It’s been exactly 10 years since S S Rajamouli made his debut as a director. He began his career as an assistant to K Raghavendra Rao and over the years he has established himself as one of the most successful Telugu film directors of all time. After directing a TV serial, Shanti Nivasam, Rajamouli made his debut as a director with Student No.1 under the supervision of K Raghavendra Rao. The film, which had Jr.NTR in lead role was made under a budget of Rs 2 crores and it turned out to be a critical and commercial success and gave a new lease of life to Jr.NTR’s career. However, it was Rajamouli’s second film, Simhadri, which catapulted his fame to greater heights. After that he made films like Sye, Chatrapathi, Vikramarkudu and from the budget of Rs 2 crores for his first film, by the time he directed Yamadonga, the budgets increased to more than Rs 20 crores and the returns were even higher. In 2009, his film, Magadheera turned out to be a box-office monster which smashed all existing records and still remains as the biggest hit in Telugu cinema’s history. Currently he’s directing a big budget fantasy film, Eega which has Nani, Samantha and Sudeep in lead roles.
He often collaborates with M M Keeravani, Vijayendra Prasad, Rama Rajamouli, Kalyani Malik, Kotagiri Venkateshwara Rao, Ravinder and Senthil Kumar for his films and he has received the Nandi Award for Best Director for his work in Magadheera. Popularly called as Jakanna in the industry, Rajamouli is a brand today and films with his ‘stamp’ promise to be high voltage action entertainers. He has already announced that his next film after Eega would be with Prabhas and it’s likely to be another mega budget period film. Let’s see what sort of trump card he’s going to pull out this time.
