“Nimda dozras tell me, hartabushkrakoi inumbumbla moinozukoluaka orukastha ninuohopizza shukua ....,” screams Kalakeya (Prabhakar), who invades Mahishmathi in Baahubali . Ever since the film released, Prabhakar’s phone hasn’t stopped ringing. He keeps his phone in mute as he narrates excitedly of how people all over the world have taken a fascination for the ‘Kiliki’ language and want him to repeat the dialogue in his inimitable style with weird sounds and slurps that punctuate his lengthy dialogue. The actor says that the dialogue was meant to be a secret and no one ever knew except his wife, Rajamouli and Rama Rajamouli. When on the day of shoot, the director screamed “Action’, everyone on the set was taken aback, shocked, and amused when he spoke, and they all took time to settle down.
“Not even Prabhas, Ramya Krishna or for that matter anyone had an inkling of what I was going to say. They must have expected me to say something in Telugu. I was standing opposite Ramya Krishna at the top of a hill, it was a long shot and all the stars were standing around me. Except for Rana, I knew none. When I started reeling the dialogue everyone burst into laughter and Ramya Krishna wouldn’t stop. Even after ten takes she would laugh and the director had to ask her to be considerate as I was screaming so much. My make-up and costumes, the way I looked was all strange. Prabhas came to me and encouraged me, he called his friends on the phone and told them to come over to listen to the Kiliki language. Sania Mirza and many popular people came over to listen to my dialogue. It was like a Jatara,” avers Prabhakar.
He has been a huge admirer of Nasser since he was in the 6th standard and remembers seeing Matrudevo Bhava . So when Nasser and Sathyaraj came up to the hill, patted him and told him that he did a good job, Prabhakar’s joy knew no bounds. After Maryada Ramanna this film gave him great satisfaction.
The extremely tall and reticent actor says he overcame his shyness after completing 40 films in Telugu. He credits his wife for all the encomiums coming his way after the release of Baahubali . He says, “She would wake up at 3 in the morning and make me memorise and rehearse my dialogues till 6 am. Then she would make me do it in a zig zag pattern ..the sixth dialogue first, the third and then the first and then she would ask me to recite the fourth…all this helped my confidence. I would have no time to practise later in the day as I would be shooting for some other film. Memorising dialogues on some other movie set was a huge risk, what if the secret language got leaked? I heard that local newspapers in Jammu and Kashmir, Bihar and in UP have carried a news item on my language. I feel good that none could dub my dialogues and I speak with my voice for all the languages in which it was released. I had to pull one eye down and keep it that way the entire day. The make up would take two hours.”
Prabhakar says he is indebted to Rajamouli for giving him a break in the industry. So much so that he has even named his child S.R. Rajamouli. Incidentally R stands for Rama, Rajamouli’s wife.
