Arundhati (2009 film)

Arundhati, a beautiful princess and descendent of a royal clan based in Gadwal is adored by her family and is considered to be the reincarnation of her paternal grandfather's mother Jejamma for being a doppelganger of the latter and being the first female child of the family after three generations ever since Jejamma died. Arundhati is engaged to Rahul while Arundhati's relatives: a couple, while on their way to Gadwal meet with an accident but stay unscathed. They see a decorated mansion at a short distance and go to seek help but are horrified by a ghost of a woman, disguised as the landlady who wants the couple to break a tomb protected by divine Yantras in a room of upper floor and free "her son" from it. The wife vanishes into thin air while the husband goes insane and the decorated mansion turns out to be ruined and not beautiful as the couple had seen earlier.

Arundhati's paternal grandfather Bhupati Raja finds himself injured by an accident caused by the ghost which brings Arundati to Gadwal, which is desired by the ghost imprisoned in the tomb. Arundhati clashes with Anwar, a Fakir who evicts malevolent spirits from (or) evil control on a person when he tries to do the same with the insane husband as she doesn't believe in ghosts and related stuff. That night, she receives a misleading phone call from Rahul, apparently who invites her to the old mansion. In the mansion, Arundhati sees the tomb and is provoked to free the ghost but she is taken away from the mansion by Anwar, who helps her see ghosts, making her believe in his words. He warns her to leave Gadwal as evil powers are after her. To know about the old mansion which belongs to her clan, Arundhati asks their family's maid Chandramma who had been serving the clan since the time of Jejamma and is treated as a family member rather than a servant.

Chandramma narrates to the whole family that the mansion was inherited by Raja Chinna Venkata Rangarayudu who had two daughters: Bhargavi and Jejamma. Bhargavi was married to Pasupathi: her cross-cousin and son of Jalajamma, Rangarayudu's sister. Pasupathi and Jalajamma are greedy for the property and hope that the former inherit the wealth for which Jalajamma deceitfully convinced Rangarayudu to get Bhargavi married to Pasupathi, a cruel womanizer. Jejamma fumed with anger when Pasupathi molested and murdered her blind dance teacher Kanchana and requested her father to evict him and his mother out of Gadwal but her father resisted as Bhargavi's life would be ruined. Considering herself an obstacle for her maternal family's reputation, she hung herself and died. Pasupathi arrived drunk at the funeral and insulted Bhargavi's corpse resulting in the enraged Jejamma to oust him out of the kingdom but not before having him beaten up by the people of Gadwal and tying him to his horse, which dragged him to the forest. He was presumed to be dead and Gadwal celebrated the death of a cruel man. Jejamma continued to be loved by the people for her act and grew up to be a young and very beautiful woman, trained in arts and warfare. Pasupathi, who did not die was rescued by Aghoris, who were passing by. To avenge what was done to him, Pasupathi mastered Black magic and returned to Gadwal on Jejamma's wedding day.

Wreaking havoc, Pasupathi partially disrobed Jejamma who then lured him into the room where Pasupathi murdered Kanchana using her dance. She cut off his tongue to prevent him from uttering incantations, pinned his hands to prevent him from doing Blackmagic and commanded a chandelier to fall on his body. She spared his life when sages present at the mansion tell her that his Pretatma would be more powerful and destroy Gadwal. To prevent his Pretatma from emerging after his death, she built a tomb around him when he was alive and made it capable of stopping his Pretatma from coming out of it using Yantras, a powerful trident and divine enchantments. The royal family deserted the mansion and started to live in another one.

At present, Chandramma stops narrating as the next part of the story is something frightening. However, upon being privately insisted by Arundhati, Chandramma says that despite being imprisoned in the tomb, Pasupathi's Pretatma, after his death inside it continued to ruin the happiness of Gadwal by inducing several diseases, drought and famine. Jejamma was also warned by his Pretatma from the tomb.

Presently, the insane husband breaks the tomb when Pasupathi's Pretatma mimics his wife to lure him. Freed, Pasupathi's vengeful ghost starts to trouble Arundhati desiring to fulfil his sexual desires with her and murder her, who stays back at Gadwal by making excuses upon being threatened by Pasupathi while her family leaves to Hyderabad. Realizing that she has been going through, Chandramma and Anwar help Arundhati realize that she is Jejamma's incarnation. Arundhati finds inscriptions, written by Jejamma on her own painting and learns that Jejamma, when she had gone to several temples and priests to find a solution to completely destroy Pasupathi, crossed paths with few Aghoras who suggested that the weapon capable of killing him is herself and for the weapon, Jejamma must die and claim that she would be reincarnated in her own family for accomplishing the task using the weapon. As a result, Jejamma returned to Gadwal, bid a farewell to her family and people and returned to Aghoras, who gave her a painful death and after skeletonizing her corpse, fashioned a dagger from her bones, which they safely hid.

Presently, Anwar and Arundhati set out to search for the weapon while Chandramma is asked to stay at Anwar's home. Rahul is threatened by Pasupathi's ghost over a phone call and after seeing his driver commit suicide after behaving strangely and attempting to run the car over him, Rahul complies and arrives at Gadwal. Chandramma spots him and attempts to stop him but he fails to see her and she is murdered by Pasupathi. Arundhati and Anwar, while on their way to Aghoras meet with an accident caused by Pasupathi resulting in Anwar falling off the cliff. Arundhati runs with fear and meets Rahul while the family arrives and is devastated to see Arundhati in a frightened state. They learn of Chandramma's death while Arundhati's family is abducted by Pasupathi leaving Arundhati with no option but to surrender herself to him, who possesses the insane man. However, Anwar turns out to be alive, meets the Aghoras and procures the weapon. He returns to the old mansion and gives the weapon to Arundhati, who stabs Pasupathi with it but he doesn't die. Pasupathi kills Anwar when he tries to inform Arundhati that the dagger would gain power to kill a Pretatma only if it is drenched in the maiden's blood. When Pasupathi attempts to molest Arundhati, the latter stabs herself using the same dagger unwilling to let his greed be fulfilled. The dagger gains divine powers and Arundhati transforms into Jejamma to stab him and kill him to death.

The mansion burns and explodes while the family manages to run safe out of it and presume Arundhati to be dead but she returns like Jejamma.

The music and background music of this film was composed by Koti. The soundtrack was critically acclaimed. Especially the tracks "Jejamma", "Chandamama" and "Bhu Bhu" and in Tamil "Bhoomi Kodhikum" , "Gummiruttil Kudamkizhithu kundril ezhum" , "Enna Viratham Ettrai Neeyamma" were huge hits. The album featured eminent singers like K. S. Chithra, Kailash Kher, Kalpana Raghavendar and N. C. Karunya. Koti, while speaking said that this film helped him to prove himself and in his career of 30 years this was his personal best. The track "Jejamma" required a majestic and ambient grandeur, so Koti selected Kailash Kher. The track "Bhu Bhu" took many days for Koti to compose and he felt it should be sung by an amazing singer who could aptly give the ferocious feel and hence went with Chithra. Lyrics were written by Veturi for "Bhu Bhu Bhujangam", Anant Sriram for "Chandamama", and C. Narayana Reddy for "Jejamma". This album features four songs and three instrumentals.[11]

The Tamil dubbed version of the film, which was launched by Sri Thenandal Films, was released on 20 March 2009.[12]

Nandi Awards 2008

Though the film was released in 2009, it was registered for 2008 films for Nandi Awards. The film received a total of 10 Nandi awards.[18]

• Best Villain – Sonu Sood
• Best Child Actress – Divya Nagesh
• Best Editor – Marthand K Venkatesh
• Best Art Director – Ashok
• Best Audiographer – Radhakrishna & Madhusudhan Reddy
• Best Costume Designer – Deepa Chandar
• Best Makeup Artist – Ramesh Mahanti
• Best Male Dubbing Artist – P. Ravi Shankar
• Best Special Effects – Rahul Nambiar
• Special Jury Award – Anushka Shetty

Filmfare Awards South – 2009

• Best Actress – Telugu – Anushka Shetty
• Best Supporting Actor – Telugu – Sonu Sood

Santosham Film Awards

• Best Director – Kodi Ramakrishna
• Best Producer – Shyam Prasad Reddy
• Best Actress – Anushka Shetty
• Best Villain – Sonu Sood
• Best Dubbing Artist Male – P. Ravi Shankar
• Best Cameraman – K. K. Senthil Kumar

Arundhati's success turned Anushka into one of the most sought-after actresses in Telugu and catapulted her into the foray of leading Telugu actresses.[19] Sonu Sood attained stardom with this film and went on to work in several South Indian films as an antagonist. After the release of Arundhati, people began recognising him as Pasupathi. P. Ravishankar who dubbed for him also became popular and was referred to as 'Bommali or Bommayi Ravi Shankar' by the media thereafter.[20]

According to writer Gopimohan, Arundhati made audience to "welcome creative content" and Magadheera started a trend of experimentation with period, socio-fantasy and spiritual themes that was continued in films like Panchakshari (2010), Nagavalli (2010), Anaganaga O Dheerudu (2011), Mangala (2011), Sri Rama Rajyam (2011) and Uu Kodathara? Ulikki Padathara? (2012).[21] Tammareddy Bharadwaja said "Ever since Arundhati and Magadheera did well at the box office, the rest of the industry started following their footsteps. Also, since there is an irrational craze to make high budget films right now, producers are turning towards mythological films. It is the only genre where you can boast of spending crores for creating the sets and the look of the film. But what they don't realize is that if these films flop, the blow to the producer will be severe." Films like Anaganaga O Dheerudu (2011) and Sakthi (2011) were commercial failures and Badrinath (2012) was an average grosser; all being fantasy films in which the protagonist is a warrior.[22][23]

• Arundhati

• Arundhati at IMDb