A couple of years ago,on one fine morning, I was stranded in Bangalore’s HAL airport (or the old airport as we now describe it) for some 4-5 hours. The reason being my flight and most other flights were delayed due to fog condition and so I was caught unawares. Since the agenda was only a meeting with a retail chain towards lunch time, I was hoping to catch up on some other agenda’s and catch the evening flight and return back. You see those were the pre recession days and could easily fly short distances like Chennai-Bangalore and get back the same day too . Well I do miss those days I guess. Before you wonder if this post is going to be about my ramblings on recession, flying etc- let me clarify that it’s not what I have in mind. I just narrated this incident to tell you all how I wish I had at least known the story of Chandrasekhar Yeleti’s ( C.Y from hereon ) latest Telugu movie-‘Prayanam’ by that time.If that were so, who knows those few hours could have changed my life.
For those who have seen or heard of C.Y’s previous movies namely Aithe, Anukokunda Oku Roju (remade as Sunday in Hindi) and Okkadunnadu, it would surely come as a surprise to know that Yeleti this time has changed tracks and gone in for a lighthearted romantic film in the form of Prayanam. Before talking anything about the movie- I have a question to ask. What would any guy who has a lot of time to while away in an airport try to do? Well yes the normal responses would be reading, checking your mail/chatting, having endless cups of coffee/mugs of beer, talking with someone on the mobile etc. But would anyone among us think of falling in love and then ensuring that one tends to get successful in it?
Yeah! I’m sure most of us probably end up seeing a good looking girl and some of us probably even manage to talk to the girl and feel happy about it. But I repeat how many of us would use the few hours of time with us at the airport to fall in love with the girl and then try to woo her successfully? Not many, right? Well let me then go on to tell you what Prayanam is all about. The plot if I were to call it is all about a trio of friends – Dhruv (Manchu Manoj), Janardhan and Tamim who have just completed a sightseeing trip to Malaysia and are now at Kuala Lumpur’s International airport to fly over to Singapore. At the same time you have the female lead Harika (Payal Ghosh a.k.a Harika) along with her friend Kalpika who are also at the airport to catch a flight to Hyderabad.
Harika is about to meet a prospective bride groom in Hyderabad and that’s the reason for her travel. In truly filmy style Dhruv falls in love with Harika – a classic case of love at first sight. But our hero is somewhat different because he is not content by merely falling in love; he wants to successfully woo her too. And he has just 2 hours to go about in this task. How he goes about doing this is what the movie is all about. Now I’m sure even without seeing the movie it would be clear to almost everyone that the plot is extremely simple and does not carry any meat on its own. In such a case it becomes very important for the director to be very effective in ensuring that the proceedings on screen keep the viewer enthused throughout the duration of the film.
It is here that C.Y shows he is in complete control. By ensuring that the humour quotient is fairly high throughout the movie, he manages to keep the proceedings interesting enough till the end. In fact though it is a romantic film, I personally did not find anything extraordinary about the romance in the movie as such. But it is in the comedy scenes that C.Y completely excels and lifts the movie to a large extent. Also what is remarkable about the movie is that the movie is more or less shot in just one location (except the few scenes at the start) i.e. in the airport and there are just 5-6 characters in the movie. Also commendable is the fact that the comedy is never over the top. Brahmanandam as Satyanaryana Swamy is hilarious and the scenes that he has with Janardhan are certainly innovative.
Also interestingly the characters of Kalpika and Tamim have been well sketched and the scenes involving them are entertaining again. Manchu Manoj seems to be having a blast in this movie (after Nenu Meeku Telusa which was reasonably noticed) and he will surely be talked about with this movie. Harika/Payal Ghosh does not have much scope but is fairly decent. Music by Mahesh Shankar is fairly adequate and does not distract (just 3 songs in the movie). The animation in the opening titles and the first song (YYW) is quite interesting. All in all this is one ‘Prayanam’ which can be safely undertaken. Not outstanding cinema, but definitely entertaining enough.
P.S- By now you would have understood why I mentioned I wish I knew the story of Prayanam when I was stuck at Bangalore’s HAL airport. But on hindsight even if I had liked some girl then, with all the chaos that prevailed there on that day I doubt if I would have been successful enough like Manchu Manoj in the movie .
P.S- Originally published in PFC.Check it out here- http://passionforcinema.com/chandrasekhar-yeleti-undertakes-a-new-%e2%80%98prayanam%e2%80%99/
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