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