Prasthanam

Plot

Ketti Lokanatham Naidu alias Loki (Sai Kumar) takes over the reins of a rural political power from a dying man, Galla Dasharatha Rama Naidu (Balayya). On his death bed, Galla Dasharatha Rama Naidu requests Lokanatham to marry his widowed daughter-in-law Savitri whose husband Galla Keshava (Ravi Prakash) was murdered by rival political group. Lokanatham complies. His stepson is Mitranand alias Mitra (Sharwanand) and his own son is Chinna (Sundeep Kishan). While Mitra is a devoted and loving son to Lokanatham, his step daughter Valli (Surekha Vani) hates him for marrying their mother and severs ties with them. Lokanatham wants to see Mitra as his heir because Mitra is a thinking man whereas Chinna is hot-blooded with a bad life style. Chinna loathes Mitra because he receives lesser attention than Mitra from his father and is constantly discouraged by his father from entering politics. Mitra's sister's sister-in-law is his love interest. Chinna gets upset on learning that Mitra is the new youth president of the party. That night, he gets high on drugs and sexually assaults Hameed Basha's daughter Nadia (Rashmi Gautam) and made her die in an accident. Mitra wants to punish Chinna for the heinous act while Chinna unsuccessfully tries to get Mitra killed in a movie theater. Chinna then kills Mitra's sister and her husband.

As a twist in the tale, Lokanatham Naidu sacrifices his political goodwill to protect Chinna. By doing so, he and Mitra are forced to confront each other. Lokanatham has Mitra beaten up when Mitra chases after Chinna to avenge his sister. Mitra leaves the house and moves to his old home in the village and then kills Chinna. Lokanatham orders both Mitra and Basha to be killed. Basha saves Mitra from the goons and tells him a terrible secret from Loknath's past. Loknath had actually killed Mitra's biological father, who was merely injured in the fight with the political rivals.

Mitra confronts Lokanatham with this secret and tells him that no amount of reading puranas will absolve him of his heinous deed. Lokanatham then says "Go beyond the puranas; there are no villains and heroes in this world, there are only ordinary people doing mistakes to fulfill their goals". Lokanatham then tries to kill Basha, when Mitra snatches the gun from him. Lokanatham tells Mitra to kill him; Mitra falls down on Lokanatham's feet and says that Lokanatham is the only father he has ever known and even if his biological father had lived, Mitra would not have loved him as much as Lokanatham. With this, Mitra and Basha leave.

The film ends with Lokanatham shooting himself.

Themes

The movie, on one hand, deals with politics at grass root levels that occur in villages of India, corrupt political system and the nexus between businessmen and politicians. On the other hand, the movie deals with themes like greed, ambition and devotion which are driving forces of the lead characters in this movie. A movie-buff argues that the central theme revolves around the quote from the Book of Exodus, Old Testament, –"The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children."

Cast

Reception

Despite fierce competition from other big star movies such as Simha and Darling, the movie did extremely well for its budget purely based on word of mouth publicity. The remake rights itself in several languages earned more than 70 lakhs for the producer. The film director confessed that it was a mistake to release the movie just a week ahead two biggies in the lakshmi talk show. The movie garnered super positive response from critics upon its release. The critics mainly praised the performance of Sai Kumar and the convincing plot though some criticized the director for inapt song inclusion in crucial portions of the movie. The director also revealed that he never wanted to shoot a couple of songs and even took out another song from the final cut. He had to concede the inclusion of songs due certain 'external forces'. The movie editor Dharmendra Kakarala was into fame after his debut with this film.The movie won several awards including the state government nandi awards, besides the film was selected for screening in the Indian Panorama section at International Film Festival of India, Goa. It won two filmfare awards - best film critics choice and best supporting for Sai Kumar apart from many more regional awards.

Awards