Jai Bolo Telangana' added zest

HYDERABAD: Award-winning Telugu movie ‘Jai Bolo Telangana’ that was released in 2011 caught the attention of the people so much that it propelled the Telangana statehood movement, like never before. It hit the box-office bull’s eye soon after its release.

The movie saw TRS president K. Chandrashekar Rao debut as a lyricist. He penned the song ‘Garadi chestundru, gadi bidi chestundru’ that was to reverberate across the region and played at all agitation programmes. Another song from the same film, sung by balladeer Gaddar, "Podustunna poddu meeda nadustunna kaalama" became so popular that even those from Seemandhra region started humming it.

Many from the star cast, who were part of the statehood agitation, have since become celebrities, politicians  and social activists, including Smriti Irani, Srinivas Goud, Prof Kodandaram, Prof Haragopal, Sravan Kumar Dasoju, Balka Suman , Gadari Kishor, Pidamarthi Ravi Durgam Bhasker, Bala Lakshmi, Alaman Naryana, Juluri Gowri Shanker, Swami Gowd, Devi Prasad and Vimalakka, among others.

‘Jai Bolo Telangana’, which won a Nandi award, Sarojini Devi award on National Integration and was screened at the sixth South Asian film festival, shows how cinema, particularly emotional period films, could be a powerful medium when it comes to swaying the public psyche.

Of course, the movie faced many certification hurdles and hindrances from the censor board. This led to an incident wherein infuriated students from Osmania university vandalised the censor board office at Masab Tank. Subsequently, the review committee cleared its release. The movie was released in many European countries, Australia and the United States in order to draw the attention of NRIs from Telangana region.

The movie opens with the 1948 Telangana armed struggle, and makes for a realistic presentation of the flare-up in 1954, 1969 and 2009, suicides by students and police thrashing the students-protestors. It has been a thorough professional documentation.

Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, its producer-director N. Shankar said, “The 24-year-old Srikanth Chary, who set himself ablaze for Telangana, succumbed in December 2009.  A condolence meeting was organised in his memory at Choutuppal. I remember that soon after my speech, students asked me to make a movie on the incident. By then I had made several movies on social issues. At that very moment, I resolved to make a movie on the movement. Thus was born Jai Bolo Telangana.”

He added, “The greatest challenge was with regard to script. It is relatively easy if the story revolves around history or is a fiction or an out and out entertainer. But here we were planning a movie while the movement was at its peak and there were dramatic developments, including political, on an everyday basis. One was not sure if a separate state would get the nod. The producers, who originally agreed to do the film, backed out at the eleventh hour, as there ‘was no commercial element’ in it. They said they cannot release the film in the Seemandhra region. I sold my properties and made the movie.”