View source for Dasari Narayana Rao

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[[Category:India |R ]]
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[http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31808&articlexml=Telugu-big-gun-who-left-imprint-on-Bollywood-31052017021017 The Times of India]

'''Avijit Ghosh: Telugu big gun who left imprint on Bollywood too, May 31, 2017'''

Dasari Narayana Rao was a premier and prolific writer-director-actor in Telugu movies but he was in reasonable demand in the Hindi film industry too, especially in the early 1980s.

Seventy-year-old Rao delivered at least two box-office winners: Swarg Narak (1978), a feelgood family drama, and Jyoti Bane Jwala (1980), a hardedged revenge yarn.

Rao -who was a Congress MP from Andhra Pradesh and served as the Union minister of state for coal between 2004-2006 and in his second term from 2006-2008 -had a gift for telling stories on celluloid in a compelling manner, irrespective of the genre. Most of his Hindi films were either social dramas or action flicks. But one of his most talked-about movies, Aaj Ka MLA Ram Avtar, was a political comedy starring Rajesh Khanna. Khanna played a barber who becomes a proxy chief minister and then uses his guile to pay back the crafty politicos in their own coin. The film was appreciated by critics, especially Khanna's performance, but failed to impress the box-office. Rao's choice of Khanna in the off-beat role was typical of the director.

Rao also had an ear for catchy music. Swarg Narak, for which he also wrote the story and screenplay , typified this. Composer Rajesh Roshan provided the film's score and two songs  `Nahi nahi koi tumsa hasin' and `Leena o leena'-rode the radio countdown chart. Later music director duo Laxmikant-Pyarelal became regulars in his films and reeled out a bunch of popular tracks. Jyoti Bane Jwala had `Dil dhadak raha hai', a rare Bollywood number where Mohd Rafi, Kishore and Lata come together.Even flops like Pyaasa Sawan had the soothing, semiclassical track, `Megha re megha re', `mat pardes jaa re' and Haisiyat, another box-office dud, had the playful `Daftar ko der ho gayi'.

Interestingly , Rao's Jyoti Bane Jwala was locked in a race with Prakash Mehra's Jwalamukhi to be released first. Both films, it was said, had the same story . Rao, who had a knack for finishing films in a jiffy without compromising on quality , won with ease. Jyoti Bane Jwala, starring the director's favourite Jeetendra, became one of the biggest hits of the year.Jwalamukhi flopped.

In the year 1984, Rao had a staggering 10 releases, including five in Hindi: Asha Jyoti, Aaj Ka MLA Ram Avtar, Yaadgar, Haisiyat and Zakhmi Sher. However, most of these films couldn't woo the cash counters. In 1985, he also made a film with Rajinikanth, Wafadar. That flopped as well. Thereafter, he largely stayed away from Hindi films barring exceptions such as Santan (1993).