Anand

2004…Telugu Cinema was drenched in violence, Rayalaseema, fights, or needless dance sequences with absolutely minimal role to the heroine except for a few dance sequences (Dance literally means western dance and classical dance has almost become extinct in Telugu movies!). The role of heroine was to have no brains, look glamorous, and disappear in thin air with respect to characterization.

Then this movie called Anand arrived( Manchi Coffee Lanti Cinema-tagline!) directed by Mr. Sekhar Kammula. An Engineering graduate who studied MFA in USA has turned Telugu Cinema literally upside down in that year! Sekhar rose to prominence by Anand and people have started re-thinking about the brilliance of simple life and little happiness which were lost in the course of money earning and building lavish houses on the account of IT industry boom! Bapu was one director who showed that happiness comes from simple living and doing the sweet little things which go amiss in the midst of busy schedule and I can definitely say Sekhar has brought back that wonderful era of simple movies with strong characters and extraordinary story telling technique!

There are many reasons for Telugu people admiring the movie "Anand" by Shekhar Kammula. Let it be the freshness of it, or a thought-provoking points it emphasized on, or Rupa's character, or the music……..but I felt it was really a welcome change for Telugu Cinema after the gross commercial movies comprising of loads of budget and show lot of carnage, but no sensible content at all.

Apart from all the aspects of this movie, I loved the character of Rupa played brilliantly by Kamalinee Mukherjee. Despite losing her parents at such an early age, without standing back because of it, she tries her best to live independently and never compromises with her identity. Not that she doesn't respect traditions and she is a rebel, but she cannot stand if anyone claims her independence. She even comes up to an extent of breaking her marriage with her fiancé Rahul who along with his mother tries to change her in every aspect they could ever think of. They suppress her regarding dressing, job or regional bias, traditions, her way of living and finally when she was asked for wearing the wedding saree which was given by them, she shows courage and tells her would-be mother-in-law that she wants to wear her mother's saree as she feels that if she does so, her mother is along with her. But when they want to change even her life which she lived in the house she lived as a child, she breaks up her marriage for saving her own neck from those people. Though she initially feels that what she did was wrong and feels regretted, but later she develops such an inner strength which makes any girl who watch her proud. I personally feel that a girl should be like Rupa, who should not sacrifice herself for anyone, rather it might be the guy who she is going to be married, or her parents who gave birth to her. She should not sacrifice most importantly because she is a girl, and inferior to a guy.

It is at this moment, Anand (Raja-who was identified as an actor with "Good guy" image after acting in this film!), an NRI guy who happens to attend this wedding, admires Rupa's strength and wants to know more about her personality. And the rest of the movie is all about how Anand gets interested about Rupa and after some petty arguments, how both of them get together.

The way in which Rupa deals with the tough situations in her life right from losing parents at an early age and trying to be as self-dependent as possible is really admirable. Sekhar Kammula etched her character in such a beautiful way that I am sure everyone of us must have interacted with a girl like Rupa at some point of life or other. In short, I personally feel there is a Rupa in every girl at heart because independence is a girl's primary entity.

An important aspect in the storyline of this movie is that Rupa's parents die in a car accident made by Anand's father who gets drunk then. This makes Anand feel more guilty and tries to help Rupa by staying near her house as much as possible. At one situation after Rupa's parents' death anniversary, Anand asks her whether she ever held grudge against the person who did that accident. Rupa (who is in the vow of silence at that time) asks for a paper and pen and writes she always felt responsible for their deaths but nobody else. And the way she says fate decides it all in a beautiful gesture is one of the best scenes I watched in any of the recent movies!

This movie also throws light on some timid men who are unable to take strong decisions in life through the character Rahul. He is torn between the love for his mother and at the same time wants to gain Rupa by marrying her in some way or other. He takes side of his mother when the time of defending Rupa arrives and feels sad about it later. The confused nature of some modern men who are caught in between tradition and modern values was shown perfectly by Shekhar in this movie!

The movie is filled with freshness in every frame, including the songs and background score given by K.M.Radhakrishnan. This movie can be termed as a modern classic in Telugu cinema, because whenever I see it, I never get bored with it!!