The following article was written for MyInd MakersMyInd Makers. Pasting it here for reference:
On June 8th, 2024 we woke up to the news of the passing away of Ramoji Rao. I was immediately reminded of a tweet I posted in the year 2013 about how Ramoji Rao had a profound daily impact on pretty much every Telugu family for nearly 3 decades through the many companies he ran.
For many decades, his newspaper, Eenadu, that translates to “Today”, was part of a daily routine of lakhs and lakhs of families. The decent language the paper used; the different sections that the paper introduced so that they can cater to various sections of the audience; the Sunday book (that is still a rage amongst the Telugu audience!) – all have endeared the newspaper very much to households across the state. His open support to the Telugu Desam Party ever since the launch; his support to Chandrababu Naidu during the coup against NTR; his vitriol against YSR – all of these have failed to mark a big dent in the popularity of the newspaper. It is really no wonder that Eenadu has remained the largest circulated Telugu newspaper for decades now.
Ramoji Rao’s advent into the television industry was also equally game-changing. For decades, ETV has retained a fan base that any other channel would be envious of. ETV has turned news-reading into an art; and their 9pm news continues to remain as popular today as it was when they launched is nearly 30 years back. There are no cacophonous discussions on ETV; there is just simply news delivered in a packed 30 minutes with excellent language (biased, ofcourse, but that isn’t the point of this article). Watching the 9pm news on ETV is still a routine that many families in the Telugu states follow.
ETV produced and hosted the most popular music reality show – Paaduta Teeyaga – roughly translates to “I will sing sweetly”. Frankly, to lakhs of families, this was not a reality show. It was an emotion. We all know how much drama is unnecessarily added to music reality shows today. Paaduta Teeyaga was the complete opposite of that concept. Hosted by the indominatable S.P.Balasubramaniam, it still continues to evoke the same emotion as it did when they started it. SPB himself has mentioned the role Ramoji Rao played in the formation of this program. On similar lines, Ramoji Rao’s team designed another musical show – Swarabhishekham – where every Sunday evening, a 3-hour musical extravaganza lay in store for the audience. Music legends, directors, producers, heroes etc were invited and their songs were performed on stage and then honoured. Lakhs of families were glued to this program, come Sunday evening, for many years!
Likewise, there are many such programs that ETV not just pioneered but became a part of household viewership and family bondings. Such bondings happened only with Doordarshan before, and perhaps Star TV for a brief while. In contrast, ETV continues to remain a channel that the entire household will happily sit and watch together.
Years before establishing the newspaper Eenadu, Ramoji Rao established Margadarsi Chit Fund company. It was against this company that the YSR government filed a criminal case against (in his first term), trying to bring the empire down. As an aside, even before social media came into existence, lines from ads of Margadarsi were very popular amongst common folks!
Ramoji Rao also established Usha Kiran movies and produced some really good movies on this banner. This production house wasn’t producing movies frequently, but has produced award-winning movies. Once ETV came to life, the production house slowly moved into producing serials.
Ramoji Film City is yet another fantastic feather in his cap.Today, almost every family either visited it or wants to visit it atleast once. Hundreds and hundreds of movies have been produced by various language industries in Ramoji Film City. The contribution of the Film city to film making in India is simply extraordinary.
A lesser-known aspect of Ramoji Rao’s empire are the Priya pickles! Yet again, lakhs of households have some Priya pickle or the other that forms part of their kitchen.
While there are ofcourse many big business empires that create products and make life easy, there are a very few empires that become part of your routine in life. Reading and discussing the Eenadu paper was one such routine for lakhs of families. Watching programs on ETV with the entire family gathered around it, was another such routine. A picnic to Ramoji Film City is another memory many families have added to their lives. Ofcourse, Ramoji Rao is not a perfect person. But it would be unwise to reduce his legacy to the happenings of the past few years. He has created something that has impacted generations in the Telugu states. And for that, hope he travels well into a different world now.
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