KACHARAGADLA

Is the Indian film industry looking at a paradigm shift towards VFX or is it too soon? Kovvur is a nondescript town in Andhra Pradesh. With a population of barely 40,000, this town is housed in the extremely prosperous West Godavari district of the state. The town is not really popular on the national map and life is mostly uneventful for its residents. It was here that SS Rajamouli grew up and it is the abiding memory of every Saturday afternoon that remains etched in his mind. As a 10-year-old, Rajamouli would enthral his classmates with stories from the  Ramayana  and  Mahabharata . What is hard to forget from my early years is the rapt attention my friends paid to me during the story-telling sessions —   SS Rajamouli, director, Baahubali “I often narrated my own versions, where I would mix characters from these epics and also from the  Jataka Tales . It soon became a Rajamouli narrating session,” says the ace director, who is now 42. This became the fertile ground

S.S. Rajamouli’s popularity in South Korea was evident Sunday when “Baahubali: The Beginning” played at the  Busan Film Festival ’s Open Cinema strand where hundreds of Korean fans lined up for the director’s autograph and photos armed with the film’s posters and DVDs of “Eega.”  “Baahubali: The Beginning” released in July in India and Indian diaspora territories has grossed a massive $92 million. Rajamouli has already shot some 40% of  “Baahubali: The Conclusion” but hasn’t yet started on the rest because the team took some time off to bask in the success of part one. The sequel will commence shooting at the end of November at the film’s standing sets in Hyderabad’s Ramoji Film City and some forest sequences will shoot in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. Consequently, the release, which was scheduled for next summer, has been pushed back to the end of 2016. The final 35 minutes of “Baahubali: The Beginning” features an epic war scene that  has had audienc