Sankarabharanam

<p>Shankara Sastri, a widower with a daughter named Sarada, is one of the most popular singers of the day, famed for having mastered the . Tulasi is the daughter of a , who admires Sastri from afar. Once, when Sastri came to their town on tour, Tulasi met him on the riverbank when Sastri was teaching his own daughter. One morning Tulasi was so thrilled by Sastri’s singing that she begins dancing on the riverbank, oblivious of her surroundings. Sastri sees her, and Tulasi also comes to her senses and abruptly stops. She expects Sastri to rebuke her. But he appreciates her sincerity and continues singing. Tulasi’s mother wants her to follow in the family tradition of becoming a courtesan, believes she can extract a high price for Tulasi from a rich man. Once the deal was struck, the man raped Tulasi. Seeing a photo of Sastri in Tulasi’s room, he breaks it and taunts her by saying that she is now free to be the old Sastri’s mistress. The enraged Tulasi stabs her rapist with a shard of glass from the broken frame of Sastri’s photo, killing him. At the subsequent murder trial Sastri engages a close friend, a lawyer, to defend Tulasi. Tulasi’s mother is sent to jail for engaging in prostitution, while Tulasi goes free but finds herself homeless. When Sastri takes Tulasi to his own house, the rumour spreads that Tulasi has become Sastri’s mistress. Engaged to sing at a temple, everyone, including Sastri’s musical accompanists, leaves on seeing Tulasi. Feeling responsible for this public insult to the man she reveres, Tulasi leaves Sastri’s home. Over time, while is on the ascendant, the popularity of classical music wanes, Sastri loses his audience and, with them his comfortable lifestyle. Ten years later, Sastri is living in a small house with his daughter, who has grown into adulthood. Meanwhile, Tulasi has inherited her mother’s property after her mother’s demise. Tulasi has a ten-year-old son, the result of her rape, and desires that he become Sastri’s student. She intends to make her son, the outcome of an evil, an ornament to adorn Shankara Sastri as his disciple, just as how a venomous snake becomes an ornament of Lord Shiva (Shankara – Shiva, aabaranam- ornament) and therefore, Shankara’s aabharanam – Shankarabharanam. Tulasi gets her son to pretend to be homeless, entering Sastri’s household as a servant. Tulasi is content to watch from a distance as her son gradually becomes Sastri’s musical protege. Pamulaparti Venkata Kameswara Rao, a schoolteacher by profession but a singer at heart, falls in love with Sarada. Although Sastri rejects the alliance at first, he agrees after hearing the man sing at the village temple. Tulasi arranges for a concert on the day of Sarada’s wedding, in a new auditorium which she named for her mentor. Sastri sings at the concert but suffers a heart attack part-way through it. His disciple, Tulasi’s son, takes over from the sidelines and continues singing the song. As Sastri watches his student with pride, he also sees Tulasi at the side of the hall and realizes that the boy is Tulasi’s son. A doctor is brought to attend to Sastri, but Sastri waves him off, knowing that his end is near. As Tulasi’s son completes the song, Sastri symbolically anoints the boy as his musical heir by giving his “aabharanam” (his leg bracelet, or “Ganda Penderam”), once bestowed by society to honor him and effectively became a part of him, to him and dies. Tulasi comes running to her , and dies at his feet. The film ends on this tragic but uplifting note, as Sastri’s newly-wed daughter and son-in-law take charge of Tulasi’s son. After hearing the plot, the producers were initially taken aback due to the tone to the subject matter, but finally agreed to produce the film. He wanted to enact the role of Shankara Sastry, wanted to perform the role, but couldn’t approach him for various reasons and also wanted for the role, but later refused as Viswanath felt his image as a star would ruin the role and he chose a debutant , a stage artist for the role. scripted and directed the film, while gave the dialogues. performed the while the film is edited by G. G. Krishna Rao. worked as the film’s . , who went on to direct films like , and was one of the assistant directors in the film. The shooting of the film was completed in 60 days. The film was mostly shot in , Raghudevapuram, , , , and Somavaram in , in , and in . The music, largely based, was composed by . was the original choice for the male playback singer, due to the heavy classical content of the compositions. Since M. Balamuralikrishna was not so much inclined to sing in the movie, K. V. Mahadevan, having faith in the mettle of , insisted on him taking up this challenge. The soundtrack has lyrics by and vocals by S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, and . All music is composed by . Released on 2 February 1980, the film was released in only a very few theatres and opened to almost empty halls. However, in a week through positive reviews and word of mouth theatres were packed. The film had 216-day run at Royal theatre, . The film was dubbed into and released in New Theatre, and Kavitha Theatre, on 12 September 1980, where it ran successfully for over 200 days. It is considered a cult classic in Telugu cinema especially due to the use of carnatic music that is more true to the classical form than for film. The Tamil dubbed version of the film was rereleased on 13 March 2015. M. Suganth of wrote that “This film is a textbook example of how music and storytelling can go hand-in-hand to create a brilliant film”. The film won four , primarily in the Music categories. This makes the only Telugu film to win four National Film Awards at the time. The film is one of the three Telugu films to win the . The film also won seven , including the . Four of the seven Nandi Awards are from the Music categories. The success of this film triggered a sequence of classical films in Telugu, including (by ), (by Dasari N. Rao), and Viswanath’s own follow-ups: , , , , , , , , . , the Telugu playback singer who rendered all the songs of Sastri’s character, has often said this movie was the highlight of his career. It got his first National Award, and made him a household name across all of South India. Film critic Gudipoodi Srihari called it the best Telugu film he has seen after .</p>