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| Late Sri Rajasri |
Check any dubbing films in the '70s and '80s, and one can find one common signature through all of them - it is the title card that reads Rajashri. It could be a Mani Rathnam making a classic, or a Ramanarayana producing a low-budget flick, or Suraj Barjatya attempting ostentatiously for a wider audience, everyone just wants Rajashri to be their dialogue and lyric writer when their films are to be dubbed from any other language to telugu. After the times of SreeSree and Arudra, it was Rajashri who worked more for dubbed films, with nearly 1000 films that include about a 100 straight films!
Rajashri, whose real name is Indukuri Ramakrishnam Raju, was born on August 31, 1934 to Indukuri Appalaraju and Narayanamma gaaru in Vizianagaram. From a very young age, he started writing stories and metrical poetry. With the scholarship that he could get, he completed his B.Sc. (Physics) from the famous Maharaja College in Vizianagaram and also learned typewriting, which fetched him a job as a typist-cum-P.A. in Srikakulam District Board. He continued writing whenever he could take some time off in the job, and that's when he started using the pen name "Rajashri".
His khanDa-kaavyam titled abhuyudayam, written partly in metrical poetry (padyaalu) and partly in free verse lyrical form (gEyaalu) brought him a very good name. He then started writing plays, starting with AndhraSree which was played in Vishakhapatnam. B.V. Prasad saw it and encouraged him to write more, and Rajashri continued on to write the plays baava and vadina. B.V. Prasad liked them a lot too, so much that he directed them both and played the lead roles in these plays, and the plays became very popular later on.
Rajashri resigned his job and moved to Madras, where he started assisting writer Pinisetty Sriramamurthy having landed in the film industry due to him. The first film he worked for as a lyricist was Aada Pettanam (1954), produced by Kadaru Nagabhushanam and Kannamba. Though he got some recoginition with the film, offers did not really pour on him. So, in order to earn the daily bread, he started working as an assistant director for Kadaru Nagabhusnam. He worked as an assistant director for the films like Aada Pettanam, Anna-Thammudu, Paruvu-Pratishta, Shanta, Nithya Kalyanam Paccha Thoranam, Veerabhaskarudu, and Srikrishna Maaya. It was Pinisetty again who encouraged him to work in the story, screenplay departments when Pinisetty turned to directing the film Nithya Kalyanam Paccha Thoranam.
