(Contd from part II)

What is it about love that attracts people towards it like fireflies to light? Is it the adulation for achievement or the sweet taste of victory at the end that draws the entire world into its battlefield? Is it the satisfaction of permanent ownership of the partner's affection for the rest of the life that entices people to engage in relationships? Is it the sense of accomplishment lurking in the deep eyes or the warm breath of the partner that encourages people to seek after that feeling? Is it the great rush felt in oneself in selflessly sacrificing/subduing his/her wishes to honor and abide by his/her partner's feelings? Ultimately, what is that single potion of eternal bliss that people are willing to die for now - achievement? victory? affection? satisfaction? sacrifice? accomplishment? Sirivennla describes this deceptive quality of love thusly

jarigae madhanam entaTidO telapadu paapam ee praema
kalavani janTala manTalalO kanipistundi ee praema
kalisina venTanae aemavunO ceppadu maatram ee praema

Love - the greatest allure of all. Many writers have tackled this simple yet vast subject in their own ways, each coming up with his/her own solution to the question "what is love ?". But only a few of them tread a different road that ended up at the solution of detached attachment. Yandmoori's ode to love took two different tracks in the two novels that were as much about the seeking of the solution as they are about attempting to understand the nature of love - "Thriller" (adapted to the silver screen as "mutyamanta muddu") and "Rakshasudu" (adapted as same). The different manifestations of love - affection (anuraagamu), desire (kOrika), lust (kaamamu), sacrifice (tyaagamu), selflessness (nisswaardhata) - all roads leading to the same destination - detached attachment, forms the basis of these two novels (and movies).

Vidyadhari has every reason to be suspicious about the world around her. Her parents had a seemingly "regular" marital life - the initial euphoria after marriage and childbirth gradually giving way to boredom, resentment and more dangerously stoic nature (nirliptata), all the while engaging in urge satiating actions, in usual bursts , until her mother has been brutally murdered by her father in a fit of rage in her childhood. Her next door neighbor, a widowed retiree, a cockeyed optimist who does not let go of a single opportunity that might bring him "closer" to Vidyadhari. A couple of episodes during her college years involving professors of love - the love that is "unselfish" (naa praema nisswaardhamainadi) and the "sacrificial" (naa praema tyaagaanni kOrukunTundi)variety. Yandamoori provides enough ammunition to Vidyadhari to stand on the far side, totally removed from the concept of love and sets forth to change her mind in a very 'fantastical' way.

And then there is Anudeep - he stands for everything that Vidyadhari grows to hate about. Anudeep is one of the two professors of love in college and when rejected by her, goes to the Vindhyas, engages in deep penance and "earns" the right to love Vidyadhari. "Thriller" does not take the usual route of the hero trying to convince the heroine why he is better for her and why she would be better off with him. It instead tries to abstract the concept of love and shows how much powerful the sense of detachment to the subject is. Yandamoori does not make it any easy on Anudeep, even with Anudeep's sincerity and dedication towards the institution of love. This forms the key to their relationship. Anudeep's does not work towards claiming Vidyadhari's hand right before the "subham" scene and joke about it in the "SObhanam" scene. Instead he strives towards filling the void and vacuum of Vidyadhari's lovelorn life with the idea of love, the concept that is the binding and sustaining force of the universe. The absurd nature of the novel, involving Anudeep's magical powers that love "gifts" him for his penance, the author of the novel meeting its characters within the novel (a homage to Kurt Vonnegut, a popular American author famous for these kinds of absurd novels), clearly marches in tune with the absurd nature of love - love that does not follow any clear cut rules, love that does not meet expectations and love that is as erratic and chaotic as life itself.

"mutyamanta muddu" introduced the concept of abstractionist love (love that has risen over physical expectations and compulsions) in the telugu movies in a semi-commercial way, with K.S.Rama Rao assembling a different team (Hamsalekha, Satyanand, Rajedra Prasad, Seeta and Ravi Raja Pinisetty) than his usual, to tackle this radical nature of the subject. Though the movie followed the novel as closely as it commercially could, the monetary returns on the venture had Creative Commercials fall back on more mainstream ventures than indulge in such brilliant but off-beat subjects.

"He" has heard that mothers often cuddle their children, feed them off their fingers (gOru muddalu), lull them into their sleep with soothing lullabies. "He" has heard that mother's love is the purest of all, which claims on no returns for her investment. "He" has come to believe that the various forms of love, other than mother's love, has a tag of need associated with it - the wife 'loves' the husband for her security (financial, social and emotional), brotherly 'love' is blood related, children 'love' their parents for their sustenance. "He" longs for his mother. Left in orphanage, right after his birth for the sin of being an unwanted/socially-tainted product, "He" spends the rest of his life, looking for his mother and fulfilling his wishes that "He" so missed out badly while growing up.

"Rakshasudu" explores this another facet of love through the eyes of the hero ("He" does not have a name), who gets coaxed, cajoled, duped, used by the world for carrying out its agenda, all for finding the identity of "His" mother. Yandamoori parallels the two manifestations of love in "Him" - one, "His" selfishness to become a willing pawn in anti-social activities to find that one selfless love and other, "His" gradual realization of the different forms of selfless love - Sumati, an ordinary school teacher who fights the local goons while running a non-profit educational institution, JK, a mafia don with a heart, who hires "Him" to counter the anti-social elements, culminating in the great realization of patriotic aspect of love. This great equating of mother's selfless love towards her child and a true citizen's patriotic love towards his mother(land), is a new dimension that Yandmoori draws out in "Raakshasudu".

The movie adaptation, based strictly on the characters and not the original theme of the novel, had M.V.S. Harnadha Rao, Illayaraja, Chiranjeevi and Kodanda Rami Reddy, spend more time concentrating on "His" anti-social activities, "His" romances and the regular good versus evil theme more than "His" quest for true love. Though musically brilliant, "Rakshasudu" started the slipping of Yandamoori's characters from an emotional plane to the commercial plane, a sad fact that is even more pronounced in his subsequent movies - Marana Mrudangam, Rudra Netra, Aakhari Poratam, Stuvartupuram Police Station etc.

Cont'd in final part

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