Suddala Ashok Teja


Suddala Ashok Teja is a popular lyric writer in Tollywood. His song Nenu saitam written for Tagore won National award for best lyrics.

Early life

Born at Suddala, a village in Nalgonda district to Janakamma and a well known Telugu poet, Suddala Hanmanthu, a poet of the Telangana Rebellion and Telangana Saayudha Porata Yodhudu. He has two brothers and a sister; Prabhakar Teja, Sudhakar Teja and Racha Bharathi.

Career

Ashok Teja worked as a Government teacher in Bandalingapur, Medipally and Metpally villages of Karimnagar district before coming into the Telugu film industry. He started writing lyrics ever since he was a child. His nephew Uttej a well known character artiste in Telugu films helped him to get a first chance in films. He became popular after penning the lyrics for the films Osey Ramulamma and Ninne Pelladutha during the years 1996–1997.
He won the National Film Award for Best Lyrics in the year 2003 for his song Nenu Saitham in the movie Tagore, it is based on Sri Sri's 'Nenu Saitham' from Mahaprasthanam. He is the third writer to win this award after Sri Sri for his "Telugu veera levaraa" in Alluri Sitaramaraju and Veturi for his "Raalipoye puvva neeku ragaalenduke" in "Matrudevobhava". He wrote over 2200 songs for 1250 movies and 2500 private songs till 2017.

Personal life

Ashok Teja is married to Nirmala. He has two sons and a daughter. The oldest daughter, Swapna, is a house wife and has two kids, older son, Jwala Chaitanya, is a software engineer working in the US, has two kids. Younger son, Arjun Teja, recently married.

Filmography