 |
| Chakrapani |
"Chakrapani" is one name that shall stay in the annals of Telugu Cinema for ages to come! Also a celebrated writer, publisher, translator, Chakrapani was born Aluru Venkata Subbarao on August 05, 1908 in Tenali. With formal education only until SSLC, no one probably guessed that he'd become a great writer and creative artiste in future! He was married to his cousin (maternal uncle's daughter) Rangamma at 24. Chakrapani's primary interest had always been into translation, it seems. He used to send translated stories to Vinodini, Chitragupta, and other such magazines of those times. That was about the same time that he rechristened himself as "Chakrapani", thanks to a suggestion by a North Indian pandit Sree Vrajanand Sharma. He soon started Sanchari and Vihari magazines from Tenali itself. Later, he started the monthly magazine Yuva and "Yuva Publications". His interest in Bengali literature sprouted through his acquaintance in a hospital - from a Bengali patient on the next bed when Chakrapani was being operated due to a bad lung in 1934. This brush with Bengali literature led to the famous "Sharat saahityam" translated by Chakrapani. Sharat Chandra Chatterjee's famous novels such as Devadasu, Bada Didi, Parineeta, etc. became to seem original Telugu novels in the skillful hands of Chakrapani. Books of famous writers including Chalam, Kodavatiganti Kutumbarao (KoKu), Gopichand, Palagummi Padmaraju, etc. were also published by Chakrapani, in an attempt to present them in their full worth to Telugu book-readers.
With an intention to settle in the domain of publishing, Chakrapani landed in Madras, and his association with B.N.K. Press, Chennai introduced him to B. Nagireddy, in whose house he continued to stay in Madras. Upon the request of Nagireddy, Chakrapani provided the script for the popular Nagayya-Bhanumathi-Narayana Rao starrer Swarga Seema (1945), the film which also marked the debut for Ghantasala as playback singer. However, Pullayya's Dharmapatni (1941) was Chakrapani's debut into the field, when Sree Pullayya heard of Chakrapani's flair in writing and approached the latter for the film's script. B. Nagireddy and his brother B.N. Reddy bought Andhra Jyothi, which was also managed by Chakrapani. Eventually, Chakrapani conceptualized and brought out a story book for children, with the intention that each story should be useful in some way or the other to the readers which included children and adults too! Thus took shape the famous children's book of even this day, Chandamama, in 1947. Starting in Telugu and Tamil and with 6000 copies then, Chandamama comes out in six languages now, and has its presence, with archives from yesteryears, in WWW too @ <
http://www.chandamama.com/
>.
In 1947, Nagireddy bought Vauhini Studios and turned it into Vijaya Studios. Since then, Nagireddy and Chakrapani were interested in producing movies, and thus took birth one of the greatly successful banner that gave us classy movies - Vijaya Pictures Private Limited. Shavukaru (1950), Pathala Bhairavi (1951), Pelli Chesi Choodu (1952), Chandraharam (1954), Missamma (1955), Maya Bazar (1957), Appu Chesi Pappu Koodu (1959), Jagadeka Veeruni Katha (1961), Gundamma Katha (1962), Satya Harischandra (1965), C.I.D. (1965), Uma Chandi Gauri Shankarula Katha (1968), Ganga-Manga (1973), Sree Rajeswari Vilas Coffee Club (1976) were the Telugu movies made on the prestigious Vijaya banner. While most of these films such as Pathala Bhairavi, Pelli Chesi Choodu (as Kalyanam Panni Paar 6 months later), Chandraharam, and Maya Bazar were dubbed into Tamil at the same time, Missamma was remade as Missiamma (1955) with Gemini Ganesan playing NTR's role. Excepting Chandraharam and Uma Chandi Gauri Shankarula Katha, nearly all movies made by Vijaya Pictures were hits and are celebrated even today!
