The Expected Route : Ramya spends most of her time in airplanes : Ramya says she’s hardly disappointed.

Ramya spends most of her time in airplanes these days and whenever you call her she’s commuting to or from an airport. She sounded anything but disappointed when I spoke to her after the State awards were announced. “I’m definitely not disheartened about not winning, especially when I know that reasons other than the performance influence the decision. I’ve got used to being ignored. In fact a leading daily misquoted me and made me sound grumpy. Let me tell you I’ve won a prestigious award given by a leading publication which is selected by the public. That gives me more satisfaction.” Meanwhile she’s busy shooting in Chennai and Hyderabad for her Telugu and Tamil films. Gautam Menon’s “Vaaranam Aayiram” is fast nearing completion contrary to reports and the sought after director may sign her for his next film too. Back home her heroine-oriented starrer, “Meera, Madhava, Raghava” is slated for release today. Sneak preview viewers are gushing about the film and her performance. While prominent personalities are prematurely comparing director Seetharam to the one and only Putanna Kanagal, others are raving about Ramya’s acting and her looking radiant in cool cotton sarees.

None of the big stars figure prominently in the list of winners this year. That “Mungaaru Maley” would sweep the main awards was a foregone conclusion. It was refreshing to see Vijay winning the award for best actor for “Duniya”. It shows that the jury was not swayed by the craze generated by Ganesh.

I feel Satya Hegde’s cinematography in “Duniya” was superior to that of Krishna’s in “MM”. It’s a case of great locations being mistaken for good photography. In fact, the award should have gone to Ratnavelu for his brilliant work in “Cyanide”. On the whole there are not too many complaints and anyway no jury can be expected to satisfy everybody.

It was heartening to see Dwarkish being recognized. He was not a great comedian by any standards but has to be lauded for putting back all his hard-earned money into production. He won some and lost plenty, but had the last laugh with “Apthamitra”. Then there’s the genial Singeetham Srinivasa Rao who directed some good Rajkumar starrers and also gave us the inimitable “Pushpaka Vimana”. The jury has to be lauded for not considering him an outsider.

With “Sivaji” still going strong everywhere, it’s the turn of Chiranjeevi fans waiting with bated breath for their boss.

“‘Sivaji’ is doing well only because of the unprecedented media hype. Our boss needs no such help,” reiterates Boja, a die-hard Chiru fan who can rattle off mind boggling figures about his idol’s films. He’s already booked tickets for the first day, first show. The anxiety ends today with the release of the sequel to “Shanker Dada MBBS”.

Chiru has had a checkered success rate of late. The superstar seems to be preoccupied with his son’s imminent debut in an action thriller directed by Puri Jagannath. The surprise element in the superstar’s latest film is his sharing screen space with his sibling Pawan Kalyan. So is it “Shanker Dada” versus “Sivaji”?

Incidentally Rajnikant was a couple of years senior to Chiru in the film institute and both are the best of friends with mutual admiration and respect.

S.SHIVA KUMAR
sshivu@yahoo.com