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by Jayampathy Jayasinghe

The tea garden

Visiting Ramoji Film city in India was a unique experience mixed with excitement for many of us who hadn't visited a film studio before. Located on the outskirts of Hyderabad and an hour's drive from Hyderabad, it is one of the biggest film studios in the world with a landscape of 2,000 acres, the brainchild of Shri Ramoji Rao, an Indian business tycoon who owns the Ramoji Group of companies.

Ramoji film studio offers a glimpse into the world of entertainment. Entering the studio was like entering another world with all the eye catching things that you see around, its wide boulevards and beautifully laid flower gardens, buildings etc. Ramoji is a sprawling complex of mass contradictions, mysterious and magical. You simply cannot believe what you witness there as everything appears to be so deceptive, especially the makeshift railway stations, banks, churches, temples, palaces, created by renowned architects, art directors, designers. An ideal place for film makers with its picturesque locations, beautiful gardens etc.

Visitors are usually received at the main entrance near the Vijayawada highway and transported in special buses to a place called Eureka inside the film city. Without much hassle we managed to drive in straight to the film city.

There are two star class hotels inside the studio complex known as Sitara and Tara offering special packages to holiday makers and honeymoon couples.

The red jumbo bus that took us around.

Sitara is a five star hotel with 154 rooms including eight suites and four royal suites where celebrity stars and VIPs check into the hotel.

We checked into Tara, a three star hotel with 126 rooms where excellent Indian and western cuisine was served. After lunch we assembled at Eureka and boarded a jumbo size red colour painted bus with open windows specially designed to take visitors around the film studio complex.

The bus took off from Eureka with a guide at the scheduled time. Soon he began peppering us with minute details all about the film city. One of the biggest film studios in the world in terms of its landscape was built by Shri Ramoji Rao. The bus stopped at a railway station where the name board read as the Mumbai railway station. It was a fake railway station. Parked near a platform were several stationary railway carriages minus the locomotive. The carriages were made of hardboard and the wheels were made of tyres. During filming the carriages were pulled along the track with the aid of a tractor. "It is incredible but true," says our guide.

Our next stop was at a typical English residency with several apartments built close to each other. The walls of these apartments were painted in white and the roofs were painted in red. Each house had a neatly trimmed lawn giving the atmosphere of an English town. The guide says the houses can be demolished and replaced with another set of houses to suit a particular location, when a director of a film wants it that way.

Maya the magic centre.

As houses are made of hardboard it is not a difficult proposition to do so. Several blockbuster films have been shot in Ramoji city" the guide tells us.

While strolling in the Ramoji's Japanese garden we came across a man with two young boys dressed in colourful costumes seated in the corner of the garden.

He was a puppet dancer par excellence who skilfully danced his Indian doll to the tune of the song sung by one of the boys while the other played tabla. The audience gathered at the open air show was so enthraled that some people stayed back to witness the event once again, gathered near them.

We were then ushered into a cinema hall in the shape of a rocket. We had to climb a small ladder to get inside the space ship.

Once inside, we were told to fasten our seat belts as the rocket was to take off to another planet. Before long our chairs shook violently as if it was going to throw us up but we firmly held on to our chairs. The cinema screen in front of us showed us that our rocket was travelling at a tremendous speed through mountain gorges and valleys. It was probably a nerve wracking experience to those with weak hearts.

Our next stop was at a typically old wild western city where three fugitives dressed as cowboys make a valiant attempt to blow up a bank and rob its money. However their attempt is thwarted by the vigilant sheriff and the outlaws are captured.

The play ground around Hotel Sitara.

The biggest event in the calendar last October at the Ramajoi city was the world chess championship. Grandmaster Ananda was defending his world chess title against other Indian chess players.

Ananda, a chess wizard living abroad had arrived in India a couple of days ago prior to the tournament and his photographs were splashed in most newspapers along with his wife. He was defending his title against other leading chess players but the world famous Russian grandmasters were not present on the occasion.

Several distinguished invitees including the Chief Minister for Andra Pradesh ChandraBabu Naidu and VIPs were present at the inauguration of the tournament.

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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