Magic of Ramoji Film City

Published in "Windows & Aisles", the inflight mag of Paramount Airways



Where the real and reel create magic ….. Ramoji Film City


One short of a score, we are family and friends from all corners of the globe, having descended upon the city of Nizams to attend the upanayanam (thread ceremony) of one of our friend’s son. Ours is a brief three-day stay in Hyderabad with two days for sightseeing. We decide to make the best of this and see just as many spots as we would be able to savour and enjoy well, rather than cram a back to back itinerary. Since we are a healthy mix of children, youngsters and adults, we decide on a day trip to Ramoji Film City (RFC) that promises fun for all.

On this August morning, the weather gods are rather accommodative and the fiery planet above dons his mantle of kindness, being mellow in spirit. We bundle into a mini bus we have hired for the 30km or hour long drive to RFC. The bus snakes its way amidst the city’s honking traffic until it hits the highway where vehicular flow has thinned down a trifle. Except for the wild cacophony that we create playing Anatakshari at its amalgamated and amusing best, featuring English, Hindi and Tamil songs, even whimsically translating them, the journey till we reach RFC is a lackluster one in terms of scenic landscape.

The transformation is dramatic as we alight from our bus at the entrance to the world of marvels and magic. Private vehicles are not allowed to go uphill to the main Film city. However, RFC’s special buses ply every few minutes from the main gate to the hotspot. Once up, visitors have the option of hopping on to one of the several colourful RFC buses that accord them a guided tour of the vast spread of exotic gardens and monumental structures. Of course, for those with a lot of time on hands, strolling in the surrounds and soaking in the ambience is a definite option.

On reaching uphill, we are held spellbound by what we see. London or Los Angeles, the Arizona army base or Agra’s pride, the Taj Mahal, it is all here at Ramoji Film city, a magical sprawl spread across 2000 acres. It does not take us long to sense that it is a place where reality merges with the illusory, where art, architecture and nature vie with one another to create aesthetics that it at once marvelous and technologically scintillating.

The English spring blossoms, the maple or Chinar of Kashmir, the Thai and the Japanese gardens, Mysore’s Brindavan Gardens, Delhi’s Mughul Gardens, the lush water-kissed foliaceous vegetation of the rainforests, are a visual treat as much as they evoke a sense of incredibility. Interspersed in the midst of this abundant verdure are the architectural wonders of the Mughul and other eras.

Eureka, a movie themed area with glittering shows, Bollywood style dancing, acrobatics, western cowboy shows, Meena Bazaar with its shopping, is an architectural reproduction of a bygone era. While it is the centre of tourist attractions, Eureka is also the start and end point of the guided city tour where one queues up for the vintage style tour bus.

We snake our way across ornamental bridges to enter the Mauryan magic and replicas of the glorious Mughal era with their respective restaurants, the Chanakya offering a pure vegetarian fare and Alampana serving cuisine characteristic of the royal house of Awadh or Oudh. We observe that Gunsmoke with its continental-style menu is an instant hit with kids and a host of young adults. Ganga Jamuna is a crowd puller majorly with ladies, it appears, offering traditional and South India vegetarian meals. We watch the process of movie-making, sound recording and post-production aspects of film-making and even Sholay’s Basanti, galloping away on a “horseless cart”, to O.P.Nayyar’s characteristic rhythm, with much awe and amusement.

We explore all there is to Eureka and its immediate surrounds before embarking on the bus tour. The tour guide Mr.Illiaih drones on as the bus takes us down the broad roads and alleyways of London’s Princess Street or New York’s Times Square or the gullies of Agra leading to the Taj, or of Amritsar taking you to its landmark Golden Temple. As we reach the Angel Fountain, he quips, “The specialty of this fountain is that if you go around it thrice in the clockwise direction, you’ll marry the love of your life, go around it five times in the anti-clock direction and the noose is off your neck!”

The film city’s outdoor sets include “national highways” with Punjabi dhabas, studio floors, state-of-the-art technology labs, centres of digital film facilities, hospitality centres, Kachiguda-look alike railway station, complexes storing props and period costumes, recreation joints, communication resources and a stunning array of equipment and gadgetry involved in film making. Particularly interesting is the four-in-one building, each facade of it containing either a university, hospital, church or airport with an aircraft ready to take you to any destination across the globe in five or less minutes and that too without a visa! Of course, you guess right, Munna Bhai’s General Hospital is right here at RFC into which his chum Circuit (Arshad Warsi) wheels in a ‘body’ for dissection!

Parade is veritably a museum, a gargantuan chest of objects from costumes that are typically Indian – rural and ethnic, to the foreign and furnishings and items of décor, yet again the native and the bombastic.

As we coast past MP Building (Multi Purpose Building), we realize how often we have seen it, perhaps as the school, college, university, haveli, marriage hall, or even as the Supreme Court in one or other Bollywood or Tollywood film. Yes, it served as the haveli of the Amitabh starrer Suryavamsham, the function hall of Mahima Choudhary’s Lajja, the setting of the song sequence lak lak Venkatapuram of Chandramukhi fme starring Rajnikanth. Our guide informs us that this five-storeyed building allows eight movies to be shot simultaneously without a hassle!

We decide to amble along the gardens of RFC following the bus tour. RFC appears to stretch away to the horizon, punctuated every few meters by a splash of vibrant colour. Yards of grassy verge dotted with flowering plants, is inviting. I am overwhelmed by a rush of emotions and I am no longer the adult squinting across a chasm of years at hazy events. Along with the bunch of kids that have accompanied us on this trip, I gingerly hop on to the grassy expanse, remove my footwear and thrill at the sheer feel of the soft green blades tingling the soles of my feet – a feeling long forgotten for the simple fact of being resident in metros that have become concrete jungles!

The romantic in my sister recalls a flashily attired Govinda doing one of his jigs around the Angel fountain, a plaster of Paris structure boasting Greek architecture. Yes, so many Bollywood scenes, we realize are straight out of RFC – we can almost visualize Govinda at his kurta “phaading” act, belting the number Mein Laila Laila nachunga kurta phad ke, prancing around the Umbrella Garden or the piece Oopar gori ka makaan, neechey phoolon ka dukaan, beech mein Govinda ka makaan from the Bollywood film Joroo ka Gulaam at the Sierra Garden. As if participating in some kind of a quiz contest on Bollywood, my sister reels on, citing several scenes from films where Govinda, Rajnikant and the whole gamut of stars have ‘regaled’ their audience with song and dance sequences.

Suddenly there is a rapturous squeal from my friend Radha, “Hey does this not look like the place where the Nirma Washing Powder ad has been shot!” So it is, the South African Hoodoo culture Temple Garden, as we learn its name later. Radha is smug in having made her discovery of the century! And then of course there is the Leg Garden, where Govinda probably did yet another of his comical waltz! Much to our disappointment, the Charishma Garden, usually in full bloom with flowers the colours of which, it is claimed, match the attires of the heroines prancing around it, is now brown earth with sprouting saplings. One of the gardens even contains the famed Suicide Point, a rocky promontory from where spurned lovers take the plunge to become ‘immortalized’! Yes, but in all honesty, no matter how ridiculous the scenes, the songs or the outfits donned by the film cast, the gardens, the fountains or the numerous structures at Ramoji, entrance us by their sheer grandeur.

Speaking in terms of film making, whether in terms of locales, landscape, ruralscape and cityscape, or in terms of technology, RFC doubtlessly is a single-window entry for aspirants who it is apparent, come here with dreams galore and go back with their scripts well canned and ready for release! The Film City has entered the Guinness Book of Records as being the world’s largest integrated film studio complex. For record buffs, the first film to be shot here was the Telugu film Mananakkupelli in 1996, the year RFC was opened. Bade Mian Chhote Mian, the Amitabh-Govinda starrer was the first Bollywood shot here the following year. Nightfall was the first Hollywood film to be shot here. For tourists who throng it in millions every year, the region is a visual delight, a magical weekend gateway for the entire family, replete and complete with star and budget hotels, restaurants and cafes catering to a variety of palates.

RFC is a welcome respite for our tired and fatigued minds, stressed out by the mundane pressure-ridden routine. As a grand finale to our visit, after watching the grand parade, we take a quick hop over to the rampants of Hawa Mahal to get one last glimpse of the grandiose and bewitching world, almost 80% of which is visible from here. A sense of rejuvenation envelops us in its blissful arms as we wend our way back to the humdrum of banality once again.

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