Telugu cinema - Jandhyala - great director of Telugu cinema

"Jandhyala garu" by Sreekanth D

14th January 2004

14th January is the birth anniversary of Sri. Jandhayala Garu. If laughter is the best medicine, Jandhyala is one of the best doctors. He (along with director vamsi) will be remembered for creating a trend of comedy movies. Before his movies, comedy was a small part of movies and comedians were sidekicks to the hero or villain. Jandhyala proved to the telugu film industry that comedy can itself be a full-length subject and achieved a great success in this endeavor.

Like many of his colleagues, he started his career on stage. He gave up a lucrative career as a chartered accountant and concentrated in the field of art and dramatics. A lesser known fact is that he was a poet and had a great command over Telugu literature. He entered the industry as a writer and soon became one of the leading writers. If he could satiate the mass by writing for movies like Adavi ramudu, he did his bit for the class by writing for movies like SankaraabharaNam, saptapadi, saagarasangamam. One good thing about him as a writer was that he never entertained any obscene language in his work and thus became affable amongst the class audience.

Direction was his next endeavor and his trade mark comedy attracted the class and mass alike. "Naalugu stambhalaata" introduced the "sutti-janta" to the industry and this marked the begining of a glorious journey for Jandhyala as a director. He is god father to various comedians including Brahmanandam, Dharamavarapu. He also gave a break to Kota for comedy characters with Aha naa Pellanta. EVV is from Jandhyala's school.

With "Sri vaariki premalekha", he showed the stamina of a telugu comedy movie. Made on a very modest budget, this movie became a big money spinner at that time. He repeated this magic with "Aha naa pellanta" that grossed around 3-4 crores in the initial run. He had numerous other hits in the form of "Vivahabhojanambu", "Choopulu kalasina subhavela", "Anandabhairavi", "Jayamu nischayamburaa", "Rendu rellu aaru", "Rendu jalla seetha" and above all "Padamati sandhya raagam".

He had mixed fortunes with top stars like Chiranjeevi and Balakrishna. Chantabbai with Chiru was a disappointment commercially, BUT its a personal favorite for chiru and also for his fans. This movie enabled chiru to win a lot of fan following among kids (at that time) including yours truly. For Balakrishna things were a lot better, Seetharama Kalyanam was a big success and Babai Abbai was a moderate success. His "Amarajeevi" with ANR won him a critical acclaim.

All his movies had a social message in addition to unlimited entertainment. Chantabbai dealth with orphans, Padamati sandhyaraagam had a message about "VASUDAIKA KUTUMBAM" and Srivariki Premalekha talked about a social evil called dowry deaths.

His movies are/were/will be enjoyed by all telugu movie lovers for their clean and humorous content. Even today we can enjoy the good old comedy of Jandhayala's movies. May his soul rest in peace.

A TELUGU MOVIE LOVER.