HYDERABAD: In Sarangadhariya, a Hindu middle-class college boy who loves a Muslim girl, does something radical to convince her father. After being rejected for being ‘inherently different,’ he returns to her father and tells him that he has gotten rid of the one thing that differentiates them—through a circumcision. It might read laughable on paper, but the boy is too young to think rationally and make wise decisions. He is desperate to prove a point, even if it comes at the cost of being foolishly naive.
Strangely enough, Sarangadhariya too has a similar trajectory. Even though its execution is often shabby, the film deserves recognition for how it attempts to explore a few subjects, which are rarely touched upon in Telugu cinema, with dignity.
Directed by Padmarao Abbisetti, the film revolves around Krishna (Raja Ravindra) and his family, primarily the trials and tribulations of his three children, Arjuna, Sai, and Anupama. Each of them is struggling in their own way. While Sai (Mohit Peddada) is a fumbling college student, Arjun (Moin) is an alcoholic, unemployed man, drowning in self-pity and unable to recover from a tragic incident in the past. Anupama (Yashaswini Srinivas), meanwhile, strives to pursue a life of ambition, even as she finds herself the unwilling centre of attention in her neighbourhood.
In the first half, Sarangadhariya has an interesting, albeit somewhat dully-paced, slice-of-life quality. Even later on, once the audience is familiar with the core storyline, the director uses a light-handed touch for the secondary plot points. Most impressively, Sarangadhariya makes space for a transgender character and shows a mirror to a society that urgently needs to get rid of these taboos, making a conscious effort to explore the subject of LGBTQIA community in a way that’s both respectful and educational. It’s hard to talk about the film without giving away spoilers, but Padmarao Abbisetti leaves many clues early on, slyly hinting at the big reveal that forms the crux of the second half.
Krishna, the family patriarch, is an interesting character. He might seem dismissive of his children at first glance, like most conventional father figures in our cinema, but there is also this underlying resilience to his persona. He has a no-nonsense quality to him and is quick to give a rebuttal to all his naysayers, while maintaining a composed demeanour. And yet, Krishna carries an emotional burden (which Raja Ravindra brings out beautifully) that can only come with facing some real hardships in life, even as we see him having made peace with the melancholic present.
But despite such a strong protagonist and its overarching themes, the film often falls prey to the ‘commercial potboiler’ elements. There are more than a handful of dialogues that objectify women (even if they are coming from henchmen prototypes), leaving a bad taste in the mouth. The use of melodramatic background music in many scenes becomes overkill.