Retrospect : Padamata sandhyaragam

G. Subbarao Presents
Pravasandhra Chitra
***image3***Padamati Sandhyaa Raagam (1987)

Technical:
35 mm
Color
Reels: 14
Duration: 2 hrs 15 minutes
Release Date: April 11, 1987

Cast:
Vijayashanthi ... Sandhya
Tom ... Chris
Sivamani ... Ronald
Gummuluri Sastry ... Adinarayana
Meer Abdulla ... Ramarao
Seshagiri Rao ... Seshagiri Rao (Ice cream shop owner)
Vijay ... Ganapathi
Ashajyothy ... Sudha
Sudheshna Reddy ... Anitha
Sutti Velu ... Natanalayam Manager
Sudha ... Lakshmi
Ravi Chitturi ... Doctor Ravi
Other Cast: Johnson, Godman, Elizabeth, Bindu, Jyothy, Baby Rohini, Vijay Kothari, Bhushan Rao, Rama Sastry, Seetha Sastry, Mrunalini, etc.
Lyrics: S.P. Balasubrahmanyam, Sadashiva Brahmendra Yogi, Annamacharya, Veturi Sundararamamurthy
Playback: S.P. Balasubrahmanyam, S. Janaki, S.P. Sailaja
Music: S.P. Balasubrahmanyam
Asst. Music Director: Srinivasa Murthy
Asst. Director: B.S. Nishtala
Co-director: U.V. Paani
Camera: Diwakar
Producers: Gummuluri Sastry, Meer Abdulla
Story, Screenplay, Dialogues, and Direction: Jandhyala

Songs:
pibarE raamarasam
Lyrics: Sadashiva Brahmendra Yogi
Playback: S.P. Balasubrahmanyam, S.P. Sailaja
Cast: Gummuluri Sastry, Vijayashanti, Ashajyothy, Tom

Life is shabby without you baby!
Lyrics: S.P. Balasubrahmanyam
Playback: S.P. Balasubrahmanyam
Cast: Sivamani, Vijayashanti

muddu gaarE yaSOda mungiTa mutyamu veeDu...
Lyrics: Annamacharya
Playback: S. Janaki

ee toorupu aa paSchimam...
Lyrics: Veturi Sundararamamurthy
Playback: S.P. Balasubrahmanyam, S. Janaki
Cast: Tom, Vijayashanti


Story:
Adinarayana and his wife and daughter move to the USA to join the former's younger brother Ramarao who's already in the USA. A Caucasian American, Chris, and an African American, Ronald, both of who live near Adinarayana's house, fall for his daughter Sandhya. Sandhya becomes friends with them both, and when both of them propose to her the same day, she approves Chris's love. Knowing that her dad is too traditional, eccentric, and orthodox to approve their love, Sandhya elopes with Chris and they get married. Adinarayana doesn't have a choice than to silently witness the happenings, but when he has a granddaughter, he takes her back to India and settles there, intending to bring her up in a traditional Indian environment, and away from the foreign lure that snatched away his own daughter. As a grownup, Sandhya's daughter hates her dad Chris, assuming that he was at fault and was thus disapproved by her grandpa. Chris and Sandhya visit India when Adinarayana passes away, and that's when their daughter realizes that her dad was not bad and repents for that ill feelings she bore all those years, thus accompanying them to the USA.

***image2***Gummuluri Sastry speaks...
We invited the 'Sankaraabharanam' unit to the USA when I was the President for a Telugu Association in 1980. When I visited India in 1984, Sandilya suggested that we should do a star nite with the Anandabhairavi team as the movie was a great hit then. But, as the lead artistes like Malavika and Girish Karnad may not attract the people in the USA, I suggested that we could possibly announce the main show to be the musical nite by SPB instead of a star nite, since it was Manju Bhargavi's dance and SPB's songs that attracted people when we brought the Sankaraabharanam team. Thus, we brought them all to the USA, and organized shows in 22 locations in the country, and they were all successful!

...When the idea of making a film came up, Jandhyala gaaru suggested a star cast of Balakrishna, Suhasini, Velu, etc., but we wanted to shoot mostly in the USA and wanted to use NRI artists as much as possible, and we thus dropped that idea, as Jandhyala gaaru joked that even his "baavamaridi" would not watch a movie with such new faces! However, I insisted that I'd produce the movie in his direction only if he chooses local artistes, but I said I'd leave the choice of artistes to him. After mulling over for about a month, this story shaped up. Initially, my role had only one dialogue, but after seeing me in that shot on the very first day of shoot, an impressed Jandhyala gaaru developed my role so much that I became the main artiste in the film! Before acting in this film, I acted in about 15 films (Among them, his screen debut bhakta SiriyaaLa was dubbed into Telugu, and his straight Telugu film was deeksha. The rest were mostly Tamil.) So, I was not new to acting in films, in fact! However, I was only playing serious roles on the stage until this movie happened!

...We all acted well, but the total credit of the success of the movie should go to Jandhyala who handled it all well, and even penned the comedic dialogues!




***image4***Meer Abdulla speaks...
Way back when I was still in the college, I wanted to make a good film. I came to the USA as a student, and I met Gummuluri Sastry gaaru who was already here. ...Eventually, when I met Jandhyala gaaru, it materialized! I was just married at that time, and we were roaming with the troupe as a part of our honeymoon! She got a dependent visa after the film was released.

Though Suhasini was considered for the heroine initially, Vijayashanti bagged the female lead role in the film. I played the role of Babai to Sandhya, and Sudeshna Reddy played my wife. By the way, all these actors were professionals or housewives. Velu was supposed to do an important role in the film, but due visa problems, he was unable to attend the shooting in time, and thus he ended up doing a small role in the flashback.

The film's title was suggested by SPB. Other people suggested titles like Andhra aavakaaya - America pizza, etc. but when SPB suggested the title paDamaTi sandhyaaraagam, everyone liked it instantly! Jandhyala presented SPB with $116 as a token of thanks.

Initially, an upcoming artiste was finalized to do the hero role opposite Vijayashanti. But, at the last minute, he got an offer from Hollywood and he left to Los Angeles. Tom, who was just graduating with a Drama major then, was selected in the last minute. Born on January 19, 1969 in Baltimore, Maryland, he was only 17 years when he signed the film! He later went on to make his own name in the Hollywood, and is a hero even now in movies like Deep Blue Sea (which was also dubbed into Telugu as Mruthyu Sagaram). Famous drummer Sivamani did the role of an African American in the film. Again, it was SPB who suggested Sivamani for the role.

***image1***Jandhayala, and his wife, came to the USA along with the Anandabhairavi film troupe comprising of Sandilya, Siva, Seetha Devi, Mr. and Mrs. Madhavapeddi Suresh, Sailaja, etc.. When they were in USA, some NRIs requested them to make a film and that is how the film's idea was born. Initially, America-Andhra Combines was considered the banner's name, but later "Pravasandhra Chitra" was chosen. After this, they planned to record a song and booked a recording theatre in Washington, D.C.

S.P.B, who was already in the USA with the troupe, was chosen the music director and the song they recorded in Washington was pibarE raamarasam... The interesting thing about this song was that S.P.B used Steve Wonders' "I want to say I love you" song beat on piano for the lead and then goes on to the violin. The song was already very popular as Mangalampalli rendered it previously, and a few "cinematic" changes were made to his version.

About the songs...

pibarE raamarasam... was rehearsed at Ashajyothy's place. (Even some scenes in the film were shot at her house). Incidentally, this was the first Telugu song to be recorded in the USA. Hiring an orchestra troupe would be very expensive, they thought, and thus used the same people who came for the tour: Srinivas Murthy (music director for Maa Aavida Meedottu Mee Aavida Chala Manchidi, now assistant to A.R. Rahman) was the violin arranger, Sivamani (drummer), Suryanarayana (flute), Madhavapeddi Suresh (acoustic piano keyboard), Prasad (tabla) Raja (rhythm box), Saluri Vasu Rao (bass guitar), Joseph (guitar), etc. played the orchestra. They completed the song in flat three hours and it costed around $1000 (Madhavapeddi Suresh was highest paid in the troupe, at about $200 back then). According to Madhavapeddi Suresh, it is the best song of SPB under his own music direction in Jandhyala's combination. Though they planned to record the rest of the songs also in USA, they moved base to India as it would be more easy on finances.

Life is shabby without you baby... requires a special mention as a song that was written and appreciably sung by by SPB with an Americanized accent. (It is the second English song written by a music director, after P. Adinarayana Rao's Happy New Year... in Alluri Seetarama Raju.)

muddu gaarE yaSOda... was shot in St. Louis Botanical Gardens and Hare Krishna Temple in Wheeling. Jandhyala saw this cute kid and wanted to dress him like Krishna, but the kid was very naughty and used to throw the flutes and never used to cooperate to the shots, a couple of hundreds of celluloid was shot on him testing the patience of the crew. Jandhyala thought creatively and let the kid do what he wanted, shot all his antics, and edited the shots to match the lyrics, which came out perfectly.

ee toorupu aa paSchimam..., Balu's personal favorite, was shot near the St. Louis Arch, Pittsburgh Temple and downtown, Washington Memorial Park, and on roads of USA. After watching the songs, Bapu gaaru complimented Jandhayala gaaru.

Dubbing:
Sutti Veerabhadra Rao dubbed for Gummuluri Sastry, though Sastry had a good voice and suitable modulation, he didn't get a leave in the last minute as he already used his vacation time for the shooting. Jandhyala himself dubbed for Meer Abdulla's character, while Potti Prasad dubbed for Seshagiri Rao, Subhalekha Sudhakar dubbed for Vijay, and Dubbing Janaki spoke for Ashajyothy. Yesteryear heroine Saritha dubbed for Vijayashanti.

Shooting:
A 16-member crew came from India. The film's shooting started on August 3, 1986 and continued for next 45 days in Chicago, Washington D.C., St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Niagara, Wheeling, New Jersey, etc. Some shots were done at NASA Space Center also with much difficulty. Plans to shoot in Disneyland were dropped as it was impossible to get permission in the last minute. While shooting near the Merlin University, the local cops thought that the unit was trying to convert people into Hinduism! The unit had hard time convincing them. Many people commented about the shooting in USA, but that was inevitable as the film revolves around the love story of a girl settled in the USA! Almost all the crew worked in all departments. There were some glitches with people's inexperience showing up as they took several takes for each shot, some female artistes wanting to wear silk sarees only in the film, etc., they were all trivial ones. Most of the film was shot in a friend's house to reduce the cost. Also, we had a few cooks exclusively in order to reduce costs. The film costed around 25 lakhs and was released on April 11, 1987. The film was not just a great commercial success, but it also gave a lot of name and fame and critical acclaim. In fact, we got 50% return of investment even before the first print was done! Also, the distributor in Ceded zone (Rayalaseema), who bought the movie for 3 lakhs, made 30 lakhs with his film! The film is played every now and then in Telugu TV channels such as ETV even now.

Highlights:
This is the first film that was shot 99 percent in the USA. Also, other then Vijayashanti and Sivamani, the rest of the cast was completely people who lived in USA then, which was also first time in Telugu. Another first is that an American actor played the hero role in the film. Jandhyala received the Best Story Writer award for that year. (Adivishnu helped him in script and his name appears as special title card with thanks.)

Awards:
Nandi Award from Andhra Pradesh Government for Best Story (1987)
Filmfare Best Film Award (1987)
Seven Awards from 'Kalasagar'
A lot of other awards from local organizations big and small, and praises from all section of cinegoers

Article by Sri
Compiled and Edited by NaChaKi
Acknowledgments: Meer Abdulla, Gummuluri Sastry, and Pulagam Chinanaranayana