Sobhan Babu: The reel hero and real hero - Romantic, Affectionate, and Principled
I woke up from a deep slumber as my mobile phone announced that I had an text (SMS) message. I have been getting prank calls for the last one week, mostly from India (since it's day time there), I muttered curses under my breath as I reached for the phone to see what it was about. Utter disbelief and shock passed my mind as I read the text message that I received - the message said that Sree Sobhan Babu gaaru was no more! My mind became totally blank and numb, and I didn't know what to say or write... I did not even want to believe the message, and I called the veteran actor's residence in Chennai and confirmed the news... My last hope that it was a prank message was gone... and I did not return to my senses until a long time afterward!
...As a child I saw a lot of Sobhan Babu films though I was not a fan of any particular hero. I saw almost all of his films as they were generally distributed by either Lakshmi Films or by Lakshmi Chitra (later), both distributors being our family friends. I never missed a film of his, and I saw them all on the first day or even before the release of the film sometimes. I also saw him many times really, when I was a kid, in several functions held in Hyderabad. I never spoke to him due to my general inhibitions or something else I am not sure. My classmates used to envy me as I narrated such incidents in the class next day, ignoring teachers' warnings of punishment; in fact, we used to chat happily outside the class, even if we were asked to leave the class as a punishment!
...I still remember his hair style being imitated by my friends in the class. (My father used to take me to the barber, like in the recent film Bommarillu, and I thus never had a chance to imitate him myself.) ...I also remember that a friend, Ramesh by name who also had a melodious voice, used to be an ardent fan of Sobhan Babu gaaru and used to learn all his songs by heart buying lyric books on the roadside. (That reminds me a trivial incident: Once we went to a picnic in Nehru Zoological Park in Hyderabad, and students from another school came there the same day. He used to sing the song Sarada nanu chEradaa... from the then-recent hit movie Sarada, and the children from the other school came to thrash Ramesh thinking he was teasing one of their classmates by name Sarada!)
Sobhan Babu was a regular to Samatha Arts who only made films with him, including hits like Mallepoovu and Jebu Donga. Director V. Madhusudhana Rao gaaru made Veerabhimanyu in 1965 with Sobhan Babu gaaru, and played a pivotal role in shaping his career later too. (The song adigO navalOkam... is unforgettable, apart from Sobhan Babu's action as young Abhimanyu!) Other movies in their combination included Lakshmi Nivaasam (1968), Manushulu Maaraali (1969), Kalyana Mandapam (1971), Ee Tharam Manishi (1977), Mallepoovu (1979), Radhakrishna (1978), Joodagaadu (1979), Bangaaru Chellelu (1979), Chandipriya (1980), Samsaaram-Santhaanam (1981).
A regular topic for debate among my classmates was "Who is great? Krishna or Sobhan Babu?" Indeed, there used to be a stiff competition between them. When there was a film with both of them as male leads, a funny scene could be seen in the theatre - Krishna fans walk out if there's a song on Sobhan Babu and vice versa. Also, both fans groups used to count how many punches Krishna threw on Sobhan and how many times Sobhan hit Krishna in the film. I still remember my friend Ramesh gathering cow dung in the early morning hours to throw on Krishna film posters in Deepak theater (Krishna's films usually released through Navayuga or Sree films, and thus in one of the theaters owned by the distributors themselves - Deepak or Sangam).
Another friend Anil, who used to be fan of Krishna, used to suspect Ramesh but was never able to caught him red-handed though both stayed in the same neighborhood behind Narayanaguda area in Hyderabad. Friends that I didn't grow up with tell their experiences about Krishna-Sobhan combinations: how they used to go in bicycles singing "kRshNaarjunulam! mEmE kRshNaarjunulam!" (Krishnaarjunulu), how they used to think that Krishna, Sobhan Babu (and Krishnam Raju) had "special bikes" that jumped or even flew in the air and that they used to compete among themselves as to whose bike goes faster or jumps higher, how they remember Sobhan Babu's Kannavaari Kalalu more than the much bigger hit Hindi version Aaraadhana...
