Vanaja (2007)

Synopsis: Set in rural South India, a place where social barriers are built stronger than fort walls, VANAJA explores the chasm that divides classes as a young girl struggles to come of age. Vanaja... Set in rural South India, a place where social barriers are built stronger than fort walls, VANAJA explores the chasm that divides classes as a young girl struggles to come of age. Vanaja (Mamatha Bukhya) is the 14 year-old daughter of a poor fisherman from the lowest class. When a sooth-sayer predicts that she will be a great dancer one day, she goes to work in the house of local landlady Rama Devi (Real name), in hopes of learning Kuchipudi dance from her new employer. She is hired as a farmhand, but her vivacious ways and spunk soon catch the landlady’s eye: when she is entrusted with tending the chicken, she’s caught, instead, chasing them into a general pandemonium, and lying unabashedly to conceal her pranks. To keep her out of trouble, Rama Devi promotes her to a kitchen underhand, where she comes up against the old, crusty and extremely loyal Radhamma (Real name) – Rama Devi’s cook. It isn’t long before Vanaja gets herself invited to play a game of pacheesi against Rama Devi. Seeing that losing isn’t the mistress’s forte, Vanaja deliberately gives up her game – a fact that doesn’t go unnoticed - and which eventually secures her the landlady’s mentorship – first in music, and then in dance. Vanaja excels at the art, and seems to be on a steadily ascending path when Shekhar (Real Name), Rama Devi’s 23 year old son – handsome, muscular and rather insecure, returns from the US to run for local political elections. Sexual chemistry is ignited between Shekhar and Vanaja (still a minor at 15), and a mostly innocent flirtation develops between them. Then, matters suddenly turn ugly when Vanaja’s superior intellect pits her against Shekhar in a public incident which ultimately humiliates him in front of his mother. Matters escalate, eventually leading to Shekhar raping Vanaja. Vanaja’s father (Real Name), straddled with debt and struggling with alcoholism, persuades his daughter to deliberately forego an abortion and try to use her child for gain; a tangible symbol that will inevitably link them to the upper class and wealth. Subverting the class structure however, is not that easy. For the landlady, acknowledging the child would admit to her son’s rape of a minor; but not acknowledging it would forsake her own bloodline, however polluted by Vanaja’s low caste. For Vanaja, the choice is harsher: living a life of servitude in close proximity to her child, or forsaking her son and starting afresh some place else. -- © Emerging Pictures [More]

Starring: Mamatha Bhukya, Urmila Dammannagari, Ramachandriah Marikanti, Krishnamma Gundimalla

Starring: Mamatha Bhukya, Urmila Dammannagari, Ramachandriah Marikanti, Krishnamma Gundimalla

Director: Rajnesh Domalpalli

Director: Rajnesh Domalpalli
Screenwriter: Rajnesh Domalpalli
Producer: Latha R. Domalapalli
Composer: Indira Amperiani, Bhaskara S. Narayanan
Studio: Emerging Pictures

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