Shankar Guru

<p>Rajashekhar is an upright whose associates are involved in shady deals. During an argument over such a deal, a scuffle ensues and Rajashekhar accidentally shoots one of his associates dead. Fleeing from the cops, Rajashekhar loses contact with his pregnant wife Sumathi. Many years later, Sumathi is now living with her son Shankar in , while Rajashekhar is a rich estate owner in . Rajashekhar’s niece Nalini encounters Shankar in Delhi and recommends him to manage her uncle’s estate in Kashmir. Guru, Shankar’s , also arrives in Kashmir for a romantic quest with his rich girlfriend Malathi. Through Shankar, Rajashekhar manages to establish contact with Sumathi and is overwhelmed with joy. Before Rajashekhar can meet Sumathi, trouble arrives in the form of Rajashekhar’s erstwhile crooked business partners, who are after a valuable necklace stolen from a temple in Delhi, which they believe is now in Rajashekhar’s possession. The partners kidnap Sumathi and imprison and torture Rajashekhar and a final fight ensues in which Shankar and Guru (who are revealed to be twins) rescue and reunite with their parents. The music was composed by with lyrics for the soundtrack by . All the songs were sung by Rajkumar himself. was released on 17 February 1978 garnered positive responses from the audience as well as critics and was a phenomenal success in all centers and completed 100 days in many theatres. The film had a theatrical run of over a year and grossed 3.26 crore in its final run. The film was declared a industry hit when it became the first Kannada film to gross over 3 crores at the box office, breaking the record of 1972 film which also made the movie the highest grossing Kannada film of the 1970’s. It was remade in as , in as and in as in which Rajkumar’s characters were played by , and respectively. The Telugu version had reprising ‘s role, while reprised the role of . The names of all the characters including the henchmen were retained in the Tamil version. The film’s title was named after ‘s sons Ravishankar and . It was the first film in which ‘s character was called and also marks Chandrashekhar’s second collaboration with Rajkumar after . During the making of the film, narrated a play called by (titled in ) to Rajkumar. The film was planned to be shot in and some preparation was undertaken, but Dr. Rajkumar backed out as he felt the story was too dark. In 2018, adapted the play into a film titled .</p>