Very few people are credited with behind the scenes work. Fight masters Ram-Lakshman enjoyed a prolific career for more than two decades, composing Telugu cinema's most risky and memorable stunts. One of the twin brothers Lakshman aged 44, reminisces the first trial of strength, “A huge boulder was our first guru. It was lying in the middle of the village and people were pondering over removing it some day. We were 18 years then, we lifted it and threw it aside; that's when the villagers took note of our strength for the first time. The incident was a testimony to our willpower and confidence. We would take out the goats for grazing, and would be dressed in lungis; when the opportunity to compose fights for the movies arrived, we were delighted not because of the job but the chance to move out of the village and wear pants. Fight master Raju supported us and we bought trousers for Rs. 70 for the first time.”
It wasn't a big deal to get the membership card and turn into fight masters in the industry and soon they were awarded Nandi five times in a row.
The brothers from Prakasam district are still popular even after 23 years and are currently composing fights for all the forthcoming movies like Dammu, Rebel, Mahadeva Nayudu and worked for the recently-released Bodyguard .
Says Lakshman, “We love our work and shudder to think of any other job. As we aren't educated, we don't apply our minds on anything else. Right from our childhood we were interested in lifting weights or in karate, anything to do with the body. We might not have great finances but had enough milk, ghee and our grandmother would feed us butter. More than the food I guess we should have the will power to achieve anything. We are indebted to the industryespecially to Puri Jagannadh for giving us a break.”
Ram says with pride that they've never had any misunderstanding though they do quarrel and have heated arguments at work. He quips, “I want one shot and he wants another, I want the camera from below but he wants it from above, but that is for the quality of the scenes. Though we have been wearing identical clothes since childhood, once in a while Lakshman wears something different. We don't know our birthday but the villagers have given us a closest date to some incident; we never celebrate birthdays and feel that we should reach a stage where our achievements are remembered and people celebrate it.”
Lakshman avers that they are never apprehensive about struggles as they had faced it during their childhood. Did they ever regret coming to the industry? “When we left the village our grandmother said whenever we return we should return with unpolluted body and spirit and we promised her of staying away from vices. Once our guru insisted that we drinkand we refused, he was upset with our behaviour. But he understood us.”
He adds, we don't drink, smoke, don't eat much while working. Accidents are inevitable — once while shooting for a Tamil film I went into a coma for two years after an accident. My brother too fell off from a horse and was hospitalised for a month.
You can't get a thrill from regular work. We get up at 3.30 a.m. and do yoga and surya namaskars. We watch plenty of English films and update ourselves and compose fights depending on the body language of the actor and their character onscreen.”
Ram says the current generation of stunt masters live a fast life, think only about money, have no focus and are scared to put in effort. “They want immediate benefits and promotions. We should live for today, work hard and the rest will follow,” they conclude.
