Shanti Shanti Shanti

Plot

There is Murthy, the rich but frugal papa, and his two college-going kids, Siddhartha (Madhavan) and Shanti (Avni). Given papa's ways, the two kids feel a bit shackled, and yearn constantly for the good life. Matters come to a head when Siddharth wants to play the guitar at a college function, Shanti wants to take part in the fashion parade—both need money and, of course, papa isn't in the mood to indulge such extravagance.

Enter Raju (Abbas). A foundling brought up by Sumitra, who ekes out a living running an idli stall, Raju is a diehard Rajnikanth fan, working in a garage to help make both ends meet. Trouble begins when Raju loses his job, has a drink or three to ease the angst, and finds himself standing outside Siddharth-Shanti's home, gaping from outside at what he imagines is the rich life within.

At this point, the family car rams into him. Raju is quickly carted inside the home by papa's servants—with a foreign delegation due any minute, the last thing he needs is embarrassment outside his gates. Raju is tucked up in bed. Not that there is anything wrong with him, but he figures he might as well play possum and enjoy as much of the 'rich' life as he can get.

The carefree lad makes friends with Sidharth and Shanti, listens to their vows, and promises to help them out. The threesome set off in papa's precious vintage car—and the movie from there on turns into a caper, revolving around the events of one frenetic day. Raju and Shanti become romantic, Siddharth pairs up with Suji, a baddie (Prakash Raj) comes into the equation, and a kidnapping goes wrong as Raju is mistaken for Siddharth. How the foursome get out of the mess is what the rest of the movie is all about.

Cast

Production

The director of the film, T. B. Srinivas, an estwhile assistant director to Mani Ratnam, collaborated with former state cricketer Sanjay Desai, a distributor and theatre-owner, to produce a film on the youngsters of Bangalore and the idea soon started the film. Srinivas claimed he was inspired by two incidents — the kidnapping of a rich businessman by young thugs from Uttar Pradesh who were attracted by Bangalore's reputation as a fast-growing city with rich men and relaxed cops and the case of four city girls running away for a week with a man who promised to help them fulfill their ambitions — in order to write the story.

The film became the first Kannada film for prominent cinematographer P. C. Sreeram whilst noted composer Sandeep Chowta was the music director. The film was notable for becoming the first Kannada language film to have a website for the film. The move happened on the initiative of the director, T. B. Srinivas, although the practice failed to set a trend in the industry.

Release

Upon release, the film became a financial failure for the producers. However, after the success of Mani Ratnam's Alaipayuthey (2000) in which this film's supporting actor Madhavan, played the lead role, producers opted to dub the film into Tamil as Relax. Both lead actors threatened legal action, with Madhavan unhappy that a film in which he portrayed a supporting role would hamper his career in Tamil films, whilst Abbas was unhappy that the promoters were ignoring him. He also threatened action claiming that the producers owed him money.