Hotel Taj Deccan, Hyderabad, marked the venue for a fragrant, musical evening in the form of the audio launch event for the film Mallepuvvu. Produced under Sree Samudra Silver Screens banner by Sree Mohan Vadlapatla, the film directed by V. Samudra stars Bhumika as the female lead, while the male lead is a debutante Murali Krishna. Several showbiz personalities were seen at the occasion where the film's music director Music Maestro Sree Ilayaraja was the main attraction. Veteran lyricist Sree Veturi Sundararamamurthy penned all the eight songs in the album. Audio is marketed by Aditya Music.
Apart from the crew of the film and the lead pair, producers D. Suresh Babu, M.L. Kumar Chowdary, Dil Raju, Vakada Apparao, Raasi Movies' Narasimha Rao, Paras Jain, Ramanamurthy (of Thyagayya), directors Sagar, V.N. Aditya, Thammareddy Bharadwaja, N. Shankar, Harshavardhan, G. Ramprasad, Chandra Mahesh, artistes Nandamuri Taraka Ratna, Paruchuri Venkateswara Rao, Vallabhaneni Janardhan, Jayasudha, Roja Ramani, etc. were among the attendees. Financier Sunku Ramesh, B.A. Raju of Superhit magazine, and Aditya Music representative Umesh Gupta were also present. Jhansi presented the event with her impressive anchoring, requesting everyone on the dais to remember Late Sobhan Babu who starred in the yesteryear hit film Mallepuvvu. Jasmines showered Sobhan Babu's photograph at the dais as everyone paid their homage to the great artiste. Trailors and music teasers of the movie followed.
Speaking on this occasion, Paruchuri Venkateswara Rao revealed that nearly every director and hero that debuted through their movies became successful and quoted some examples of some of the attendees. Sree Thammareddy Bharadwaja complained cheerfully that Samudra took the title Mallepuvvu that was originally registered by him, and added that he's not sad about it since Samudra made a good movie. V.N. Aditya thanked Samudra for acting in his film Rainbow and commended the director's work for Mallepuvvu. Dil Raju and Paras Jain said that Ramesh Varma worked for all their movies as a publicity designer and commended his work for Mallepuvvu too. Suresh Babu recollected his experiences as a producer when he worked with Ilayaraja gaaru in the past, and commended that Ilayaraja was one of the finest technicians ever that he worked with! He said that whenever they had a recording at 7 a.m., Ilayaraja was always there by the time anyone else reached the location before 7 a.m. and the recording would also be completed very promptly.
Male lead Murali Krishna expressed his joy to have worked with the music magician in his debut film as a hero, and thanked Bhumika for being a cooperative and friendly co-star though she was much senior. Bhumika's was one of the finest speeches of the evening. Starting her speech in Telugu, she first invited people behind the successes of the artistes - cameraman Anil Bhandari, Deepa, and designer Swamy - onto the dais and thanked them, adding that those are the people that deserve applause for the way they project the artistes. She remembered her association with Smt. Jayasudha in her debut film Yuvakudu. Jayasudha spoke about her film career of 38 years, wherein she was in the classical dilemma - "To be or not to be" (in the filmdom) - for 35 years! She also recollected the memories of the yesteryear film Mallepuvvu that she acted with Late Sobhan Babu.
The highlight of the night was not just his presence and his music but also his speech - that's what the audience would have thought when Ilayaraja spoke. He was jovial all through, and spoke in Telugu completely. The modest creative artiste humbly elucidated, "You cannot make music. It should happen! ...I don't know music and that's why I am still trying to compose and let more music happen." While saying this, he also expressed his dislike towards some music directors (clearly mentioning that he is not taking any particular names and is talking generically) that claim they "did" this kind of music or that, or that they "did" innovative music! "What new musical note can anyone create?!", he wondered. He explained that Ramesh Varma approached him earlier for the latter's debut film and asked him to compose music for the film, but that he refused without any serious thought. Later again, Veturi gaaru called him, he said, and said that an youngster would come meet him to request his musical score, and that it was Ramesh Varma again, for Mallepuvvu.
He called up on Ramesh Varma and asked him to continue his side of that experience. Ramesh Varma said that after Ilayaraja gaaru agreed, he met the maestro and narrated the story and that they planned five songs in the film. However, Ilayaraja gaaru himself suggested more situations for songs, adding that they could make the album with eight songs instead of five. And, Ramesh Varma revealed that Ilayaraja had composed all the eight songs in just one hour!
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