Many Happy Returns of the Day Bapu

Bapu Biography

Sattiraju Lakshmi Narayana, also known as Bapu (born on December 15, 1933) is a filmmaker in the Telugu film industry. He is also a popular artist, painter, cartoonist, and designer.

Early life and background:
Bapu was born to a Telugu Brahmin family in Narsapur, West Godavari district, Andhra Pradesh, India.

In 1955, he graduated from the University of Madras with a degree in law. Bapu worked as a political cartoonist for the newspaper Andhra Patrika in 1955.

Career:
Painting:
Bapu introduced a painting style of simple bright colors. His unique style consisted of economy of strokes, freehand drawing and a lack of background clutter.

His paintings focus on Hindu mythological characters, and he has painted the Hindu epic Ramayana as a pictorial story. His character portrayals, such as Shiva, Bhima, Duryodhana, look distinctly male with wide chests, large jaws and large biceps; while Krishna and Rama are more feminine in build. All his female characters have doe eyes, a waist-hip ratio of 0.7, voluptuous breasts, long hair and a sharp nose. The phrase Bapu Bomma ("Bapu's painting") has become synonymous with a beautiful Telugu girl. Another character called Rendu Jadala Seetha ("Seetha with two plaits") became a synonym for any girl wearing her hair in two plaits.

Bapu has also introduced a new style of cursive writing in Telugu. The font is his own handwriting and reflects the same simplicity as his art.

Cinematic style:
The most notable achievement in Bapu's movie making is his success in capturing the nativity of the Telugu people and translating it into visuals. His movies center on realistic family issues and relationships, however his recurring theme is magic realism, with vignettes of mythological characters aiding in the narration.

Most of his movies have a female protagonist; a breakaway style from the formulaic movies that relegate female lead characters to song and dance numbers. His penchant for preserving the Telugu nativity in his movies can be seen in the choice of artists, especially the dusky female leads and weak villains.

Collaborations with other artists:
He worked with Satyam Sankaramanchi and drew 101 pictures for each of the stories in Amaravati Kathalu. Bapu is one-half of the Bapu-Ramana (Mullapudi Venkata Ramana) pair that made movies in Telugu cinema. Ramana provided an able foil, providing script and dialogue to suit Bapu's visuals. Bapu collaborated with Ramana to give life to Ramana's character Budugu in the form of pictures. Through his movies he brought to focus renowned artists such as Ravu Gopal Rao, Rajendra Prasad and Aamani.

Trivia:
Bapu designed the collection of saris used in the 1991 movie Pelli Pustakam.

Awards and acclaim:
Bapu was awarded the Raghupathi Venkaiah Award by the State Government of Andhra Pradesh for his "outstanding contribution to Telugu cinema" in 1986. He shared the award with his partner, Mullapudi Venkata Ramana.

Bapu was conferred with the prestigious Raja-Lakshmi Award in 1982 from Sri Raja-Lakshmi Foundation, Chennai.

The Telugu literary work Koonalamma Patalu ("Poems of the common folk") says the following in praise of Bapu:

KonTe Bommala Bapu,
Konni Tharamula Sepu,
Gunde OOyala-loopu,
O Koonalammaa.

meaning, Bapu's paintings sway the heart for generations.