Pournami (2006 film)

Plot

Film starts in a distant past where a remote village in Andhra Pradesh suffers from a drought for a very long time. A woman (Veda Sastry) from a traditional family comes forward to dance in a Lord Shiva's temple to appease Shiva to bless their village with rains. She dances for seven days and nights continuously before she dies in exhaustion. Finally they have rains and their long standing drought ends. From then they make it a tradition that a girl from that dancer's family should dance in Shiva's temple for every twelve years on that auspicious day.

Story comes to present day. Now they are expecting Pournami (Trisha), elder daughter of the family to dance on the occasion. But just before few months from the festival, she goes missing and everybody thinks that she eloped with someone.Then, everybody's attention turns to Pournami's younger sister Chandrakala (Charmy) to dance on the occasion but their father wouldn't agree. Later it would be revealed that Pournami hasn't eloped but her father sent her away to protect her from their village Zamindar who wants to make Pournami his concubine. He fears that same fate might befall on Chandrakala, so he wouldn't agree to teach her dancing.

Meanwhile, Chandrakala's stepmother rents their pent house to Siva Kesava (Prabhas), a Western-style dance instructor. After some fights Chandrakala develops feelings on Kesava, but he doesn't reciprocate. Slowly he reveals the flashback, where he and Pournami married and Pournami dies in an attempt to save his life. She tells him her dying wish that her sister should dance in the temple to save the tradition. He promises her that he would make it happen.

After knowing this, Chandrakala agrees to learn dance with her father's blessings. Kesava promises them that he would protect her from Zamindar, and he saves her when Zamindar tries to abduct her. She tries hard and becomes a skilled dancer in a very short time. Finally, she performs ardently in the temple and again their village get blessed with rains. After some drama involving the Zamindar and Kesava's fiancee, finally Chandrakala and Kesava become one.

After few years, their daughter doesn't want to learn the dance. Film ends with Kesava narrating the tradition to their daughter in that temple.

Crew

Music

The music and background score was composed by Devi Sri Prasad and lyrics were penned by Sirivennela Sitaramasastri. The music of this film was critically appreciated. DSP was well acclaimed for bringing the variations in generes from classical, melody, western and to pop. The songs were well taken. The tracks "Bharata Vedamuga", "Muvvala Navvakala", "Yevaro Choodali", "Pallakivai" were huge hits. The track "Muvvala Navvakala" sung by K.S.Chitra alongside S.P.Balasubrahmanyam gained more popularity and Chitra has been nominated for Best Playback Singer Female- Filmfare Awards South, DSP made this song "Muvvala Navvakala" using the background score of his own works Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana movie. He used the music that plays in the background of that film and made this song.. DSP composed 7 tracks and 2 instrumentals for the film. He has composed few more instrumentals, but they are not included in the audio track. He has used Chitra's voice for 4 of the tracks for giving an essence of perfect classical music. Especially the track "Bharata Vedamuga" helped DSP to prove his classical talent as well it was an evergreen chartbuster & is recognised as most fine works performed by Chitra, DSP, Sirivennala and Charmi as well.