Sai Ronak, the charming lead of the hit film Pressure Cooker, is here to stay and how. Many of us saw his very endearing performance and felt a connection with him. With an upbringing similar to his role in the film, he is all that and more. A driven person, Sai Ronak shows immense discipline in every project he takes up. He is as dedicated as he is fun loving. Wondering whether his real life imitates reel life? Read on and find out more about this multi talented firehouse of an individual.
Sai Ronak: Boy next door
While Sai Ronak happens to be his screen name, his parents Katukuri Ravinder and Katukuri Barathi named him Katukuri Sai Kiran. A true boy next door, he was born into a typical middle class family in Khammam on October 9th 1991.
His father worked for a private company in Hyderabad and his mother is a homemaker. In keeping with the values of such a family, Sai Ronak finished his education by attending a corporate college for Intermediate and later an Engineering college. He proved himself a good student, earning commendable grades. His family also pushed him towards a Master’s degree in the US. Yet, even as a kid, he had other plans on which he started working parallelly along with studies. This is where his role from Pressure Cooker finds similarities with his actual life.
Sai Ronak has two siblings. Younger brother Raghu Kiran and he share a strong bond. Elder sister Lavanya is 8 years older to him. As she was married at a very early age, the brothers gravitated towards each other.
A big supporter from the beginning of his acting journey, Sai Ronak’s brother took a stand for him even when family were against his career choice in films. He is visibly proud of his brother and all of his achievements. Raghu Kiran is currently working as a software engineer in the US.
After schooling in Hyderabad, Sai Ronak went to Sri Chaitanya in Ramanthapur and
Bharat Institute of Engineering and Technology (BIET) at Ibrahim patnam. He scored a good percentage and made preparations to study Master’s in Germany.
This is when he expressed his interest in acting and the kind of career that he wanted to pursue. Just as he expected, his decision was met with disapproval and backlash. His parents worried that his life wouldn’t be as good as they hoped if he worked in the movie industry.
Consequently, Sai Ronak had to move out of his parents’ home to start his own journey so as not to disturb and trouble them. With time, however, they understood his dedication and seriousness towards his work. Step by step, his growth made everything a little better.
Memories from childhood
Sai Ronak reveals that he came across amazing teachers in life. The process of education taught him immense patience and created a platform to meet many people who encouraged and largely supported him. He even got to travel for internships and workshops that gave him a lot of exposure.
As a child, Sai Ronak shares that he was average, low on confidence and an introvert. He used to stay quiet all the time because of a stammering problem. Once he realised he wanted to be an actor, he used to hide and go to dance classes instead of tuitions. With a chuckle, he says he somehow managed decent marks, so his parents didn’t mind when they found out.
Sai Ronak has three very close friends. Madhusudan is a friend from kindergarten and supports him unconditionally. Rakesh from 1st grade was the person who injected the idea of Sai Ronak becoming an actor and believed in it firmly. The third friend is Mohit, an advocate.
Friends from 9th standard, they stuck to each other during his worst situations. His cousin Rajnikanth is another pillar of support. All these individuals have been constantly helping him from day one, be it financially, emotionally or any way possible. Sai Ronak is also extremely grateful for the many beautiful people he met in this journey and who made it worthy to keep persisting in the film industry.
Many feathers in his cap
During Paatshala, Sai Ronak completed an acting workshop with G Mahesh of Abhinaya Yogam. Later he took up and still continues to attend theater or acting workshops during shoot breaks. Apart from these, he is trained in martial arts like Shotokon, Boxing and Wushu. Self motivated person that he is, Sai Ronak is also currently working on free running and Parkour.
Presently, he is a professional dancer with a 12 years teaching experience. He manages a dance studio called ‘HYDANCE STUDIOS‘ located at Madhapur.
How many ever facets he may have, acting remains his first love. Sai Ronak says, “no matter what an actor can do, I feel all that matters when it comes to movies is ‘acting.’ I try my best to focus more on acting than dance and other aspects.”
Exciting beginnings
During college, he used to work as a dance instructor. There, he was offered a role to act. Paathshala director Mahi V Raghav was the push that proved to inspire him to move forward. Another reason for this is the fact that this act, where he had a role, won many inter college dance competitions at fests.
Since then, he continued to work on multiple things. “I prefer dancing, cycling, workout, I practice martial arts and currently am obsessed with learning the guitar,” Sai Ronak expressed.
Driven by passion, hurdles never discourage
The multitalented actor believes that every field has its own struggles. He says they can only be perceived as struggles if we don’t invest time learning the craft with patience. He doesn’t regret struggling as it motivated him to ‘hustle’ more. For him, it was financially tough for a while but with God’s good grace the craft he surely believed in gave him what he deserved.
Sai Ronak’s unwavering dedication to Cinema comes from his two biggest inspirations, Chiranjeevi and Hrithik Roshan. “I look up to them because the idea of being an actor started when I saw them in movies for the first time in my life,” he quips. In a personal revelation, he also says that he finds inspiration in the way his dad looks at life.
During hard times, his dad had made things easy with the right guidance. He shares that he follows dad’s principles in life most of the time.
However, this latter inspiration was also a source of dejection for Sai Ronak. Considering his family’s original plan to support his postgraduate education and help him settle down with a job, the passionate actor almost felt bad that he was giving up on his dream of finding success as an actor.
During this time, he was parallelly getting his students ready for a dance performance. This was the last year of college and he had to perform a cameo in the performance to boost the student’s confidence. Here, Mahi V Raghav noticed him, found him expressive and casted him in his movie. Sai Ronak says this is no less than a miracle that he will never forget in life.
Mantra for success
Sai Ronak has a philosophy on his path towards success. “I just try to be a learner every day and find happiness in the process of learning. Before acting, it’s all about punctuality, preparation, giving quality output and never leaving a chance to be on set,” he shares.
Money is not his ultimate goal. For him, it is just a need, particularly when his family gives him an earful about saving money and growing financially. Acting is purely more passion than anything else, according to him.
Since he remembers, Sai Ronak always wanted to act in movies, while at the same time run his own dance space and own a cafe. He believes his cafe plans will materialize soon. With that the only pending plan, he feels anything he does from now is a bonus.
As an upcoming actor, he did not see any major ups and downs in his career but trusts that the graph is rising high with time. He prefers to take things at a slow pace with no stopping. Any and every other interest right now will only help him in his profession. Interestingly, he had the ability to crack Defence exams and serve in the army because of the influence of martial arts, gym and R.S.S ( Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh). And yet, he is here pursuing his dreams.
Upcoming Projects
- ‘Odela railway station’ with Hebha Patel under Sampath Nandi writings
- ‘Bro’ with Avika Gor under Karthik Tripurani direction
- ‘Chalo premidham ‘ with Neha Solanki under Suresh Repelle direction
- A viral web movie under S-originals for Amazon prime.