Mahanadi

Mahanadhi, directed by Santhana, is a crime film from 1994. It features Kamal Haasan and Sukanya in the main cast. The film follows Krishnaswamy, an honest man who is conned into a chit fund scheme and subsequently imprisoned. As he endures harrowing conditions behind bars, his family begins to fall apart.

Krishnaswamy, a widower residing in a village near Kumbakonam, encounters Dhanush, a swindler from Madras, who wants him to work with his chit fund enterprise. Krishna goes along with it and ends up being unjustly convicted. He forms a friendship with Panjapakesan, incarcerated for the same crime. Panjapakesan’s daughter, also a nurse, is the sole breadwinner while Krishna is in jail.

Krishna finds out that his daughter is collaborating with a family of street performers from Sonagachi, a red-light district. When Krishna gets arrested, Kaveri, Saraswathi and Bharani approach Dhanush for financial support. When Dhanush takes them to his boss, the boss uses Kaveri as a prostitute and rapes her for money. The employer drives Bharani away with his dog, taking the earnings home to line his own pockets.

Krishna comes back to Calcutta and locates his daughter, but his companion Muthusamy informs him that Dhanush intends to have him imprisoned indefinitely by framing him for a murder case. Krishna, when he happens to overhear his daughter sleep-talking about all the clients she was forced to serve. Heartbroken, Krishna can no longer remain unpunished and plots revenge against Dhanush, so he kills Dhanush and Venkatachalam, the kingpin behind the cheating. He receives a 14-year prison sentence, then comes back to live with his daughter, now married to Muthusamy’s son and having a child of her own, and his son is now a grown adult.

Mahanadhi is a sorrowful, difficult, ropey and heartbreaking film that will remain with you for a long time, with its deep-rooted neorealism and unrefined approach to human misery. It threads the needle of complicated themes of grief, inequality, and forgiveness with elegance and nuance. Through stunning cinematography and a brilliant score, sound and image combine to build atmosphere and tension, even as the story builds with gut-wrenching speed and fervour. An essential, explosive and extraordinary cinematic experience that stays with you well beyond the final credits.