Some films age better with time despite their indifferent response at the box-office during release. Bapu-Ramana’s Bangaru Pichika was one such, the 1968-release turns 50 this year. The typical Mills and Boon trope of a rich boy falling for a poor girl, K V Mahadevan’s lilting tunes and controlled performances by its lead cast Chandramohan and Vijaya Nirmala, makes for a good watch today. A screening of the film commemorating its 50th year of release and the 87th birthday of writer Mullapudi Venkataramana was organised at Santha Auditorium, Sunshine Hospitals recently.
The lead actors shared their memories surrounding Bangaru Pichika through video bytes. Vijaya Nirmala had mentioned, “Mullapudi garu being a good friend of my father, I always enjoyed being on his sets, it never felt like another day of work. Bangaru Pichika came to me at a time when I was busy with multiple shifts in Malayalam, Tamil and Hindi films. I even remember fainting at the hotel premises while shooting for Bangaru Pichika.”
Meanwhile Chandra Mohan who had done seven Telugu films when he took up the project added, “I was getting a lot of offers to be a second lead then in plum projects. I still picked Bangaru Pichika over them, as it was a solo hero role. I knew Mullapudi garu well, he was well-known in Vijayawada literary circles. We completed the film in one schedule of 25 days in Hyderabad. It takes some luck to see my film complete 50 years, I wish the legendary duo was around to see this day.”
At Mullapudi’s reading session in Sunshine Hospitals
Bangaru Pichika was Bapu-Ramana’s second film together after Saakshi. The duo had retained many actors from the earlier project including Saakshi Ranga Rao, Vijaya Nirmala, Raja Babu and Vinnakota Ramanna Panthulu (also a popular writer).
The story is about Raju (Chandramohan), trying hard to emerge from the shadows of an overbearing, rich mother. Compelled by his father, Raju flees home to find his true calling and fend for himself. Realising this, a group of villagers hatch a plot to honeytrap Raju using a cash-strapped girl Radha (Vijaya Nirmala) as their pawn.
How Raju and Radha fall for each other, realise their true identities and escape the criminal gang makes for a predictable ending.
Arudra had penned all the songs in the film, Oho Bangaaru Pichika, Nidura Po, Manase Gani being the popular ones. Jandhyala had opined the road-movie was ahead of its time, for its idealistic story of a rich son trying to come out of his cocoon and finding his identity. This prompted Bapu-Ramana to remake the same film in 1994, with Naresh and Divya Vani titled Pelli Koduku. In both cases, the film didn’t perform commercially well and wasn’t in tune with the times. Yet, the 1968 release is widely believed to be the better version of the story and is popular on television.
The film screening at Shanta aurditorium was followed by select reading of Mullapudi’s works. The event was attended by a Bapu-Ramana family member and publisher Vara Prasad along with Bnim, Jhansi and others.