At his new office and home at Srinagar Colony, Kalyan Ram is a picture of contentment. He prefers to brush away talk of a recent fracture he suffered. While addressing the media, he is seated with a huge poster behind that shows him as politician dressed in white, greeting people, seeking votes. The tagline says Manchi Lakhshanalu Unna Abbayi .
Kalyan emphasises that politics is just a tiny sub-plot and there is more to the story directed by debutant Upendra Madhav. “You will notice the character sketch of the protagonist in the title itself. There is no definition for manchi lakshanalu , it is all about possessing good qualities. Generally whatever the protagonist does is good but here the hero does something and realises he made a mistake, then solves the problem. The film starts as a love story though.”
Kalyan Ram in a still from Manchi Lakhshanalu Unna Abbayi
In the trailer we see Kalyan Ram telling the villain, “ Natho potike bhayapadthunnaru antey nenu gelichinattey kadha annaiyya (that you are afraid to even compete with me implies I have won, brother)” . The scene is about polling; it is about how the hero enters and changes the scenario of a politician who has been ruling the village for several years. The topic of education is also dealt with as Kajal makes a statement about the importance of education — Pillalu ki aasthulisthe bathukutharu kaani chaduvuni isthe yelagaina bathukutaru (Give properties for your children’s survival, but give them education and they will survive no matter what happens).
Ask him why the entire plot has been revealed in the trailer, Kalyan explains, “If we show a gist in the trailer, people will be prepared and say that we gave them what was conveyed to them, they weren’t cheated. Because Upendra Madhav is basically a writer, the dialogues came out well. A half page content can be conveyed in one line if a writer becomes a director and as a writer he had his unique style. My dialogue diction has changed as he did not accept my style of dialogue delivery. He had something in mind and made me do it that way; he made me imitate Rajinikanth in a scene. . He likes entertainment, so we made it entertaining.”
The debacle of Ism at the box office helped Kalyan Ram improvise on his craft. It helped him in overcoming inhibitions in expressing himself and gave him a lot of ease. In MLA , he changed his over all appearance too.
Kalyan Ram is happy in his role as a producer too, he is clear that he will never produce a film that makes the audience regret watching. As an actor he will never cross some other producer’s budget but might take the liberty if it is his own production house. He reveals that he will do a multi-starrer this year.
As for his brother Tarak, their conversations mainly revolve around films — how good and bad they were in the scenes — and sometimes cars since both of them share the passion. After the teaser of MLA was released, Tarak apparently called him and spoke of how mature he looked and that he liked the way Kalyan Ram sat on the chair and says a dialogue. “I am in a happy state of mind and space right now, I will be doing better films and interesting ones soon,” he signs off.
