November 28, 2007

Not many know that Varun Sandesh, the 18 year old who won acclaim for his role as 'Chandu' in his debut movie 'Happy Days,' worked at Dreamcricket.com during his senior year of high school in New Jersey.

Up until January, his days were typical of any American teenager - enjoying the final year of school, acting in school theater, planning ski trips, and applying for college.

But there were two things that were not 'typical' about Varun Sandesh.

First, he worked for a cricket focused company in USA!   Speaking about his ties with cricket, Varun Sandesh said "My dad Vijay Jeedigunta, is a well known cricket statistician.   He used to visit the Dreamcricket store in Hillsborough and I accompanied him to the store many a time.  Last year, when Dreamcricket.com was looking for help during the holiday season, I started working there."  Varun added, "I really started enjoying the game when I was with Dreamcricket."

Of course, the other thing that sets Varun Sandesh apart from his friends at school is what eventually made him famous.    Unlike most of his Telugu speaking friends at school, Varun watched Telugu movies and imagined himself in the roles of the heroes of movies like Pokiri and Bommarillu.   Once again, his parents played an important role. “My parents are big Telugu movie fans, never missing a Telugu movie on the day of its release in Edison.   I always accompanied them,” he said.

The movie debut
One day, Varun Sandesh’s uncle Jeedigunta Sridhar, who himself is a well known actor on the small screen told him about the talent search being conducted on Idlebrain.com for Sekhar Kammula's latest movie. 

Varun Sandesh typed up a casual e-mail requesting an opportunity to be considered for a role. “I did not expect any response to this e-mail. Besides, I was busy with school and work,” Varun Sandesh said.  But to his pleasant surprise, within a couple of days, he got a reply with the script of a crucial scene of the movie which he was asked to enact and send.

He acted the scene to the best of his ability but did not stop with that - he sang the song and danced to the tune of ‘Apudo Ipudo Epudo’ from ‘Bommarillu’ in front of a video camera that was mounted on the steps of his Bridgewater home.   He uploaded the video via Google and sent the link to Sekhar Kammula.

”In the days after he submitted his video, whenever Varun Sandesh walked into the Dreamcricket office, there was a bounce in his step,” his colleagues at Dreamcricket said.   He was confident of landing at least a small role that would help him realize his dream of acting in Telugu movies.   But destiny made other plans for Varun Sandesh.

Very soon, he received a call from Anish Kuruvilla, the Executive Producer of 'Happy Days' who asked Varun Sandesh to fly down to Hyderabad.  Not for just any role, they were looking to cast him in the lead role!

The rest, as they say is history.  His debut movie 'Happy Days' is a blockbuster hit and he is now something of a celebrity in Andhra Pradesh.

In September, Varun Sandesh returned to USA to finish his senior year of high school. While in USA, he visited his old hangout, Dreamcricket, regularly, mostly to drop off his younger sister Veena, who has since taken his job there.

Earlier this month, he formally agreed to become the company's brand ambassador.   As Brand Ambassador, he will promote the Dreamcricket.com portal and its clothing and equipment brand - Brown & Willis.

After experiencing unprecedented success in USA market, Dreamcricket.com expects to launch in India in January 2008 targeting the Indian cricket fans.  Dreamcricket also plans to launch its Brown & Willis line of cricket equipment around April, 2008. Kranthi Bayya, CEO of Dreamcricket, said "Varun Sandesh was a diligent employee but he was always destined for greater things.   We have only seen the tip of the iceberg.   Varun is at the beginning of what we believe will be a glorious career.  Dreamcricket's best wishes are with Varun Sandesh."

Baseball or cricket?
Asked to go on record about his favorite ball-game, Varun Sandesh said "I played baseball, American football and also represented my school team in basketball, but I thoroughly enjoy cricket.   Cricket is in my DNA.” He explained “My grandfather, Jeedigunta Ramachandra Murthy-garu did some cricket presentations on AIR during late 70s and early 80s before I was born. My dad was an official cricket statistician for AIR and covered many test matches as well as the 1987 Reliance World Cup.”

Varun Sandesh said that he was in India during the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup and he saw how popular the game was in India amongst the youth. "I am especially happy that Dreamcricket.com is entering the Indian market targeting the younger generation.   I think there is a huge opportunity for a professionally run American company like Dreamcricket."

Does he prefer Twenty20 cricket?  
Varun said "Although I like test cricket, Twenty20 is my kind of cricket, that too being brought up in USA, I have grown to appreciate any game that fits in three to four hours."

On November 14th, Varun Sandesh showed up at the Dreamcricket Pavilion with his colleague, Rushi Amin, for some indoor net practice.  Rushi, who continues to work at Dreamcricket, has also been acting and modeling appearing in Law and Order as well as on Cricket Plus.  So the net session quickly became a photo-shoot.