Aahana Swrup
Srikanth Bolla was the first visually impaired student to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and went on to become a famous businessman in India with his sustainable Bollant Industries. Tushar Hiranandani brings his story to the big screen with his biographical Hindi film, ‘Srikanth,’ in which Actor Rajkummar Rao embodies the on-screen entrepreneur. In the story, Srikanth’s character initially faces many challenges in his native small village of Andhra Pradesh. However, once he’s enrolled in a school in Hyderabad that specializes in teaching visually impaired kids, his life takes a sharp turn with the help of his teacher, Devika.
Eventually, Devika becomes the young man’s mentor, helping him through various battles. Consequently, the character’s significant presence in the protagonist’s story naturally brings into question the existence of Srikanth Bolla’s mentor in real life.
Swarnalatha Takkilapati: The Real-Life Inspiration Behind Devika
Since ‘Srikanth’ has a biographical origin, the film mines inspiration from the real life of its central figure, Srikanth Bolla, and remains authentic to his life story as closely as possible. One part of maintaining this authenticity emerges from the characterization of the people surrounding Srikanth’s narrative. As such, the film retains the real names of people like Bolla’s wife and his business partner when creating the on-screen versions of these individuals. However, his teacher and mentor’s case remains unique since her character wears a name that is different from the real-life inspiration behind her. In reality, Swarnalatha Takkilapati occupied a similar role in Bolla’s life as Devika does on the screen.
Swarnalatha was Bolla’s fourth-grade English teacher from Devnar School For the Blind, who always supported his aspirations and encouraged him in all fields of his life. Reportedly, she and her friends helped him through school by financially supporting him and even taking him on as a paying guest later in life. Furthermore, after high school, she remained an intrinsic part of his studies. She helped him by translating material into audio or braille files to bridge the language barrier that Bolla often found himself facing.
In a conversation with This Week in 2017, Swarnalatha spoke about her relationship with Bolla, sharing, “Many students were close to me, but Srikanth was special. He always tagged along behind me. He enjoyed interacting with guests who visited the school and would introduce them on stage as if he had known them all his life.” Furthermore, she also co-founded an education center alongside Bolla that focused on children with disabilities— similar to the Sri-Devi center depicted in the film.
Therefore, it remains evident that Devika’s character finds her genesis through the significant inspiration of Swarnalatha, Bolla’s real-life teacher. However, since the former’s storyline likely diverges from the latter’s reality in some details, a fictionalized name is equipped for her on-screen counterpart.
Swarnalatha Takkilapati is an Educator and Bollant’s COO
Swarnalatha Takkilapati has maintained a profession as an educator since the 1980s. Her rich experience resulted in recognition by the Rehabilitation Council of India in 2008 as a special educator. In 2010, she parted ways with Devnar School for the Blind, where she used to work as a secondary school teacher. In her years at the institute, she won multiple accolades, signifying the prominence of her influence as a mentor to young students. In 2011, the educator co-founded her own institution, Samanvai Center for Children with Multiple Disabilities. To this day, she retains an involvement in the establishment by overseeing financial and logistical operations, administrative duties, and even ensuring the availability of accessible study materials.
Swarnalatha undertook several other similar career opportunities— such as being an educator at Indira Gandhi National Open University— before becoming the Chief Operating Officer at Bollant Industries. As Srikanth Bolla established the company in 2012, he included his mentor in the team from its early days, and she continues to be a crucial cog of Bollant’s machines. Apart from the same, she simultaneously remains part of the education circles, teaching foundation courses—and more— as a member of the Special education faculty at Ambedkar University, where she has worked since 2006.
However, unlike her mentee, who turned into a globally recognized businessman, perpetually present in the limelight, Swarnalatha herself prefers to stay out of the public eye. For the same reason, she holds no presence on social media accounts, save for LinkedIn, where she only shares her professional milestones. As such, the real-life educator who inspired Devika’s character leads a private life, with little to no personal information about her available to the public.
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