Veteran Telugu writer, Ganesh Patro passed away in Chennai on January 5 after a long battle with cancer. The 69-year-old film writer was best known for his decade-long work in the Telugu film industry and also for his association with director K Balachander, whose films Mr Patro wrote dialogues for. The duo collaborated on all of KB’s Telugu movies, the most notable being Maro Charitra, Rudraveena and Idi Katha Kaathu. Kavithalaya Krishnan, a close associate of the writer told us that Ganesh Patro was ‘KB’s Telugu voice’. “KB wasn’t very comfortable writing in Telugu even though he could speak the language well. This is where Ganesh sir stepped in. Both of them had an easy working style, and were very close. His passing, just a couple of weeks after KB sir, has saddened us all even more.”
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Pushpa Kandaswamy, daughter of KB, recalled Ganesh as a man who shared her father’s passion for storytelling and who had a ‘way with words’. “He was a frequent visitor to our home, but over the past few years, his ill health prevented him from coming over. We all feel lost now.”
Actor Chiranjeevi, who starred in Rudraveena, paid tribute to the prolific writer and said, “It’s extremely sad that we’ve lost another member of our industry to cancer. Ganesh Patro was a prolific writer and his dialogues for my film Rudraveena will stay in my memory forever.”