Rama's Dad as Inspiration for Gorilla Impersonations
From The Extended Group
There are perhaps multiple instances of Rama’s dad serving as inspiration for behaving like a great ape, one of the most noted examples being Brett's inability to act like a monkey until he impersonated Rama's dad or BITALAMUHIRD in some circles.
Background
During the curious period in which Brett penetrated the Shorewood theater department (members of which were known by the usually pejorative blanket term "thespian") he was cast in a major role of Jeff Echert's One Act, Words, Words, Words. The play, by satirist David Ives, was written about three typewriting monkeys who are charged with the task of writing Hamlet.
Thus, the part required a delicate balance between human intellectualism and primate savagery. Moreover, each monkey-author was required to give his or her best rendition of an indignant chimpanzee in the opening scene. While the other actors (Cari and Martin) had no difficulty in portraying this, the task gave Brett considerable difficulty, and various contingencies were considered if he couldn't figure something out.
One day, however, Brett was entertaining fellow cast members with a standard rendition of Rama's dad delivering his trademark salutation, "Hey, Raju!". This particular rendition involved a lengthy prologue of guttural noises followed by a rapid succession of breathy grunts. (This was based on the notion that Rama's dad was an eccentric Bollywood director who also happened to be a gorilla, in the vein of McGilla Gorilla). Jeff, happening upon the display, exuberantly declared that this interpretation of Mr. Reddy was a perfect simian depiction as called for in the part.
So an adapted version of this impression was used in both performances of the play, the causal relationship between the Reddy pater familias and Brett's understanding of apes only to be understood by the privileged few.
