19th October 2004
Sanjose

Hi all,

I am one of the local exhibitors for the film, Sankar dAdA MBBS in San Jose and it has been a great experience for me to be a part of the San Jose's Chiru fans' hungama during the last weekend at IMC6.

I am an ardent Chiru fan since the days of kirAyi rowDeelu (in my 6th class) and the favoritism soared up with Chiru's subsequent movies and with my age and it culminated with yamuDiki moguDu, Gang Leader etc during my B.Tech days in late 80's and early 90's.

When I got an opportunity to share the distribution responsibilities with Raman (who is the major local Telugu movie exhibitor in San Jose), I immediately grabbed the chance and I was very excited to do the job. We did an aggressive campaigning for this movie with an unprecedented fervor and enthusiasm and a few people who witnessed it complimented us that this kind of advertisement was never done before for any Telugu movie (like printing Chiru's Sankar dAdA T-shirts, sending mails to Indian group aliases in all major Silicon Valley companies, distributing about 1000 Sankar dAdA fliers in Silicon Andhra's Silicona Palli tiraNAla celebration, getting the ad in idlebrain.com for about three weeks, and posting movie posters in most of the local Indian grocery stores etc) in USA.

Large number of people (more than any of the previous Telugu films screened here) showed for the last 15 weekend shows (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) in San Jose. The fans' hungama and the long lines at the theatre entrance raked up my nostaligic feelings of watching movies in Chirala, Chilakaluri Peta and Vijayawada during my school and intermediate days.

On the Friday night in all three shows, the fans' response to Chiru's magnificent screen-presence was mind-boggling. It was uncontrollable on Friday night to control the thronged crowds at the gates. We proved time and again that the Chiru mania in Silicon Valley is peerless and boundless in USA. Srikanth also did great in the movie and I respect his graceful acceptance for such a small role in the movie. When another mega brother, Pawan appeared for a few seconds on the screen, the fans went out of control one more time.

But for a bhAshAbhimAni like me, watching helplessly some songs sung by non-Telugu singers with horrible accent and pronunciation was like a thorn in a delicious fish curry. The only other film person I adore (even more than Chiru) in my life is SP Balu and sadly I don't see any of his songs in the movie. One sincere request to all actors (including Chiru!!!!) is to kindly remember that there is an aksharam called "melika Sa" in our Telugu language and not to forget it completely by replacing it with "sha". This way, I see only Rajendra Prasad (my only another all-time favorite hero apart from the mega brothers and Sr. NTR) in the film industry is not yet bitten by "sha-kaaram".

I express my special thanks to Raman for letting me be a part of this whole fun and to Jeevi for posting this letter on idlebrain.com.

Best Regards,
Srinivas Chimata
Newark, CA 94560.