Kokila

<p>Kokila, a medical college student, lives with father, who is an engineer, and mother in a home in Bangalore. A housemaid Chenni, who is very close to the family, also lives with them. As Kokila’s father travels a lot and his wife is suffering from health problems, they decide to keep a paying guest. Vijayakumar, a bank executive, comes and lives in the household as a paying guest. Kokila and Vijay fall in love and plan to get married with the consent of her parents. In the meanwhile, suddenly one night, Vijay and Chenni are alone in the home. They both end up making love, and Kokila after her return remains unaware about this incident, though Chenni is well aware of Kokila’s affair with Vijay. Vijay, however, forgets Chenni and continues to live with his normal love for Kokila. Suddenly, one day while Kokila is away on a college tour, Vijay gets to know that Chenni is pregnant. Murali Manohar Rao Bhaskar Rao suggests to Vijay that the child shouldn’t be aborted and that a real man would never do that . Meanwhile , the dejected Chenni leaves the house. When Kokila returns from the tour, she finds both Vijay and Chenni missing. She is informed by her mother that Vijay has vacated the room and makes several unsuccessful attempts to find his whereabouts. After three years, Kokila meets Vijay accidentally, in a village where she is posted as a doctor. At the point in time, she gets to know that Vijay and Chenni got married and have a child named Kokila. was the directorial debut of , who was one of the leading cinematographers in at the time. The film also marked the debut of , who would go on to establish himself as a successful actor in the . People from five different industries worked in the film; (Malayalam), and (Tamil), (Telugu), (Kannada) and (Bengali). None of them except Mohan knew Kannada at the time. Mohan was a student of , a theatre troupe run by . Mohan was acting in a play named alongside and and he was asked to send his photograph to Mahendra who was in search of new actors for his debut directorial venture. Subsequently, Mohan was offered a role in the film in which he played Kamal’s friend. According to Haasan, the film was made in Kannada, rather than Tamil, because during that time, “It was felt that the Tamil audience would not accept ‘different’ films”. Balu Mahendra shot a few sequences at Hotel Paraag and a huge rock in in . He shot the rock in various angles and used it in the film. The final length of the film was 3,954.78 metres (12,975.0 ft). Despite not being fluent in Kannada, Haasan dubbed in his own voice. The and background score for were composed by with lyrics by . The song is based on the Malayalam song which Salil Chowdhury had composed for the Malayalam film , and also Bengali version sung by . All the versions were released in same year, 1977. was released in theatres on 7 October 1977. The film was screened at the then known as “Filmotsav78” in Madras (now ). In 2008, film critic and cartoonist said, “When I saw the movie, I was stunned. It was such a beautiful movie, up there in the league of and his .” was a box-office success not only in , but also in the neighbouring state of . In 1980, it became the first Kannada film to have a 100-day run in . The film was released in its original language without being dubbed to Tamil, three years after the release, and ran for more than 140 days in Chennai, a record for a Kannada film in Tamil Nadu. Mohan became popularly known as ” Mohan” after the film’s success. Mahendra later remade the film in as (1983) and in as (1996).</p>