THE DASARI, How To Describe?

Any soul that starts it's divine abode many of us start recollecting the past memories of the human form. Try to correlate and see how we enjoyed their presence and how much we miss the person.

You may know Dasari Narayana Rao as a director of 151 movies and other statistics that have been thrown at you by many people. But any man cannot be become great just because of the numbers. You need much more than that, so what made Dasari Narayana Rao, The Dasari? 

Answer is simple, his Conviction, Competitive Spirit and Compassionate Nature. How you say? Read on then.. 

Conviction is the key for any talent to raise above the mediocrity and strike the treasure. Love of anyone person cannot be earned just because you can convince them, but you need to be lot more than that. You need to be convinced from your side that what you're is how people should see you and treat you. That's when you earn the respect. Dasari Narayana Rao earned the respect of many because of his conviction towards his work. If you see his movies, you can say that he is the director who believed in writing than shot making.

To state an example for his conviction, as a normal employee and a theatre artist he was happy with his life. But when YN Krishnayya knocked his door continuously, he entered the film field and on first day of shoot he was demoted to assistant comedian and was insulted as poker face by makeup man. 

He didn't run back to his comfortable life. Became a writer and when an actress Suryakantham asked him to change the line, he did not adhere. He sternly stood on his ground. The entire team of the movie tried to convince him to change the line. He offered to quit but did not obey the command.

At another instance, he even made SVR, the man known as lion in Industry to go back on his words. SVR, didn't like to deliver a huge monologue and asked him to reduce it. The director now, refused to do so and the actor walked off the set. Nobody ran behind him and no one tried to stop him. The actor himself came back and completed the shot.

Also, if he believed in a principle in life, he lived by that. Many offered him to give into the vice of alcohol consumption, but he never did. When a senior writer like Vituri cursed him that he will never become a director if he doesn't drink, he just replied, "I will leave cinema but won't touch alcohol".. 

He had great competitive spirit too. When a man like him is sitting on top of the ladder in such a vast industry of opportunities there will be competition. He never lashed out on Bapu, K. Viswanath or K. Raghavendra Rao. When one of his assistants, condemned Raghavendra Rao, he trashed him. He asked him to respect his competition and sent him away. Such are his rules. Still, whenever K. Viswanath took a government award, Dasari Narayana Rao challenged himself to get one. If Bapu could win a National Award, then he desired that too. 

After Shankarabharanam, there was only one director in Telugu Cinema that could combine art and commerce. Dasari changed that, he made Megha Sandesam, Sivaranjani, Kalyani and many more films that had arts as the base points. Whenever K Raghavendra Rao delivered a blockbuster, he did too. 

If KRR with NTR gave a hit like Adavi Ramudu, DNR gave Sardar Paparayudu. If KRR gave Vetagadu, he gave Bobbili Puli. For Dasari the competition lasted only till the Friday, the movie released. He never took them to his home and formed groups against his competition. If there were producers who would only make movies with him, he requested them to make a movie others too. If an actor expressed dissatisfaction regarding any scene he sat hours on the set and at his office, to get the scene right by the end of the day. He never tried to betray a producer's trust and that helped him go far ahead in competition. 

To combat the problem of other language actors, he introduced 1,2,3,4,5,4,3, ... system. According to that any actress or actor is unable to deliver a dialogue, he would ask them to say the numbers and give them some words to say at the end of the line. He used to sit in front of monitor and write a monologue and dialogue that would fit the situation and lip sync.

When actress Rajani failed to deliver a monologue, he did this. This is his compassion towards producers. With multiple projects on hand, he never used to have time to write a bound script. 

During one day, when Sobhan Babu and Krishna, both busy actors came to set and started complaining about lack of script and shoot he came to the set failing to write a scene that satisfied him. Rather than asking them to leave, he asked them to change their dresses and walk in front of camera in different shots. Post that, when they asked for scene, he asked them to leave and took some additional shots of other actors. Both the bigwigs left the place but the next day, he gave them lengthy dialogues and meaty scenes to act. He wrote them without sleeping and finished off the script required for the schedule in one night. That's his conviction towards his work, compassion towards producers. 

Many listened to him because he was right. Many worshipped because he made up for all his shortcomings. He did fail in keeping his word but compensated it somehow. He did loose on family time but gave Telugu Cinema some memorable films. He is a great writer and not a great technician but he ruled the roost with iron fist because he had passion to achieve and desire to prove himself.