A R REHMAN – The Aihsaan Faramosh

(Jis thali main khao usi main ched karo – Jai ho)

By

S. Prabhakar    

Allah Rakha Rehman (A R Rehman/ARR), born as Dileep Kumar to Shekar, a small-time music conductor of Malayalam cinema, and converted into Islam, has achieved dizzy heights in India music industry across many languages and also got global recognition which no Indian music director got before him and achieved everything which a musician can imagine over the last 35 years.  But one fine day, he joined his illustrious Muslim brothers, Nasiruddin Shah, Aamir Khan and Ansari and said work has reduced due to possible communal bias, and power shift indirectly hinting that due to the BJP being in power, he is discriminated.   No marks to guess that he, too, found BBC (The Bakwas Biased corporation)  of all media houses, to air his skewed views about India, and Indian film industry without any shred of evidence or basis.  

Is there discrimination in India?

There are 27 Muslim countries and 13 Christian countries, whereas there are 97 Christian-majority states and 53 Muslim-majority states.  The way the other minority religious people are treated in these countries varies from country to country, a lot of restrictions are in place in most of the Muslim countries and in Christian countries or countries with a Christian majority, whether they call themselves as Secular country or not, they allow other religious people to follow their faith with restrictions but minorities are never granted any special privileges.  The people belonging to minority religious sects,  whether citizens or non-residents, have to adapt themselves and fall in line.  But  India, on the other hand, declared itself, by its constitution, as a Secular country.  When we got our independence, over 85 percent of the population were Hindus, and nothing could have stopped us from declaring ourselves as a Hindu state, because the country formed by the partition Pakistan declared itself as a Muslim country.   But over the last 77 years, out of which over 50 years of Congress rule, thanks to the illusion and political compulsions, India has been reduced to a country where the minority (to be read as Muslims) are appeased in the name of being secular.   All the rights, privileges, and freedom of expression, religious protection, are reserved for Muslim minorities, who are at around 16% percent of the population now.   The real minorities like Sikhs, Jains, Bhuddists neither given any such privileges, special treatments, nor do they demand or crib the way Muslims do.  With all the privileges dolled out and special treatment given the Muslims prospered in India to grow upto 16% of from 9% at the time of independence.   On the contrary, in Pakistan, the percentage of the Hindu population has gone down  from 18% to 2% during the corresponding period.

In India, Muslims and all other religious minorities are given equal opportunities in every walk of life.   Whether it is Nassiruddin Shaw or Aamir Khan or ARR, whenever they talk about discrimination or insecurity, they do not bother to substantiate and completely ignore the facts and realities and their own progress in life in the same country.   It always looks very apparent that they pick and choose the words and occasions to appease their bosses across the border or some establishments working towards destabilising India. 

The following simple facts will substantiate how much equal opportunities Muslims have enjoyed and are enjoying in India:

a)       Three Muslims were made Presidents of India, as against no Hindu has ever become President of Pakistan

b)       Since independence, both at centre and state levels, many Muslims were elected to Parliament and State Legislatures and were made ministers.

c)       In the last over 77 years, there has hardly been any Indian cricket team without representation by Muslims; at every point of time, 3-4 Muslims were in reckoning.  As again only 2 Hindus represented the Pakistan cricket team since 1947.

d)       Gulam Mohammad, Abid Ali, Tiger Pataudi and Mohd Azarharuddin captained the Indian cricket team; no Hindu was ever made captain of the Pakistan team

e)       In the classical music field, Ustad All Rakha and his son Zakhir Hussain (tabla), Ustad Amjad Ali Khan (Sarod), Ustad Bismilla Khan (Sehnayi), Ustad Bade Gulam Ali Khan (vocal), and Ustad Vilayat Khan (Sitar) are legends and synonymous with the instruments they play.   Talat Mehmood, Talat Aziz, Ahmad and Mohmad brothers are so popular in Ghazal circuits.

f)         In Hindi cinema, Dilip Kumar (Yusuf Khan ) is considered the greatest Hindi actor, and for the last 30 years 3 khans Salman, Sharukh and Aamir khan are ruling the Hindi industry. Mehmood was a legendary and highest paid comedian.  Nargis (Fatima Rashid), Madhubala (Mumtaz Jehan Begum Dehlavi), Meena Kumari (Mahjabeen ), Waheeda Rehman and Mumtaz all ruled the industry.  Salim Khan and Javed Aktar were the highest-paid writers and were on top for a couple of decades.   K Asif, Mehboob Khan, Nassir Hussain, Sajid Nadiadwala were the most successful and popular producers in   Hundreds of other Muslims made their livelihood in Bollywood, as Lyricists, Music directors, singers, dialogue writers, producers and directors. 

g)       Mohd Rafi ruled the Hindi music scene for over 3 decades, and the thought of his religion has never crossed the minds of his millions of fans.

h)        Sahir Ludhianvi, Gulzar, Javed Akhtar, Kaifi Azmi, Hasarat Jaipuri, Sameer, and Nida Fazli penned thousands of Hindi songs for over four decadesHad there ever been discrimination on the basis of religions, so many Muslims would not have strived in all walks of life in India.

 

What ARR was bestowed in India: 

a)   With the untimely death of his father, ARR has become the sole bread earner of his family at a tender age of 9 years.

b)      ARR has joined Telugu music director duo Raj-koti in his teens and worked as key board players for 3-4 years.   ARR has also worked with Illayyara, Ramesh Naidu, and Vijay Anand .

c)    In 1992 the then top Tamil director Mani Ratnam gave him a break as an independent music director with the movie Roja for which he won his first National award and there was no looking back.  In the next decade, ARR became the top Tamil music director at par with the legendary music composer Illayyaraja.  

d)       It was Ram Gopal Verma he gave him a break in Hindi with Rangeela, which became a super hit.  After that, he scored music for Dilse, Taal and Bombay and many movies, till Chavva music of most of these movies were super hit. 

e)       ARR has not only become the most successful but also the highest-paid music director in India.    ARR should never forget that all those people who helped in shaping the career of ARR were Hindus, and there was not even a single Muslim.

f)       He started collaborating with Hollywood projects and scored music for Slumdog Millionaire, for which he has won an Oscar, first Indian to do so 

g)   Understandably, ARR has won an impressive number of awards  a)       Won the National Film Award 7 times as best music director

b)       Received Tamil Nadu State Film Awards 6 times

c)       Won Filmfare Award 15 times

d)       Won Filmfare Award South 16 times.

e)       He was conferred Padmasri and Padma Bhushan by the Government of India

ARR hitting the lows in life:

It is a natural process for any person in a profession to see highs and lows, and everyone, especially celebrities, should know how to handle success as well as lows in life.    After enjoying stupendous success for over 25 years, ARR ran out of steam and his career saw a dip.    Many times it may not be due to lack of talent and effort, but may be due to changing tastes of the audience and the concerned film personality not able to adapt to changing and new trends.   Before ARR, it happened with many greats.   Naushad was out of work for many decades during his lifetime, legendary Mohd. Rafi career saw a dip in the early 70s when Kishore stormed. Rajesh Khanna, the first superstar of Hindi cinema who delivered 16 consecutive silver jubilees, was edged out by Amitabh in the late 70s and could never regain his past glory in the next two decades and ultimately bowed out.  RD Burman, one of the modern greats of the Hindi film industry who gave music for dozens of super hit movies in the late 60s and 70s was without work for close to 10 years and was reported to have struggled to create music for his last move 1942: A Love Story and took lot of time.   In the present generation, Sonu Nigam, Kumar Sanu, Abijeet, Udit Narayan, Anuradha, Kavita, Alka who ruled the industry in 1990s are hardly getting any chance.   Neither they blamed any religious lobby or political dispensation.

In a comparative sense, ARR is neither that prolific nor produced that quality music in the last 8 to 10 years.   He was not completely out of the market, but the few and far in between chances he got, he could not recreate the magic of Roja, Bombay, Taal and Rangeela.   On the contrary to his false claims, he has scored music in a good number of movies in recent times, though none of the movie's songs or BGM is a patch compared to his earlier works

·       PS 1

·       PS2

·       Thug Life

·       Tere Isq main

·       Chavva

·       Ramayana

·       Raayan – Tamil

·       Aayalan - Tamil

·       Laal Salam – Tamil

·       Kadalikki Neramillai – Tamil

·       Peddi – up coming Telugu movie

·       Ramayan – upcoming movie

Thus, he has scored music for about 12 movies in the last 2-3 years, but if he does introspection, none of these movies are known for their music the way Roja, Gentleman, Lagaan, Dilse, Thirida Tiruda and Bombay were known.   Whether he admits or not, he has lost his magical touch and should accept the natural process of slowing down and he should be prepared to walk into sun set

Compared to this Mani Sharma, Devi Sri Prasad and Taman S in Telugu, Anirudh and Harris Jairaj in Tamil, Pritam, Shankar Ehsaan Leo, and Vishal Shekar have moved to the top position and are producing super hit songs and BGM film after film.  

Case of sour grapes:

When going was good, and he was charging over Rs. 5 crores per movie, and when he won 7 national awards (out of which 2 were under present Government tenure), it was the same film industry.   So for him to blame that on the change of power, he is not getting that many opportunities, is clearly a case of sour grapes.   To call Chavva, to which he scored the music, a divisive movie is uncalled for.   

Having been in the film industry for over four decades, ARR should have knwon that it is a highly competitive industry, and when hundreds of crores are riding on a movie, the producers will go for the best as per the perception.  He should not have forgotten that after Illayaraja had given over a dozen duper hit movies for Mani Ratnam, the same director had given a break to ARR in 1992 in Roja and has been using him unchanged till date.   Did illaya raja complain?   Subash Ghai has replace LP and taken ARR for Taal.  Ram Gopal verma given ARR a break in Hindi with Rangeela when Keeravani gave chartbuster music in Kshanam Kshanam.   All those decisions were based on the current form of ARR at that time.   As he is not able to recreate the magic, he is getting replaced with more talented youngsters, giving music acceptable to the new generation.   What does the Government in rule at the centre have to do anything with that?   Is it any Government job that he is seeking?   

What surprised me is that ARR is a man of very few words, hardly speaks in public to such an extent that when Karan Thapar was once asked who was the most boring interviewee he has ever faced, upon insistence, he revealed that it was ARR, who gave answers in the shortest possible sentences and mostly yes or no.   But the same ARR has so much to say about present dispensation, discrimination etc.     So it is obvious to me that he was tutored and kept blabbering to please someone who has commissioned it.

It is least expected from ARR and very disappointing.    It will definitely not uplift his sagging career but will make him lose many hardcore fans like me.   I would have expected a calm and quiet man like ARR to focus more on his music and bounce back, the signs of which he has shown with the super hit song `Chikri Chikri’ from the Telugu movie Peddi.

Feeling the heat of backlash, ARR has issued a clarificatory explanation, which was very meek, and he did not sound apologetic

Hope better sense prevails on ARR soon, and he will mend his ways

 

S. Prabhakar

21.1.2026

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Review of Telugu movie `Mana Sankara Vara Prasad’ – a clean family comedy entertainer

By

S. Prabhakar       

Anil Ravipudi did it again, delivered a Bumper hit on this Sankranti with Mana Sankara Varaprasad (MSVP), after the blockbuster `Sankranti ki Vastunamu’ last year.    It took over four decades and 156 movies for a movie to be made after the original name of Chirajeevi.  

Like any other Anil movie, the story of MSVP is wafer-thin, but the comedy scenes he wove around and the racy pace with which he goes through the movie do not give time to think much, but to enjoy the proceedings as long as they are going.    It was so with F2, F3, Sankranti ki Vastunamu, so also with MSVP.    Anil once again took a family-oriented movie, a rift between husband and wife leading to divorce and the husband's disparate efforts to spend time with his children, clear the misunderstanding created by the mother and her father in the minds of the children about the father and win back the heart of his ex-wife.

Acting:

Chiranjeevi :    

It’s an out-and-out Chiranjeevi movie; there is hardly any frame in the movie where he is not there.  Being a veteran actor, who has carried over 150 movies on his broad and strong shoulders, he once again did it even at this ripe age of 70 years.  As we all know, Chiranjeevi is an all-rounder and can do anything and everything that can be expected from a top hero.   No one has any doubt about his energetic dancing and action scenes, but besides that, he is very good in emotional scenes and has decent comic timing too, though it is restricted to a few scenes in most of his movies.     His trying an out and out comedy movie is very few and far in between, like Chantabbai, directed by Jandhyala at his peak, and Shankar Dada MBBS.   Now MSVP is in the same mould and I must say that he did a decent job.

Chiranjeevi is in a space of his own.   Though he has crossed 70 years, he has not yet started doing hero roles in the age range of 60 years plus with grown-up children, or doing grand father or some other elderly roles bordering character actor roles.   In this movie also with children in the range of 8 years and 6 years he is in the age range of 40 years.   No doubt he does not look so convincing in these types of roles, but he did not look very odd or ugly at the same time.   The reason for the same is the fabulous manner in which he maintained himself; he is looking slim and very refreshing, though with age, bit slowed down, but he did dance movements decently and gracefully and still could see intensity in action scenes.   Special mention and appreciation to the one who has designed his costumes and his stylists who presented him so smartly, especially in songs.    

Nayanatara:

Nayanatara at 42 years is an ageless wonder.  In Indian movies, it is an age where ex-heroins transit to sister-in-law or even mother roles.   But Nayanatara is still doing leading roles.    She is the first choice for all elderly heroes of South India viz., Rajnikant, Ajit, Kamal, Chiranjeevi, Balayya, Venkatesh and Sharukh.    Apart from looking smart at her age, she can hold her ground with solid performance when pitted against these top stars.   In this movie also she has a meaty role of taking head-on with her husband and showing him his place.   She has put in a very decent performance without getting intimidated by the towering presence of Chiru.

Venkatesh's special cameo:

These days it has become a trend to bring 4-5 actors from different languages in meaningless cameos.   In this movie, director Anil has brought his favourite hero Venky in a very special extended cameo, which not only is an important role but lifts the pace of the movie, leading to the climax.   It took over four decades for Chiru and Venky to come together, even if it is a cameo by Venky.   It was reported that in 1990  Ramanaidu had planned a movie with Chiru and Venky as 100^th movie of Suresh Productions, but it didn’t materialise.    The 20 minutes Venky and Chiru scenes together were very racy with punch dialogues and songs from movies of both stars picturised on the other. 

Direction:

Anil has become synonymous with entertainment, and in MSVP, he has toned down double-meaning dialogues compared to his earlier movies, keeping the stature of Chiru.   He joined few other directors of South with 100 percent success rate with Patas, Supreme, Raja the Great,  F2, F3, Sarileru Neekevvaru, Bhagavat Kesari, Sankranti ki Vastunnamu and now MSVP.   Though relatively new and young he knows his craft and how to handle very senior stars with huge image.   He has done one movie each with all the senior and top stars of the Telugu industry except Nagarjuna.  

Music:

Bheems Ceciroleo has once again given excellent music with a couple of songs like Sasi Rekha and Meesala Pilla, apart from decent BGM.

Rating and Box Office:

MSVP is a clear winner in this Sankranti season with Rs. 150 cr collection in four days.  It will give a big boost to Chranjeevi's career and extend it for a few more years, though not sure how long he will continue to do hero roles in the age group of 40s. 

I give 7 out of 10.   Go for it for a light-hearted entertainer. 

S. Prabhakar

16.1.2026

 

Raja Saheb – another disastrous movie for Prabhas

By

S. Prabhakar

As expected, Prabhas has delivered another box office dud.   Ever since Prabhas signed Raja Saheb to be directed by Maruti, a first for him in directing a top-ranking Telugu Star who has a huge pan-India market, the average Telugu audience wondered what made Prabhas accept the offer, keeping his box office standing and top producers and directors queuing up for their next project.   After spending over 3 years on his first mega-budget movie Magadheera, which became a Telugu industry hit at that time,  SS Rajamouli quickly announced a low-budget comedy ` Maryada Ramanna’ with a lesser-known comedian Sunil, turning him into a full-fledged hero and publicly announced that he was making this low-budget comedy to relax from the pressure of directing a movie like Magadheera.   Even Maryadaramanna became such a big hit that it was remade in Hindi as Son of Sardar by Ajay Devgan.   So the average cinegoer thought Prabhas too had followed his guru Rajamouli and agreed to do a relatively low-budget comedy horror movie to take a departure from the high-budget high-voltage action movies.   But in Prabhas' case, the experiment proved to be a debacle and added another disaster movie to his long list, post Bahubali stupendous success

What went wrong with Raja Saheb: 

Almost everything.   First, a very bad story and screenplay.   Most of the time, it moves directionless and in a confused manner, neither it engages the audience in what is happening nor is there any interest to expect.     There is nothing new; it is supposed to be a comedy horror, but neither is there any comedy nor any horror.  

Acting: 

Being a Prabhas movie, a lot was expected of him.   But my honest opinion over the last two decades about Prabhas is that he is a very average actor, not good in anything, emotional scenes, comedy scenes, a very bad dancer and has a very weak voice and very funny and incoherent dialogue delivery; all these disqualities were in full display in Raja Saheb.   As has been admitted even by top actors, the most difficult thing to do is comedy, and someone like Prabhas can be least expected to justify an out-and-out comedy movie.   He fell flat in `Bujji Gadu – made in Chennai’ and after a long gap in Kalki.  But it appears he has learnt lesson from his mistake and tried again with disastrous results.    His expressions and dialogue delivery in comedy scenes are hopeless, and the Telugu audience, who are used to rip roaring comedies by dozens of comedians and even leading stars like Allu Arjun and Jr. NTR can hardly tolerate what Prabhas dishes out in the name of comedy.    Throughout his career, Prabhas has been known to be very bad at selecting subjects; he should stop going anywhere near comedy.    Another thing he should take care is his dialogue delivery.   In Bahubali, the Hindi version looked better than the original Telugu version because of fantastic dubbing by Sharad Kelkar, which suited his personality more than his own voice.   So either he has to go for Salaar like movie, where in the entire movie he has dialogue for just around 3 minutes or go for dubbing by someone Telugu also.   Prabhas should consider himself lucky that the role of Bahubali fell in his lap and Rajamouli shaped him so well that a PAN India image got created, never imagined by anyone, including Prabhas, which more or less remained intact, though he delivered 4 disastrous movies, including this one.   He should not stretch his luck too far and chose right kind of movies and directors and deliver a couple of solid blockbusters.   The only positive i saw is that after looking bloated and worn out in most of the movies after Bahubali, Prabhas looked bit slim and trim and going back to Bahubali days, if he continues to be disciplined about his food habits and workouts. 

There is nothing to write about any other actors.   There are three heroines without anyone able to make out who is really loving Prabhas and whom he loves.    Sanjay Dutt, as a villain, like in any other Telugu/South Indian movie, has no significant role, and he is no better actor than Prabhas.   At the stage of life, he must be counting the 10-12 crores per movie he gets rather than bothering about his role, who is the hero, who is the director and what his role is.    Once I read that the Patiala king had purchased 3-4 rolls of Royles, brought them to India, and broke them and redesigned to pick up trash from the roads to avenge the insult by the Englishman when he went to purchase one.   These days, every Telugu/South Indian hero of any standing wants a Bollywood star like Sanjay Dutt, Bobby Deol, and Saif as villains, Amitabh, Nana, as character actors, Jahnvi, Deepika, Priyanka and a host of other Bollywood imports as heroines to massage their ego, and it does not serve any purpose.

Direction by Maruti: Maruti is a small-time director making his career step by step in light-hearted comedies, couple of hits he had were with short-term actors.    No doubt Telugu industry boasts of directors like Janjyala, EVV, Vamsi, Relangi Narasinga Rao and the current top director, Anil Ravipudi, who became a star director making comedies only.   All of them started with small actors and gradually started directing top stars also.   But Maruti tried to leapfrog riding on the back of Prabhas and fell flat on his face terribly exposing his ability to handle a big budget movies with a PAN India star like Prabhas.      

Use of Technology: These days, horror movies need quality and high degree vfx effects to succeed.   The bar has to be increased with every movie.    But Raja Saheb does not offer anything new, except in the last 20 minutes or so.

Music: The background score by Taman S, has become predictable, repetitive and ear-splitting.  No song gets registered.

Verdict:  Overall, a forgettable movie, a movie that should not have been made at all, even if it is made, Prabhas should not have accepted it, whatever the reason may be.  

I give 2/10 rating.   Just don’t waste your time even watching on OTT. 

 

S. Prabhakar

15.1.2026

 

Review of Play `Humare Ram’

By

S. Prabhakar                                                     

For the last over a year, I heard so much, everything good, about the stage play `Hamare Ram’ and last week I got the opportunity to catch it up in Delhi.   A die-hard moviegoer, it was a first-time experience that I have gone for a paid stage play.   As it turned out, it has been a fantastic experience of brilliant performances, production values, stage management, excellent pre-recorded background music and songs by the leading playback singers of Bollywood using modern technology in a live stage play, a very decent and appreciative crowd who have clapped every good dialogue, every emotional scene, and every brilliance on the stage.  

A great effort and a great service:

Writer, Producer and Actor (who also did the role of Lord Ram), Rahull R Bhuchar, deserves all the praise to have conceived the idea of presenting the important segments of Ramayan with the help of high production values and technology acceptable to the present generation without sacrificing the authenticity of the epic.  All these and above all the towering performance and star presence of Ashitosh Rana as Ravan have made the stage play a resounding success and talk of the town, with 394 live shows and still counting in different cities of India in the last 20 months.  

My first brush with stage plays:

My baptism into entertainment was through stage plays only, and I have very vivid and fond memories of stage plays during the 10-day Ramanavami celebrations in Vijayawada.   Huge pandals used to be put up every year to celebrate Ramanavami.   For all the 10 days in the late evening, they used to stage plays, mostly mythological from Ramayan, Mahabharat, Bhagavatam and a few social dramas also.   There were very popular stage artists who were experts in dialogue delivery and rendering `padyams’ by dozens.   As the stage plays used to go for hours together, the conversations between the characters used to be through `Padyams’, the longer the alaaps and louder the claps used to be.   By the turn of the 1970s some technology, colourful lighting, and multiple curtains were being used. Though not sure what technology they used at that time, but I remember the arrows used to move from one side of the stage to the other, and Ghatodgaj, along with the thrown, used to move from one side to the other side of the stage.     Once I left Vijayawada, I almost lost touch and interest in live plays/dramas.   After close to five decades, when I watched Hamare Ram, all my childhood memories of stage plays came back.  

 

 

 

 

 

What made the play Humare Ram a runaway hit:

Writing and presentation :  

Nothing about Ramayan is new and unknown to many of us.  Most of us might have read, seen in stage plays, movies, TV serials about Ramayan.   Attempting it again on such a large scale, making it interesting to all sections of the audience, is not an easy task.   Rahull R Bhuchar, the writer and producer, has picked up interesting and short segments of Ramayana and in 3 hours play, he covered most of the segments of Ramayana and presented them in such an engaging manner with the help of music, songs, and fascinating backdrops that the audience was spellbound for 3 hours without an interval.

Brilliant Acting:    

Ashutosh Rana: The biggest attraction of the play Humare Ram is undoubtedly Ashutosh Rana, who has essayed the role of Ravana brilliantly.  Ashutosh Rana is a National School of Drama product and a veteran of stage plays before he became a popular villain and character actor in Bollywood and many more languages of India.  Besides this, he is a writer, poet and great orator.  All these qualities have come to good use in giving a towering performance as Ravan.   His stage presence, dialogue delivery, and emotional acting all were of top ranking and deservedly got the loudest clapping throughout the play, though he played the negative role of Ravana.   His command over language and dialogue delivery, and lip syncing to the pre-recorded dialogues, is very impressive.

Comparing Ashutosh Rana with the legends of the Telugu Industry:

                         

Being a Telugu movie goer, mythological movies and plays are not new to me.  I might have seen more than 50 mythological movies.   As is known to all, N T Rama Rao has immortalised the mythological roles.   There are hardly any mythological roles which NTR has not essayed.    Apart from essaying the role of Lord Ram and Krishn many times and all other Gods he experimented with negative mythological characters of Ravana (in Sita Rama Kalyanam and Bhukailas) and Duryodhana in Dana Veera Sura Karna and was brilliant in these roles as well.   But for these two movies, in all other movies where NTR did Lord roles, it was legendary actor S V Ranga Rao who did the negative character of Ravana, Duryodhana, Keechaka etc.    Both NTR and SVR were over 6-footers, had huge screen presence, and were very famous for their dialogue delivery in chaste Telugu and Sanskrit.   Having seen both NTR and SVR in many mythological movies, I was never impressed by anyone, in any language, essaying mythological roles, including Arvind Trivedi in the most popular Ramanand Sagar’s TV serial Ramayan specially his not-so-strong voice and dialogue delivery.  

But after watching  Ashutosh Rana live in the play Humare Ram, I can put him next to NTR and SVR in every aspect of essaying a mythological character.   

Rahull R Bhuchar: 

Rahull R Bhuchar, apart from writing and producing the play, has played the all-important role of Lord Ram, probably the tallest Ram in height I have ever seen.   Rahull had a distinct disadvantage of his performance being compared with that of Arun Govil in TV serial Ramayan.    But it goes to the credit of Rahul that he interpreted the character of Lord Ram in his way and presented it without being influenced by any other actor, including Arun Govil, who essayed it.   He is calm, composed and looked dignified and like a real `Maryada Purushottam Ram’.   He showed all the shades of his character very well and held his ground in all the scenes he had with Ashitosh Rana, and received almost an equal number of claps and appreciation like Ashitosh Rana. 

The surprise package:   All other actors did a very decent job of their respective roles, but the actor who did the role of ‘Shurpanaka’ turned out to be the surprise package.   She provided an unexpected comic relief with her peculiar way of dialogue delivery and received thunderous applause.

Setting, lighting and Stage management:  

Very close to the brilliant acting comes the terrific stage setting, stage management, lighting and most importantly, the well-thought-out projections on LCD monitors on the stage, making a fantastic backdrop enhancing every scene.    Going by the spellbound effects in the aspect of the adoption of technology in stage plays, there is a sea change from what we were used to seeing on stage.   It is seen to be believed and very difficult to explain.    The scene of Sita going into the earth and Ravana severing his head and offering to Lord Shiva were managed very well on a live stage and looked very natural.  

I am deeply impressed by the back-end staff's efforts in changing the entire set in less than a minute between lights going off and coming on.   It includes moving out and moving in thrown, chairs, trees, Shiv Ling etc.   Scene after seen I am surprised how they escorted actors, especially Rana to backstage and moved so many things and put them at appropriate places and in some scenes put the actors on the throne and chairs etc all in 60 seconds.   These humongous efforts have helped in maintaining continuity and did let the audience become restless. 

The pre-production shooting, compilation of the scenes that were projected on the huge LCD monitors on the back and side of the stage, is very thoughtful.  The play would not have been so glossy and pleasing without these projections.

The background music, songs and sound engineering:

We Indians are so used to music in our movies and stage plays that we cannot survive without good music and songs.   Being conscious of the same, the producers have engaged the best in the business, Shankar Mahadevan, Sonu Nigam and Kailash Kher for pre-recorded songs under the music direction of Udbhav Ojha.   Besides songs, the background music is good and effective. 

Considering that all the dialogue was pre-recorded in the voices of the actors, including the characters of Ram and Ravana, and they did lip sync on the stage, the sound engineers did a great job in making sure that the sound did not get messed up anywhere in the entire over 3 hours stage play and it looked as if they were delivering the dialogue live. 

Costumes:

Costumes have been one of the special attractions of the play.   Great care has been taken in designing costumes of all characters specially Ravan.   Rich, colourful and attractive costumes of Ravan and his changing attire in every scene has made the character of Ravan stand out.  

Director: Last but not the least, the captain of the ship, director Gaurav Bhardwaj, did a great job in putting together a brilliant cast, extracting fabulous work from them and blending new technology.   Not sure which Ramayan written by which author was adopted,  he introduced an interesting episode of Ravan dreaming about Ram coming to him and having a conversation during the war, Ravana being invited by Ram to conduct Puja of Lord Shiv for which Ravan brings  Sita along and takes back as Ram cannot perform puja without wife accompanying him, and Shurpanaka husband being killed by Ravan and the episode of provoking Lakshman to cut her nose to avenge his brother Ravan.  

The Success Story:

With so many things going in favour of the Play, it does not come as a surprise to me that it is a stupendous success with fully sold-out 394 shows in all major cities of India in the last 20 months and going very strongly in India and very soon going to Broadway, the first Indian play to do so.   The high price tag, starting from Rs. 1700 and going up to as high as Rs. 9000, depending on the city, has not deterred the audience.   Not only have the audience, of all ages, all strata of society, middle class, rich and super rich,  come in large numbers, but they are completely involved, engrossed and cheered lustily every appreciable scene on the stage.    As Ashitosh remarked, we do not know how many kms Lord Ram travelled, but Humare Ram has travelled lakhs of kms in the length and breadth of India and is now slated to cross continents. 

Though I did not attend many plays, having stayed in Delhi for over four decades and know how vibrant the audis in FICCI Marg and Copernicus with stage plays and NSD have given many talented stars to the Hindi industry, including Sharuk Khan and Ashitosh Rana the central figure in this play.   But plays like Humare Ram and its stupendous success, will give a booster dose to such Plays adopting interesting segments of Ramayan, Mahabharat, Bhagavatam, and other  Hindu mythology.  This will be the best way to bring back our children and youth from Harry Potters, Avatars and Avengers and introduce our Hindu mythology, the superheros from them.  

I will give a 10/10 rating. Don’t miss at any cost.  

S. Prabhakar

12^th January, 2026

 

Akharleni Arupulu Kekalu & Gola - `Akhanda -2’

(Review by S. Prabhakar)

 

There is a  हिंदी मुहावरा"आ बैल मुझे मार" (Aa bail mujhe maar) (which means inviting trouble to ourselves).    Going to a Balayya movie is nothing less than that.    Most of the Non Balayya fans (which includes me) very well know that we can hardly expect anything new or different from his movies.   Sometimes, though we know a movie (almost every movie of Balayya) could be bad, we still dare to check to see how bad it is.  In his entire career, there were 3-4 movies of Balayya which I could tolerate, and Akhanda-1 is one of them.   Going by Akhanda-1, that too the Akhanda role and the high hype given as saviour of Sanathana Dharma, I thought Boyapati-Balayya magic may work one more time.   But it is far from it and the die-hard Jai Balayya Brigade can only stomach whatever has been churned by Boyapati-Balayya combo. 

 

As a concept, the topic chosen is not bad -  Chinese joining hands with a corrupt politician whose father has lost power and son trying to grab power at any cost including dividing Hindus and making them lose faith in Hinduism (any resemblances to Rahul Gandhi is not a coincidence).  He lets loose a virus in Maha Khumb Mela and tries to shake the faith of Hindus by propagating that God has not come to their rescue and our Akhanda not only saves the anti-dot to the virus but also gives liberal sermons on Hindutva, Sanatana Dharma.   However, the execution falters, and there is hardly anything to hold the audience's attention.   Like Rajni movie directors, KGF and Sallar directors, Boyapati also suffers from his fixation on elevations.   How far can one be satisfied by stupid elevations, which are always larger than life and, beyond one point get on to your nerves.  

 

The good concept has not developed well due to a lack of depth in the story, poor dialogue writing,  and poor delivery by Balayya, full of stuttering, coupled with his brand of shouting and yelling without expressions or emotional depth in acting.   we cannot expect Balayya to deliver simple Telugu dialogue coherently; how can we expect him to deliver Sanskrit dialogue? He and Boyapati can only understand and appreciate, added to it the non-synchronisation of his dialogue delivery with body language and movement makes it a total cartoon caricature.   Earlier there was Krishna, who even after acting in over 300 movies, could never improve his still statue-like pose before the camera in a side angle, weak and shivering voice, funny facial expressions in the name of acting and now we have Balayya who has acted in over 100 movies but still could not develop proper synchronisation between his dialogue delivery and body language – the final effect is always like a poorly dubbed Chenese movies of late 70s.    

 

Everything is bad about Akhanda-2 and there is nothing to write positively about it.   Another fixation Boyapati has is that he has to show two Balayyas, whether required or not.    There is hardly any role or relevance of the first Balayya in the movie, but he has wasted a good part of the first half on him, going through routine motions and one dance with the female lead of less than half his age, who thankfully gets killed and saves us from any more romantic scenes or songs with robot-like moving Balayya.  

 

The opening with Chenese villains (played well by Bengali actor Saswat Chatterjee and Bhutani actor Sanjay Tsheltrim)  raised some hope which was dashed the moment the first Balayya enters.    The Maha Khumb mela scenes (looked to be originally shot at the Mahakhumbh Mela) looked good, but the rest of Leh Ladhakh, Amarnath are all probably shot with green screen and were poorly executed.   Hope of movie picking up after the entry of Akhanda also did not happen with mindless elevations, ear-splitting loud dialogue delivery and the Boyapati Balayya patented curse and abusive words.  What could be more ridiculous than showing PM, HM, NIA helpless and instead of falling back on our powerful defence forces, hoping and praying that an Aghora will come and rescue the country.    I read somewhere that Boyapati and Balayya have screened some scenes to Yogi Adityanath and are saying that PM has shown interest in the movie and they are planning to show it to PM also.  He will split his hair if he sees such scenes and our Balayya acting.

The CAG are of pathetic quality, especially the backdrop of icy mountains, the gun battles and blasts are elementary and look like what we saw in movies in the 1990s.  All the scenes involving Adi Pinisetty were horribly handled; the scenes of SVR as a black magician in 70-year-old Patala Bhairavi look far better than in this movie.   Adi Pinisetti is completely wasted.  Thaman, the music director, as always, is loud; he could not use the Sanskrit slokas well as background music.     Someone like Keeravani could have done justice.   The seasoned action directors Ram Laxman did a pathetic job, showing throughout the movie with a trishul in hand Balayya faceing hundreds of Chinese army men with AK-47 and making a dozen fly in the air and bounce like a football on Balayya thumping his leg or trishul on the earth.  What better can they do when they have to handle a 65-year-old bulky hero.     Normally, people say when you go to a Boyapati-Balayya combo movie, you should leave your brain and rational thinking at home, but it seems both of them kept their brains in a deep freezer at home while going for the shooting of Akhanda-2, Boyapati, as a director, has been a complete let-down.

 

Overall, an average movie, which is being dubbed as a blockbuster in 4 days.   Today, in the afternoon show in Delhi, there were 12 people in a theatre with a capacity of over 350 seats.  As MLN says in Aagadu, flop movie directors hold more success meets.   I am absolutely shocked to listen to Gangadhara Shastry, pravachana karta,  going gaga about Boyapati and Balayya as Karanajanmulu to have made this movie.    As if Telugu is not enough, it has been released in many languages, including Hindi and Boyapati and Balayya made buffoons of themselves by their murderous Hindi in road shows in Mumbai.   After many decades wait, with the efforts of directors like Rajamouli, Kanaga Raj and Prashant Neel a pan-India market has been created, but if movies like OG and Akhanda-2 are released in theatres, the PAN India audience will lose interest in Telugu and South movies.   In the interest of PAN India movies, Boyapati, Balayya, and Pawan Kalyan should spare the North audience.   

 

Non-Balayya fans are cautioned to stay away from this movie, even on OTT release.   As far as `Jai Balayya Brigade’ is concerned, they have a lot to lap up and cheer and shout Jai Balayya in theatres (preferably single screen) till their vocal cords pain. 

 

S. Prabhakar

16.12.2025