My Days with Baasha: The Rajnikanth Phenomenon Book Launch

The book titled ‘Basha Tho Nenu’ written by Suresh Krishna (director of Rajnikanth’s blockbuster films ‘Annamalai’, ‘Veera’ & ‘Baasha’) was launched on Thursday at Film Chamber in Hyderabad. The book was penned by him in Tamil and English. The director wrote about his experiences with the superstar during the making of the three movies. The same book was translated in Telugu by writer Rajendra. Darsakaratna Dasari Narayana Rao graced the function and released the book. Other prominent guests in the function were Sagar, Prasanna Kumar, Ediga Nageswara Rao, Relangi Narasimha Rao, Rajendra Kumar, Sanjeev, Ashok Kumar, Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao, etc.

Soon after launching the book Dasari Narayana Rao said, “Parachuri Brothers have penned a book titled ‘Memu Ma Kathanayakulu’ which told about the heroes they worked with. Now Suresh Krishna did something similar to them and I appreciate it. I will not call it book as a great script. But nevertheless, he did not write about an ordinary person. All film industries have universally accepted him as superstar. I witness his magnitude. He is the man who will be remain in the people’s mind as long as the cinema is alive. No stardom is greater than superstar. Suresh wrote about his off-screen experience with Rajni in this book. The generation today may not require this book. However it will definitely be valuable for the future generation and create history after 50 or more years. There are many great personalities in the film industry. But they have become clueless. Therefore these kind of books must come more in numbers. I’ve been writing a book for the past 5 years. I’m going to reveal few facts about the movie industry through this book, but it won’t hurt anyone.”

About the Telugu film industry he said, “Sometimes I’m not able to understand in which direction our film industry is going. There are so many people in the industry who hardly have any knowledge on technical aspects of the film. People who do not know about story board are speaking about story board. It appears like we have learn from them. Technology has grown vastly but most of them in our industry are not aware of how to utilize it. I’ve given the opportunity to those who have approached me for small roles. But the same stars feel low to offer respect. We have stepped into the industry without footwear while some have come with golden spoons. Rajni is the only hero who had not changed at all. He is a down-to-earth person right from day one till today. It’s his greatness. Many old films to the recent Sankranti film, the screenplay and other elements were copied from ‘Baasha’ only.”

Suresh Krishna while speaking, “I earned good recognition only after doing 3 films with Rajnikanth. Those who recognize me wonder how I directed a film with Rajni. They used to shower questions about my work experience with Rajni. Hence I got the idea of writing this book. Rajni is the man who I saw him very close, a wonderful actor, with good wit and human tendency. I initially wanted to pen about our personal incidents during shootings and wrote the book in English and Tamil with the assistance of Malathi Rangarajan. This book will have several memories, jokes, chit-chats and many more. It also has many things which many are not aware of. At one point of time VV Vinayak and Puri Jagannadh suggested me to write the book in Telugu. Hence I immediately approached Rajendra with the idea of translating the book in Telugu. He also finished the work within the scheduled time. I’m very glad that my guru has launched the book.”

Sagar, Prasanna Kumar, Parachuri Gopalakrishna, director Sanjeev, Relangi Narasimha Rao, writer Rajendra and others also spoke about the book.