath had super hits such as Naa Chellelu and Adurti's debut film Amara Sandesham to his credit.) Rajesh acted in several movies but he also passed away with heart attack at a young age. S.P. Balasubrahmanyam dubbed his voice in the film. Kiran's, whose actual name is Anoor, is the nephew of S. Gopal Reddy and also elder brother to cameraman-director Rasool. He only did two films, Nelavanka and a small role in Rendu Jella Seetha. Later, he went to England and is currently running an electronics factory there. Rajayalakshmi's mother Sabharanjani played a small role in the film. This is the only film where she appeared. She was a popular stage artiste before Rajyalakshmi entered into films. The role of Rajesh's assistant in puppet show was actually was meant for Jitmohan Mitra, who sang the first song in the movie along with Ramola and Prakash Rao (from Vizag) but it came to Balaji due to an issue with dates. (Balaji is brother of Rohini who started as a child artiste and later graduated to sister roles in films such as Devanthakudu and later married Late Raghuvaran.

Rajesh and Tulasi in Nelavanka

The film's story goes around the characters of Gummadi and J.V. Somayajulu. For a natural appearance, the latter grew a beard. However, he had to complete the last schedule of Pelleedu Pillalu and had to shave it off completely. Jandhyala waited a week for the beard to grow back naturally. Gummadi celebrated his 56th birthday in this shooting. As the Sutti Janta became very popular with the Nalugu Sthambaalaata, Jandhayala used the same pair for comedic relief in the otherwise heavy subject and also canned a song on them. After a couple of days of screening in theaters, he felt that the song was not assiociated with the film in any way and trimmed it off. The song is not available now even in the film's officially released VCD. A special thanks was mentioned to Writer M. Diwakar Babu for his play evvanichE janinchu. This is probably the only Telugu film in which the title is also shown in Urdu. When the film begins, Jandhayala mentions that the film tried to show Muslim life style as authentically as possible and that any mistakes shown were not intentional and seeks pardon for any mistakes therein. This message is also carried out in Urdu as voice-over. The film was dedicated to Gandhiji.

With the producers being new, they could not get the film ready for release, and M. Narasimha Rao stepped in to help release the film. That was why the film's censor date is in October of 1982 and the film's release was in January 1983.

Rajesh in Nelavanka

Late Sree Jandhyala on the film:
After the success of Nalugu Sthambaalaata, I wanted to do a film on communal harmony. My classmate Mettala Rambrahmam, a Lecturer in Commerce at Jaggayyapeta College by profession, wanted to do a film under my direction. He mentioned about the Muktyala Palace and its importance. It was at the junction for three different districts, with Guntur district on one side, Nalgonda District on another side, and Krishna district across the river. The king of Muktyala really used to have a Muslim charioteer and there were never any communal riots in the village though the Hindu and Muslim proportion of population was equal there. Seeing all these, we thought that it will be the ideal choice to shoot the film. The whole unit stayed in the palace only. As the producer Rambrahmam was from Jagayyapeta, they arranged a mess to prepare food for whole of the unit. We chose the title that way because half moon is a flag symbol for Muslims and adorns Lord Siva too - the title would thus convey that every religion preaches the same thing and that everyone is made same too.

This is one of my favorite films in my direction, but sadly the film didn't do well at the box-office. People say the film was too classy and was not aimed at any masses! "nelvanka teesaanu kaanii nEla vanka chooDaTam marichipOyaanu." We expected the National Award for the film but due to some politics in the industry, our prints were misplaced and we never able to recover the prints after that. I feel so bad about it!

Kiran (Anoor) in Nelavanka

Lyricist Sree Indraganti Srikantha Sarma on his association with Late Sree Jandhyala and about the film:
I knew Jandhyala before he became popular with that name. For his friends, he was either Siva or Sastry. Only when he came to films did he become popular as Jandhyala. Jandhyala's father owned a Bush radio dealership shop in Vijayawada. I was working in All India Radio then. When Jandhyala listened to a play titled " teralu" that I wrote for AIR, he called me and we met at his father's shop. From then on, we met occasionally until he left to Madras to work with B.N. Reddy gaaru. B.N. Reddy wanted to make a film on Beenadevi's novel " puNyabhoomi kaLLu terichindi" but it didn't work out. Later, he became a dialogue writer and turned popular.

I wrote my first lyrics for the film Krishnavatharam ( chinnaari navvu... chiTTi taamarapuvvu...) as Bapu-Ramana gaaru were good friends of mine. Later, I never really thought of writing for another film. It was due to Veerabhadra Rao that I wrote for this film. (Veerabhadra Rao and Jandhyala were classmates and also did many plays together before Jandhyala went into movies. Veerabhadra Rao used to work as production executive in All india Radio where Srikantha Sharma was working in AIR.) It was he who mentioned my name to Jandhyala and Jandhayala then remembered our old friendship, asked me to come immediatly to Madras. So I went to Madras. The music sittings were done at Palmgrove Hotel in Madras. Ramesh Naidu used to compose the music once the lyric was okayed. I was there for a week and completed all six songs and came back to Vijayawada. Later I went to Muktyala for the shooting. I was there one day for the song Edi matam... but the rest were done when I was not there. We thought we'd definetly get the award for that song but as the prints went missing, we missed the award too.

...After Nelavanka, I worked with Jandhyala for two more films - Puttadi Bomma and Rao-Gopala Rao. Later, I joined Andhraprabha weekly. I then made Jandhyala to write a column for me. It was called jandhyaasamayam. When he moved to Hyderabad, we used to meet more often at parties. He is really a great human being.

Acknowledgements : Late Sri Jandhayala, Sri Pulagam Chinnarayana, Sri Indraganti Srikanth Sharma, Rasool, M.V.Raghu, J.Pulla Rao

Article by Sri Atluri
Edited by NaChaKi