Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Nityananda Swamy inspires T'wood charecters


Poking fun at the notorious Swami Nityananda has now become a popular pastime as he is being turned into the butt of jokes in Tollywood flicks. The sexual adventures of Swami Nityananda and actress Ranjitha, after being this year’s most sensational piece of news, are now a sought-after ingredient for slapstick comedy in Telugu cinema.


While actor Rajendra Prasad is playing the lead in Ayyare with a humorous Nityananda ‘look’, comedians in Telugu movies are having a rollicking time spoofing Nityananda by playing fake babas in movies.



Comedian Venumadhav played a broad caricature of Nityananda, Papaji Baba, in Snehageetham, to giggling audiences. Now filmmaker Sudarshan Rao is making a movie, Babala Bhagotham on how absolute nobodies turn into saints overnight.
Filmmakers say all this is being lapped up because audiences love spoofs, especially those on ‘naughty’ swamis like Nityananda.
Explains Snehageetham director Sreedhar Reddy, “Audiences enjoy spoofs on popular personalities. In our movie, the comedian Venu Madhav takes sanyas after all his career plans fail. Nityananda’s incident was widely known due to all the news reports and so the sooner we cash in on his popularity for comedy, the better!”
Actor Rajendra Prasad’s hilarious Nityananda avatar in Ayyare is already the talk of the town.



Its director says that he zeroed in on the final look for the actor after a series of photo-shoots and that the ‘Nityananda curiosity’ will surely work box office wonders for them.
“We tried 12 different looks for the actor. But this Nityananda look was the best. It adds to the curiosity-value too. Politicians and powerful people pray to him. It deals with the psychological aspect of Bhakti and instant babas,” says Ayyare director Sagar Chandra.



The movie is slated for release in December and stars Sivaji along with Rajendra Prasad. Actress Kalyani is likely to play the heroine. The films is packed with punchy dialogues like — ‘It is not khaki uniform or khadi uniform that’s ruling the country but the kashayam (saffron attire) that administers the nation.’




Filmmaker Sudarshan Rao is co-directing Babala Bhagotham with the Nityananda incident as the backdrop. “The movie shows how swamis like Nityananda betray the public’s faith in them. Our intention is to ask the audience not to blindly believe any so-called holy man who gives them ash. The film will show how the actress got close to the baba, how he absconded, and how the cops eventually found him,” says Sudharshan Rao.