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The Telugu society has lost an accomplished artist, filmmaker and humourist on Sunday. The 80-year-old Sattiraju Lakshminarayana, popularly known as Bapu, passed away in Chennai, the city that was home for him and his long-time friend Mullapudi Venkata Ramana, for over half a century.
He is survived by a daughter and two sons. His last rites will be held in Chennai on Tuesday.
The duo made some of the memorable works in Telugu literary world and film industry. He directed 51 films in Telugu, Tamil and Hindi. Ramana passed away three years ago, leaving his friend for almost 70 years alone. A loss Bapu could not cope well. People close to him said half of him was gone with Ramana’s demise.
Friends from their Class V days in a Chennai school, both the friends started their careers as journalists, before joining the film industry. Their work Budugu (penned by Ramana and art work by Bapu) was one of the top rated literary work in Telugu.
Bapu directed mythological and social genre movies, with his friend Ramana taking care of the writing part for majority of the films. Some of his films Mutyala Muggu, Pelli Pustakam and Sampoorna Ramayanam were big hits too.
Known for depth and detail, his scripts reflected male chauvinism and untold sufferings of women. He would draw sketches for all the scenes with minute details of the expression of artistes and sets.
A great artist, Bapu’s sketches, portraits of great Telugu personalities and paintings were part of Telugu culture. His portrayal of a typical Telugu girl was so popular that people would often describe a beautiful girl as ‘Bapu gari bomma’.
Bapu’s handwriting evolved into a popular font named after him. It is the first choice of journalists for giving headlines for human interest stories. Scores of Telugus imitated his hand-writing for decades.
Bapu’s social cartoons, which reflected subtle humour in middle-class families, were very popular. He changed the way people made cover pages for Telugu fiction and illustrations for short-stories.
Sriramarajyam (Balakrishna, Nayanatara, Akkineni Nageswara Rao) was his last directorial project, the film he completed with his friend Ramana not around.
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