Annavru Cried Watching Shivarajkumar's Jogi Performance, Recalls Prem

Sandalwood movie "Jogi" which was a huge box office hit about fifteen years ago became an unforgettable experience not only for those who worked in the movie but also for those who watched it. And for director Prem, it is a very special movie.

The movie clocked 15 years and the Kannada director had some interesting stories during the making of Jogi to share. The movie had earned 30 crores about fifteen years ago, which is equivalent to 300 crores in the present day. Gurukiran's music in the movie was a superhit and the audio rights of Jogi were sold for a whopping four crores.

While all the songs were chartbusters, one particular song, Beduvenu Varavannu penned by director Prem himself became an all-time hit and remained on top of the music charts for a long time. The song and the situation in the movie is a tearjerker. Another song on Bin Laden, Bill clinton and SM Krishna too was peppy and featured Yana Gupta.

Jogi explored the relationship of a mother and son. The movie dealt with a myriad of emotions—with a moderate mix of fun, Love, and rowdyism had made the movie a blockbuster. The movie not only created history at the ticket window from Day 1 but also rewrote box office history. While Shivanna aka Shivarajkumar performed the role of Jogi to the T, Arundathi Nag excelled and got a standing ovation in theatres for her performance as Jogi's mom. Interestingly, the movie was remade in Telugu as Yogi but failed to evoke the same effect.

In a recent interview, Prem unfolded the stories of making Jogi layer by layer. He says that one line story was made in just thirty minutes while traveling from the actor's (Shivanna) house at Sadashiva Nagar to Vijay Nagar. The story was based on real life instances from his own life.

The character of Arundhathi Nag is none other than that of Prem's mother Bhagyamma. "I had asked my mother not to break bangles (which is a custom in every Hindu family) after my father died. The desire the hero of the movie expresses to buy golden bangles to his mother was my desire in real life," says Prem.

"I hail from a Jogi family and all the traditions you see in the movie is practiced in our family. I converted the story of Jopadi Rajendra to link with my mother. The consequence the movie created was amazing. Children of many families reunited with their mothers after watching this movie. A son of a principal who had left home deserting his parents came back to live with his mother after watching this movie. AR Rahman had also called and spoken to me those days. Superstar Rajanikanth, Prabhas, and Salman khan had approached me to direct this movie. But I felt that nobody could bring out the expressions and emotions like Shivarajkumar. I fell at the feet of Rajanikanth expressing my non-availability and sold the rights to different filmmakers in all the languages.

"Dr Rajkumar who watched this movie became emotional and embraced his son Shivarajkumar and was seen sobbing for quite some time. He patted my back appreciating my efforts. I can never forget this incident in my life," says director Prem. But he always remembers and grateful to all those who worked for the success of the movie (Jogi) like music director Guru Kiran, Malavalli Saikrishna who penned the dialogues, and the cinematographer MR Seenu.

Shivarajkumar took to Twitter to thank his fans for showering him with their unconditional love and also released a CDP motion poster to mark the occasion.

Jogi was released on August 15, 2005 and featured Jennifer Kotwal as the female lead. The supporting cast included Ramesh Bhat, Kishan Shrikanth and Adi Lokesh among others.

The movie remains an unforgettable experience till date. And all the mother sentiment songs that came later in South Indian movies were inspired by the song from Jogi.