For that matter the name of hero Nani’s father is Rambabu. And you can get a lot of comedy out of that name. I used Rambabu as it is most common and domesticated name. I realized that he is a born star when I saw him in Takkari Donga film. A four year girl was mouthing dialogues of Pokiri in her impeccable style. I remember an incident while I was traveling in a train. Mahesh is one hero who goes beyond age, gender and religion. And I made it more contemporary by keeping it as ‘Mahesh’ since most of the girls are in love with hero Mahesh. I took that play as inspiration and tweaked it to the girl’s point of view. And a girl called Gwendolyn is blindly in love with the name ‘Earnest’. He is fed up of that image and wants to change his lifestyle by coming to London and enjoy the life to the fullest by changing his name to ‘Earnest’. It is about a village lad called Jack who has a clean and idealistic image in his small town. It can’t be adapted to Telugu film because it is a satire on British upper class. I read it out of interest though it was not there in our syllabus. I read it when I was studying my BA Literature at Loyola College in Vijayawada. It was a satire on the British upper class in the era of late 1800’s.
I read a play written by Oscar Wilde called ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ (this play was later remade in Hollywood with the same name in 2002). � 5 questions to Mohan Krishna Indraganti
