Gharana Mogudu

1992 149’ col Telugu d K. Raghavendra Rao pc Devi Film Prod. p K. Devi Varaprasad st P. Vasu dial Parachuri Bros. co-lyr Bhuvana Chandra c Ajayan Vincent co-lyr/m M.M. Keeravani lp Chiranjeevi, Naghma,Vani Vishwanath, Rao Gopala Rao, Satyanarayana, Sharat Saxena, Aahuti Prasad, P.L. Narayana, Chalapathi Rao, Brahmanandam, Ramaprabha, Disco Shanti

Unemployed dock worker Raju (Chiranjeevi) saves the life of industrialist Bapineedu (Gopala Rao) who, in return, offers him a job. Raju’s efforts to organise the workers lead to a clash with Bapineedu’s daughter Uma Devi (Naghma), who runs the company. Raju becomes the president of the workers’ union, defeating Sarangapani (Prasad) who, it turns out, is actually in league with Uma Devi’s chief rival Ranganayakulu (Satyanarayana). Uma Devi marries Raju shortly after he has saved her life following the rivals’ plan to have her murdered, but this, it is later revealed, is only in order to ‘tame’ the otherwise invincible union worker. Raju moves into Uma Devi’s mansion where he continues his union work, leading a strike when Bhawani (Vishwanath), the woman who originally loved him, is dismissed by Uma Devi. In the end, when the true villains Ranganayakulu and his son (Saxena) try to destroy Uma Rani by burning the factory, Raju saves his wife again and ‘forgives’ her. Taming the wild and arrogant (i.e. independent) woman is a major preoccupation of several Chiranjeevi films, his adolescent machismo being boosted as much by thrashing dozens of villains as by putting women in their place (cf. Donga Mogudu, 1987; Rickshavudu and Alluda Majaaka, both 1995). One of Chiranjeevi’s most successful film, its release coincided with the brutal repression of a Naxalite-led workers’ movements, in this instance making reference to the Patancheru industrial area in Hyderabad. Several notorious ‘encounters’ between the police and political activists in this period of extreme State repression when Janardhana Reddy was the State Chief Minister, also led to a genre of worker-centered films featuring and made by

18. Narayanmurthy (eg. Erra Sainyam, 1994).

The film was a remake of the Rajnikant film Mannan (1991).

Film