THE MOTHERS OF TELUGU CINEMA

HERE has been much discourse about how the films driving masses to the theatres are increasingly male-centric. And yet, amidst the big-scale successes like Pushpa 2: The Rule, HanuMan and Devara, it is fascinating to see how some of the other most talked-about Telugu films of the year have female protagonists, more specifically mother figures.

- BH HARSH

HERE has been much discourse about how the films driving masses to the theatres are increasingly male-centric. And yet, amidst the big-scale successes like Pushpa 2: The Rule, HanuMan and Devara, it is fascinating to see how some of the other most talked-about Telugu films of the year have female protagonists, more specifically mother figures. When the protagonists become the saviours of their world, they also emerge as family heads. Where does that leave the literal father and mother figures then? In many varying and interesting places, as we realised last year.

In Lucky Baskhar, Dulquer Salmaan played a middle-class banking professional who takes to money laundering to fetch his family a comfortable life. However, when Baskhar finds himself at a nadir of his life, the one to come to his rescue is his father, a hitherto silent spectator in the narrative. A similar trope is used in AAY with the film's protagonist (Narne Nithiin), amidst his pursuit of his beloved (Nayan Sarika), who belongs to a different caste. However, his father remains a silent spectator until the end of the film, where he changes the cards and unexpectedly stands up for his son.

For Telugu cinema, 2024 was also a year of imperfect fathers trying to redeem themselves interestingly. Rao Ramesh plays an unemployed middle-aged man in Maruthi Nagar Subramanyam, who spends his prime years simply waiting for a letter of appointment to his dream government job. And yet, the film portrays his stubbornness as dogged determination, ultimately rewarding him for his perseverance.