The impact of Khaleja!

Now I know Tollywood movies are rather infamous for their lack of practicality. A man shoots with a gun and then throws a knife to cut the bullet and two bad guys are hit by pieces of the same bullet, and then the knife kills the third one.

A man is beaten to death and then buried in a coffin, after which suddenly, a burst of energy runs through him and he rises out of the Earth and thrashes all the goons that ever touched him.

As much as I agree with the notion that these things are impractical, I think that it only takes a minute to understand that those scenes are made with the intention to attract the masses, and give them an incentive to hoot for their favorite hero, dance, cheer and have a blast while watching the movie. Heroism aside, many fantastico morals can be derived from these movies.

There's a particular one that had a less-than-deserved response from the public - Khaleja. It's a movie about a man (Raju) who's believed to be God by an entire village, and by the end of the story, he actually lives up to their expectations. He happens to enter the village at a time of his own extreme need, and is taken good care of. Once he's back on his feet, he is told that he is considered divine, and is taken aback by their worship of him. He makes a run for it at first, but changes his mind once he comes to know of the grave situation that the villagers are in, and vows to do everything in his power to help them. Be it by virtue of his extreme luck or his extreme strength, he manages to protect the village and bring to life the prophecy that was foretold.

Critics were unimpressed by the idea of a man living up to being a God. But there's a particular scene in the movie that I feel denotes the intention of the makers to make an impression of a noble moral in the viewer's minds.

Raju (Mahesh Babu) stops a man on a bike and asks him for some money. The man gives him a disgruntled reply and drives off. Two minutes later, Raju signals for a car to stop, and once again, asks for money. This time, the man in the car gives him a hundred rupee note. That's when Raju's fantastico dialogue comes up.

"The second time I thought of asking for money, I decided to buy milk for the poor homeless child sleeping at the edge of the road. I get it now. God isn't up in the heavens or in the air. He's hiding inside all of us, and when we take up a noble quest to help someone else, he bursts out of us and does the needful."

I'll never forget that dialogue. It's got gravity; it's a step to making us busy humans care for others around it. I don't care if it is true or not, but the attempt to inculcate that notion in people is absolutely fantastico, and I'm going to let myself be influenced. :)

This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.