A colloquial charm

Oh Baby!’s writer Lakshmi Bhupala admits he’s incapable of writing ‘punch’ dialogues; his strength being colloquial usage. His lines are usually smart and cheeky and earn wide appreciation. “I want people who saw the Korean film Miss Granny to forget they saw the original. For that I used Rajahmundry dialect. Since the urban audience and especially the youth have a tendency to get confused with such lingo, I made it sound a bit contemporary and maintained balance, says Bhupala.

Delightful duo

In Oh Baby!, Lakshmi plays a 70-year-old woman and Samantha who steps into her shoes as the story unfolds are on a rampage; they bring the house down with a clever mix of wild and mild expletives. The writer is clear about which age he was catering to and recalls a few scenes wherein Samantha lambasts a customer in a shopping mall for not breast feeding her child and buying milk powder instead. On another occasion Lakshmi thinks the fish curry needs some additional salt and lectures her daughter-in-law on how to make it. Bhupala says he even consulted his mother about this particular scene. He says, “About Lakshmi or Samantha’s ranting — remember, the one who is doing the talking is a 70-year-old woman and not a 20-plus girl. At that age one has no inhibitions, they speak their mind and at times to the point of being embarrassing to others. They have nothing to lose.”

The film is being lapped up by the young and old alike and is sure to have a repeat viewing. “When I wrote dialogues for Lakshmi, some of them were meant to be when she is sulking, confused and heart broken, I wondered how she would depict them. I was amazed at her work, she gave expressions that matched 100% to what I had on my mind,” says the writer. Growing up in a middle-class family, mostly surrounded by women folk, Bhupala has had many experiences in his life, which he transfers into his writing, he admits.

Samantha in Oh! Baby  

Currently Bhupala is working on a film with child artiste-turned-hero Teja who played Lakshmi’s grandson in the movie. There are two more films on the cards, one with Nandini Reddy, with whom he had earlier worked with in Ala Modalaindi and Kalyana Vaibhogame as well. To a question if he is being branded and categorised as rom-com specialist, Bhupala terms it unfair and cites films such as Chandamama, Nene Raju Nene Mantri and Mahatma, which belonged to diverse genres. In fact he had worked in over 50 films and all of them were different, he reminds.

High on improvisation

Signing off, he shares that right from the beginning when the film was offered to him, he made sure that emotions are taken to the next level, beginning from identifying what was lacking or less in the original to changing the backdrop of the film and extending Naga Shourya’s role. Jagapati Babu’s presence was a value addition that brought credibility to a fantasy.

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