Happy Days

Happy Days is a 2007 Telugu coming-of-age musical drama written, produced and directed by Sekhar Kammula, following eight engineering students through four years at college. Varun Sandesh, Tamannaah, Nikhil Siddharth, Sonia Deepti, Rahul Haridas, Vamsee Chaganti, Gayatri Rao and Monali Chowdhary lead the cast, with music by Mickey J. Meyer. Released on 2 October 2007, it was a huge hit, won three Nandi and six Filmfare awards, and is widely regarded as a modern classic of Telugu cinema.

What the story is about

Eight very different students join an engineering course at CBIT in Hyderabad. Over four years they become friends and rivals, fall in and out of love, and work out who they are. The film captures campus life and the move into adulthood, and it famously inspired many young viewers to study engineering.

Cast and crew

• Varun Sandesh as Chandrashekar “Chandu”
• Tamannaah as Madhu
• Nikhil Siddharth as Rajesh
• Gayatri Rao as Aparna “Appu”
• Rahul Haridas as Arjun “Tyson”
• Sonia Deepti as Shravanthi “Shravs”
• Vamsee Chaganti as Shankar and Monali Chowdhary as Sangeetha
• Krishnudu as Bandodu

Writer, producer and director: Sekhar Kammula (Amigos Creations). Music: Mickey J. Meyer, released by Big Music. Runtime: 160 minutes.

Making the film

Kammula found seven of his eight leads through a talent search run with Big FM and Idlebrain; only Tamannaah was cast conventionally. Varun Sandesh was picked without a direct audition, after e-mailing his photo and then a video of himself acting a few scenes and singing. Most of the film was shot at CBIT, Kammula’s own college, and at MGIT; to win CBIT’s permission he arranged a screening of his earlier film Anand for its board. Casting newcomers, shooting on a real campus instead of sets, and a tie-up with Pantaloon that saved ₹10 lakh on costumes kept costs down, as Idlebrain reported at the film’s announcement.

Reviews and box office

Rediff urged readers not to miss it and to “savour that nostalgia”, and Jeevi of Idlebrain wrote that “if he sticks to his sensibilities, Sekhar Kammula can never make a bad film”. It was a major success: T2BLive puts its distributors’ share at ₹18 crore, and The Times of India still lists it among the director’s must-see films.

Awards and remakes

At the Filmfare Awards South it won Best Film, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress for Sonia Deepti, Best Music Director for Mickey J. Meyer, Best Lyricist for Vanamali’s “Arere Arere” and Best Male Playback Singer for Karthik; the Nandi Awards included Second Best Feature Film and Best Music Director. It was remade in Kannada as Jolly Days (2008) and in Tamil as Inidhu Inidhu (2010), both with Mickey J. Meyer’s music.

Where to watch Happy Days

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

Sources: the Wikipedia article on Happy Days (2007 film) and the reviews and reports it cites, linked above; our own cast and crew records.