Very rarely does a person other than the protagonist get to be known as the ‘real’ hero of the film — but Sai Madhav Burra stands out as a dialogue writer with immense talent and an insight into life as seen from the recently released Krishnam Vande Jagadgurum .
With a theatre background in Tenali, Sai Madhav grew up amidst talented theatre artists, primarily his parents. Now the dialogue writer is on cloud nine with compliments pouring in from all corners of the film industry. Talking of his break, he says, “My parents were stage artistes. I had worked in a serial Putthadi Bomma made by the producers of KVJ; director Krish spotted there and offered me this opportunity to write. All I remember about my life is doing nothing except watching drama and movies. I wanted to get a foothold in the industry, and I would participate in drama and also write for it. Voracious reading, exposure to and meetings with intellectuals connected to theatre and films fuelled my imagination. I did a lot of ghost writing; my guru Nuthalapati Satyanarayana taught me the basics of writing a script.”
Analysing the characters in Krishnam Vande Jagadguram , Sai Madhav says the characters are all born from the soil. The language they speak is ours. “The problem arises when we write dialogues for the heroes and not the characters, in KVJ we have treated each character with utmost importance and that is why Posani Krishna Murali as Tipu Sultan, Nayantara as Devika and Rana as B.Tech Babu look real. When you draw inspiration from life, the characters feel genuine. I must say that I saw myself in Rana because the theatre background of his character reminded me of my life. Yet I must add that given a script like KVJ any dialogue writer would have done a great job; I am just lucky to be in that place.”
He adds that though Surabhi had inspired him, he was in no way connected to tribals and the mining mafia. Sai Madhav’s writing clicked with the audience significantly because of his writing style. For that he gives credit to film writers Atreya, Paruchuri Brothers, Trivikram Srinivas etc who inspired him. “For commercial cinema, it is imperative that a small word should carry a large meaning. But that doesn’t hold good for all situations and characters. A dialogue for a court scene would be different, we can’t be concise. My mother gave me the best compliment for KVJ . She called me after watching the cinema and said I did a fantastic job; what touched her was that I had based the story on Surabhi theatre and the labour of a common man. I could hear her voice tremble in happiness.”
Speaking of his future, he reveals, “My next film is for Mahesh Babu, the script work and the pre-production work is on.”
