Oh, what a heartless, stern and objective judge, time is! Give anything a little distance, in time, the layers of attachment, fondness and likeability peel away gradually revealing the near true nature of it eventually, allowing for an objective assessment of the same!

Oh, what a dear, reliable, and consoling friend, time is! It carries with it a soothing sandpaper by its side always, constantly smoothening out the rough edges of the past, stubbing out the pokes and stings, the pains and the scabs, allowing for a very fond view of whatever has passed on! (there's even a name to it, Nostalgia)

Heads of state who had a tough time in office having taken unpalatable decisions during their tenure, for this very reason, invoke the phrase "let history be a judge" to justify their actions. (Good) Movies that haven't quite garnered the goodwill of the public at the time of their release, for this very reason, are often lauded with a backhanded compliment that they were "ahead of their time".

"jagadaeka veeruDu - athilOka sundari" is truly a miracle of sort, having checked all the three boxes above, and elevating itself into that rarefied strata of motion pictures reserved to a just handful - the ones that become generational affairs, the ones whose likeability grows with age, the ones which become family heirlooms.

The maker:
Raghavendra Rao had no business making this movie at all, so much that this movie has been made with such tenderness and care, that was never evident in his works before JVAS, nor was he able to repeat it in any ones after. In fact, JVAS is the best devotional movie made by Raghavendra Rao, far surpassing the other ones he had in the Piety genre years later, for the sensitivity he had displayed tackling the material and the reigned in sensibilities, which always overboard with him. Raghavendra Rao is loud, JVAS is not, Raghavendra Rao caters to the lowest denominator, JVAS aimed high, Raghavendra Rao deals in tent-poles, JVAS is content being niche. Just what made him set aside his usual instincts, the flowers and the fruits, the navels and the navels, the loud and the brash, and instead truly understand and play within understated tone of the movie, inspite of its ethereal concept, one can never know! JVAS is a befitting reply to Speilberg's "ET", another extra terrestrial bonhomie fare, capable of matching it beat for beat, rhythm for rhythm, heart for heart. JVAS's true achievement comes into relief, considering the ultra commercial era it was released in, particularly in the telugu filmdom, where movie was just star vehicles, aimed at catering to their bases and every song, dialogue, event and treatment were in service of the star. JVAS was certainly a galaxy full of stars - theatrical and technical - on screen and behind the screen, but it wasn't a star vehicle of anyone in the slightest sense.

The writers:
Jandhyala and Veturi are the two main pillars that shoulder the major weight of the movie. Truth be told, it is Jandhyala's words that really ground the movie, giving it a sense of respectability, words that have still endured the changing tastes and evolving sensibilities. Dialogues like "అధరములు అదిరిపోయే అగ్ని పుట్టినది! అమృతము లేదా ఇంట?.... అమృతమా? బయట దుకాణంలో దొరుకుతుంది, తెచ్చేదా?", "వృద్ధ మానవా? ఈ మార్గమున ఒక మానవుడు, నలుగు శిశువులు వెళ్ళి ఉన్నారు, నీవు కానీ కాంచితివా?" and (the entire Crazy Mohan's contribution to the movie) the characters of SI and Constable maa lOkam, and their catch phrases "ఎక్కడికి వెళ్ళావు రా మా లోకం?.... ఎక్కడికో వెళ్ళి పోయాను సార్!" are stuff of generations. More than the rib ticklers, it is the kids' words and the sentimental situations where Jandhyala's pens truly shines, without getting too saaccharine in either case. Unlike his own movies where he went out of the way to generate comedy, Jandhyala stays in the moment and caters to that situation with just what was required. There is one other movie to comes to mind, a supposedly funny movie that really has no funny dialogues per se, but has a truck load of quotable ones, "Missamma". Jandhyala channels Chakrapani's matter of fact-ness here and the results are a bunch of light hearted memorable fare, just what was called for, for this otherwise subdued affair.

JVAS lives on in people's hearts, minds and lips, in Veturi's lyrics. "అందాలలో అహో మహోదయం", "యమహో నీ యమా యమా అందం", "అబ్బ! నీ తీయని దెబ్బ!" and the pick of all "ప్రియతమా! నను పలకరించు ప్రణయమా!"... One cannot understate the role songs used to play in the overall success of the movie back then. Repeated viewing of the movies happened because of songs. Mass exodus of repeat audience from the auditorium at the end of the last song was a regular fixture. The instances of movie running solely because of songs was more than the norm than the exceptions. And for a movie to generate the talk of having good songs, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THE SONG had to be good, not just a number here and there. And Veturi doesn't disappoint here. When there's only a situation to cater to, not anyone's image, when the language was afforded the space to go beyond of the realms of the ordinary, catchy and mass-y, words like "మిల మిల హిమాలే..జలా జలా ముత్యాలుగా.... తళ తళ గళానా... తట్టిలతా హారాలుగా" breathe life.

Music:
On the other side of the coin of Veturi's words, with his inimitable notes, is Ilayaraja, the true soul of the movie. The songs aside, which will continue to live on for the next few generations on their own, the background score, sans his usual richness in big bidget fares, finds its charm in its austerity. Again, this was the era when fast paced music - the breaks and the shakes - already seeped into the film music idiom, thanks to the rise of the amazing duo Raj-Koti, dishing out dance-friendly beat ooriented electronic music. With great dancers for its lead pair, when the music of JVAS was released (before the movie), it was a major disappointment, as there really were really no "dance songs", no thumping beats, no instantly catchy grooves - the album was just a bunudle of melodies. It was the time when Ilayaraja reigned supreme in Tamil and Telugu, and having him score for a movie meant simply going to his studio and bringing back the basic tunes in an hour's time, no questions asked. How the producer and director would have felt, being given 6 melodies of near non-danceable music (except probably, "యమహో నీ యమా యమా అందం") for a movie starring the then current dancing greats of the silver screen, and having no say about it whatsoever, makes a great origin story of a absolutely amazing album! It could not have been any other way... And those 6 melodies made JVAS what it truly became - an enduring allure!

Chiru:
Movies that both preceded JVAS and after it, had Chiru still scaling the heights of superstardom and consolidating his position as the dancing gift to the telugu screen. Music directors catered their music to the bend of his dancing muscles, and stories had to have the room to accommodate his acrobatic agility in dance (fights were only secondary). Any movie that tried to defy this convention bit the dust, and there was nary a movie of Chiru during that era that didn't have all 6 foot tapping numbers. A Chiru movie still failed despite having good music, but no Chiru movie succeeded without good music in it. Such was the expectation of good music in his movies. And from there, to just walk around and lip sync to "అందాలలో అహో మహోదయం" or shun his usual jet age dances, and instead just amble and sway gracefully to "అబ్బ! నీ తీయని దెబ్బ!", or have a context driven "ప్రియతమా! నను పలకరించు ప్రణయమా!" as its bow-out number of the movie, when the convention was to end the last song of the movie on an adrenalin high, Chiru made the greatest gamble in his career with JVAS, lessening himself, sharing the space with his costar, play within the confines of the movie, and the sincerety of his dedication and performance paid off quite handsomely. JVAS showed Chiru the way of how a star is made not when he operates outside the confines of the script, but when he submits himself to it staying within the boundaries of it, a simple rule that he so successfully applied a couple of years later in the movie that really propelled to stratospheric heights... "Gang Leader"

The coming together of everyone, the going against everyone's grain, the curbing of all beaten tendencies, into making a true selfless product, yes, JVAS was truly a socio-fantasy!

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