Suddala Ashok Teja Biography 
Suddala Ashok Teja is a popular lyricist of Telugu cinema. He won National award for best lyricist in the year 2003 for his song Nenu Saitham in the movie Tagore. It was based on Sri Sri’s 'Nenu Saitham' from Mahaprasthanam. Teja's lyrics are full of verve with a subtle streak of aggressiveness and he has written about 2000 songs for movies. With National award he suddenly shot into fame. He was the third Telugu lyricist to win national awards. Chiranjeevi introduced him to its film maker, V.V. Vinayak and thus Teja got an opportunity to write lyrics for Tagore. Rest is history!
Suddala Ashok Teja was born a village in Nalgonda district to a well known Telugu poet, Suddala Hanmanthu. Ashok Teja’s father was known as a Padmashali poet (prajaakavi) of the Telangana Rebellion. He was a freedom fighter also. He wrote a single song for Telugu movie and the song - O paalabugga jeetaagaaDaa became immensely popular. Before entering film industry, Teja was a teacher in Bandalingapoor. But he used to write poems from his childhood days. After his father’s death, teaching profession was not sufficient to earn a living. At that time, his nephew Uttej - a well known character artist in Telugu films helped him to get chance in movies. The song Namaste anna, pictured on Kota Sreenivasa Rao and Tanikella Bharani, comically penned in telangaaNaa accent is Ashok Teja’s first song.
After writing the lyrics of films Osey Ramulamma and Ninne Pelladutha in the middle 1990’s, Teja didn’t look back and went on to become one of the leading lyricists of the industry. He has published a book called aakupaccha cheera, containing 108 songs. He has penned lyrics for movies - Ninne Pelladutha, Political Rowdy, Apple, Bobby, Bunny, Seenugadu Chiranjeevi Fan, Shiv Shankar, Ninnu Choodalani, Leelamahal Center, Subash Chandra Bose, Ayodhya, Sree, Sri Ramadaasu, Roommates, Jabili, Chandramukhi, Apthudu and Yagnam.
Published: N/A
Updated: January 10, 2014
