Paruva Ragam

Premaloka/Paruva Ragam
DVD cover
Directed by	Ravichandran
Produced by	Ravichandran
Written by	Ravichandran R.P.Viswam (Tamil dialogues)
Starring	Ravichandran Juhi Chawla Leelavathi Lokesh
Music by	Hamsalekha
Cinematography	R. Madhusudan
Edited by	K. Balu
Distributed by	Sri Eshwari Productions
Release date	1987 (1987)
Running time	147 minutes (Kannada) 141 minutes (Tamil)
Country	India
Language	Kannada Tamil
Budget	₹75 lakhs
Box office	est.₹7 crore

Premaloka / Paruva Ragam (Kannada: ಪ್ರೇಮಲೋಕ) (Tamil: பருவ ராகம்) (English: The Melody of Age) is a 1987 bilingual musical romantic film written and directed by V. Ravichandran making his directorial debut and also produced it under Eshwari Productions and was made simultaneously in Kannada and Tamil, the latter as Paruva Ragam. The film stars himself in lead role alongside Juhi Chawla who made her acting debut. Vishnuvardhan, Ambarish and Tiger Prabhakar made guest appearances in the film. The soundtrack was composed by Hamsalekha. The film's screenplay was adapted from the film Grease 2 released in 1982 including the tracks Back to School Again as Geleyare Nanna Gelathiyare- Hogona Collajige and Who's That Guy as Yaarivanu. Starting out as a flop, the film went on to gross over 9 times its budget.

Cast

• V. Ravichandran
• Juhi Chawla
• Leelavathi
• Jayachitra
• Mukhyamantri Chandru
• K. Vijaya
• Vishnuvardhan in a cameo appearance
• Ambarish in a cameo appearance
• Tiger Prabhakar in a cameo appearance
• Lokesh in a guest appearance
• Urvashi in a guest appearance
• Manorama as Thayamma
• Thyagu
• Jai Shankar
• Cho Ramaswamy in a cameo appearance

Production

The film marked the directorial debut of V. Ravichandran.^[1] For the lead actress, Ravichandran rejected 52 girls before choosing Juhi Chawla as the heroine.^[2] Apart from composing music, Hamsalekha has also written lyrics for all songs and dialogues for the film.^[3] When Ravichandran was mulling over the theme of the film, Hamsalekha suggested him to do a musical script on the lines of Sound of Music and Grease 2.^[4]

Vishnuvardhan, Ambarish and Tiger Prabhakar made guest appearances in the film.^[5] Jolly Bustin who went on to become a stunt master worked as a body double for Ravichandran.^[6][7]

Soundtrack

Hamsalekha composed the music for the film and also penned the lyrics for the soundtrack. The soundtrack album consists of eleven tracks.^[8] The distribution rights were bought by Lahari Music for a hitherto record price of ₹150,000.^[9]

The music and the songs in the film were widely appreciated and created records in the audio cassette sales during the time.^[10] Tulsiram Naidu (Lahari Velu) of Lahari Audio, says, "Premaloka continues to be the biggest hit among film music albums in Kannada cinema. Back then audio rights were sold for a pittance and nominally paid ₹100 or ₹1,000. With Premaloka things changed and rights began to be sold in lakhs".^[11] The lyrics of the soundtrack also received acclaim from critics.^[12]

Box-office

The first few days of the film was bad at the box office. In fact, for the first three weeks, the film was considered a flop. But slowly, the film gained due to word-of-mouth publicity and repeat crowds. From the second month onwards, the film started getting houseful shows. The film rewrote history books and skyrocketed the careers of Ravichandran and Hamsalekha.^[13]Meanwhile the tamil version also got released and went unnoticed.

Legacy

One of the songs, "Nodamma Hudugi," was reused by Sundeep Malani for his Kanglish film SMS 6260 featuring Diganth, Kiran, Janu.^[14] Hamsalekha would go on to compose music for many more Ravichandran films.

Premaloka was dubbed in Telugu as Premalokam. Juhi Chawla recalling her experiences stated that "My 45-day shoot for Premaloka ensured that going on the set of Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak was a cakewalk. The other good thing about Premaloka was that the team was young, so it was like college buddies hanging out. [..] Since the film was a musical, it was like a party on the set. The only senior person there was our cinematographer. I fondly look back at my stint in Kannada cinema during my early days as the foundation for my career in Bollywood".^[1]

References