1983, Telugu, directed by K Viswanath

Here we tried to combine Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baje (1955) and Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959). Ilaiyaraaja did the music. A number of people helped me with the dance choreography in the film. The great Gopi Krishna was one of them. The film wasn’t just about dance, it was also very emotional. It had Jaya Prada who is not only very beautiful but gave a memorable performance. All the performances were very original because K Viswanath is very good with actors. He does extremely minute extraction of work. Many men started learning dance after Sagara Sangamam! All films wanted to have a climax like this film had. Even in later years, if it was showing on TV, K Viswanath would call me and ask, ‘Did we do it? How did we do it?’ It had music, dance, emotion – everything fell into place. We didn’t have the kind of budgets films have now, but even so...