Y.Sunita Chowdhary
Racchabanda Kathalu will be streaming online soon and its director Ramesh Chand talks of his web series, his origins and his initial days in the Telugu film industry. Though director Ramesh Chand is from Vuyyuru, he was brought up in Goa. Later he moved to Hyderabad and Chennai for academics and pursued a career in movies. More than the Telugu movie news that impacts a youngster a great deal at that age, the influence of novels and comics and Doordarshan channel was far greater on him. Also since his grandfather was a history lecturer in Narasaraopet, he got to read a lot of books around that time. When his parents got to know his fetish for cinema, they were indeed worried and didn’t encourage him in the beginning. He says, “I was caught up in the fantasy of being in the movies.
I made the decision to be in the film field when I was in the engineering college. In Madras, no one looked at films as a taboo and hence the ambience was perfect for me to pursue my career. I was a voracious reader and read novels in many languages and everywhere I went I would find a library and spend a lot of time in it. I would read and visualise the books to such an extent that when it was made into film and I saw it on screen..I was enthralled. Be it Robinson Crusoe’s books, the Bible, The Passion of the Christ, everything that I read and visualised came alive on screen and I knew this is where I wanted to be. My major influence was Kshana Kshanam. I wouldn’t speak Telugu much but dad was away from Andhra for 16 years. We saw Kshana Kshanam and Seetaramayya Gari Manavaralu multiple times on VCR, they were the basics that helped in my film graduation.”
Did he have any genre on mind when he wanted to make his debut? He says as a matter of fact, “I don’t like horror films and apart from that I am good at anything, comedies, bio pics and social dramas where human emotions are executed in a pleasant manner etc. I also like love stories, thrillers and autobiographies. I wrote a rag to riches story of a girl who was born in a backward village and she becomes a doctor of the district. I am more drawn to realistic cinema and I like seeing forty percent of commercial elements in it.” The taste of the audience has undergone tremendous change, but still there are directors who are insecure and are continuing with commercial entertainers. You don’t know how many people have come to the theatres during the pandemic. Those who have access to Hollywood films have also seen Solo Brathuke So Betteru and the B and C centre audiences kill time by seeing comedy shows. The urban audiences have been fed with so many films, so many concepts and presentations. Amidst this scenario, the director says that the audience, especially the Indian people love social dramas. “A movie like Subhalagnam will still run today if it is presented in a different format,” he quips.
Ramesh Chand had worked as an AD for 16 years. Ask him if any of the directors he worked with had an influence of some sort on him and he responds, “I have definitely been influenced, especially by Seenu Vytla, Veeru Potla and Hanu Raghavapudi in different aspects but like all directors, I too want to have my own identity. The current scenario of OTT is very suitable to me and all I need is a proper break now. This is now my kind of cinema and I am drawn to futuristic concepts with a little commercial elements. I liked the statement made by cinematographer Prasad Murella. He said when you make a film, would you like to watch it alone on a DVD or will you make for an audience. During my work in Krishnagadi Veera Prema Gaadha I decided to do my next film. After the film, I took a few years to finish my stories.”
He further says, “I wrote nine stories and shot three and it has been titled Racha Banda Kathalu. These are small stories laced with humour and we have captured a village and its life. In the garb of telling larger than life stories I didn’t want to miss narrating simple and beautiful tales. The artistes are from the theatre and they showed a great deal of interest and participated in workshops too. It was a cake walk for them and the journey with them was beautiful. There was no prompting at all.” Ramesh Chand tells us why we don’t have stage artistes in cinema, he wonders, “Probably stage artistes feel they have no financial security in the cinema field and must have seen friends struggle in the industry.
There is no second film guarantee and they are too talented to go and knock doors for work. They block their dates in a month and work for theatres, they sleep in schools. Movie is a director medium, but stage shows are artistes and writers medium. They choreograph their own scenes with the writers. They go around villages, sing and have unbelievable talent and energy. We have a platform for them, they know their talent but they don’t go for days to Hyderabad and run around cinema offices and gamble with their life. They prefer the stage. They just want to emote. I wish we had an agency like in Mumbai which scouts for such amazing talent.”
