Lava Kusa

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Lava Kusa is a 1934 Telugu mythological film directed by C. Pullayya and produced by Motilal Chamaria for the East India Film Company in Calcutta. Based on K. Subrahmanya Sastry’s play, it tells the Ramayana story of Sita’s twin sons and is a milestone of early Telugu talkies: its songs were hugely popular, it ran for more than a year in some theatres, and it was one of the first Telugu films to reach rural Andhra on a wide scale. It was released on 22 December 1934. Pullayya, with his son C. S. Rao, remade it in 1963, with N. T. Rama Rao and Anjali Devi.

What the story is about

The film follows the last part of the Ramayana. Sita, banished from Ayodhya, lives in the forest, where she gives birth to twin sons, Lava and Kusa. The boys grow up without knowing that Rama is their father, and the story builds to the day they come face to face with him. For anyone who knows the epic, the outline is familiar; the film’s draw in 1934 was seeing and hearing it on screen.

Cast and crew

• Parupalli Subbarao as Rama
• Sriranjani Senior as Sita
• Master Bhimaraju as Lava
• Master Malleswara Rao as Kusa
• Parupalli Satyanarayana as Valmiki
• Eemani Venkataramayya as Lakshmana
• K. Nagamani as Bharata
• Madduri Buchanna Sastri as Vasishta
• Dr. H. V. Venkatachalam as Rajakudu

Director: C. Pullayya. Producer: Motilal Chamaria (East India Film Company). Dialogue and lyrics: Balijepalli Lakshmikantam. Music: Prabhala Satyanarayana. Runtime: 165 minutes.

Making of the film

Nine films in various Indian languages had already told this story, starting with R. Nataraja Mudaliar’s silent version in 1919. For this Telugu version, the poet Balijepalli Lakshmikantam wrote the dialogue. Sriranjani, a singer already famous on stage for playing male roles, made her film debut as Sita, and Eemani Venkataramayya was chosen as Lakshmana because he resembled Parupalli Subbarao, who played Rama. The film was shot in Calcutta, reusing chariots and sets from Debaki Bose’s Bengali film Seeta (1934).

Music

The film has 21 songs and 10 verses, with music by Prabhala Satyanarayana and lyrics by Balijepalli Lakshmikantam; some tunes were adapted from Seeta. The songs became so popular that they were sung as devotional hymns, and the Sun Recording Company in Kakinada released them on records. According to the film journalist Pulagam Chinnarayana, writing in his book Anati Anavallu, the practice of publishing song lyrics as booklets began with this film. It followed Sati Savitri (1933) as one of the first Telugu films with recorded songs, as Navatarangam notes.

Release and box office

The East India Film Company used the film to introduce “Single Star Simplex” projectors through a contract with the Chatterjee Bhupal Sound System in Calcutta. Lava Kusa was a major hit, running for over a year in some theatres; at Vijayawada’s Durga Kalamandiram the crowds made it feel like a festival. Wikipedia credits it with a then-record collection of ₹40,000, though it gives no source for that figure. The Indiancine.ma archive record notes its long runs and its wide rural release.

Where to watch Lava Kusa (1934)

We do not have a confirmed streaming listing for the 1934 Lava Kusa on file. If we verify one with a platform, it will appear on this page.

Sources: the Wikipedia article on Lava Kusa (1934 film) and the sources it cites, linked above; our own records.