Tom and Jerry show of Okkadu

This is my second blog about the film Okkadu and in this blog I would like to discuss little bit about the screenplay design during the second-half of the film that kept audience engaged, excited and kept guessing of what will happen next.

The Screenplay writer, who is none other than the director himself, Mr. Gunasekhar very intelligently designed the part from the time Mahesh brings Bhoomika to his house to the time when they both fall in love at the airport.

Till the time Mahesh encountered Bhoomika and Prakash Raj, his goal was to become Kabaddi champions and get a Police job under sports quota but when the 'Konda Reddy Buruju' scene happened, from then his goal has got changed. Knowingly or unknowingly, he brought himself to a life-threatening trouble of taking the girl away from a notorious villain (Prakash Raj). His life is at risk now. But he has a new goal of sending Bhoomika to America and he feels that as his responsible. The character priorities changed so much that all his plans got shattered and now there are new goals and new challenges ahead. Here is where Gunasekhar succeeded in convincing audience that Mahesh can do whatever it takes, by showing him as a courageous boy right from the beginning of the film. At this point, though we may have doubts on how Mahesh will get escaped from Prakash Raj, we are pretty confident that Mahesh can face any kind of challenge.

Keeping audience convinced to this point is a tough job but director succeeded in doing that, with the help of his screenplay and Mahesh screen presence. 

Now he brings the girl to his house. They are somewhat in safer zone from the Villain. Here is the challenge for the screenplay writer. When the audience come to know that the lead characters are not in any risk or threat, they may feel the flatness in story and loose their interest but the writer intelligently weaved the plot from here on to keep audience engaged by creating quite a few obstacles in Mahesh's attempts to safeguard the girl and send her to America. Lets see what they are:

1. Hiccups

Being at home, the only obstacles/threat for Mahesh in hiding the girl is his family so the writer created the obstacles using family members as threat to Mahesh. First is the dining scene when he steals rotis from his dad and sister for the girl, showing how caring Mahesh is towards the girl, an attempt to make Audience like the Hero more. The interesting point is the scene doesn't end there. Bhoomika starts to have hiccups creating doubts in Mahesh's parents mind that there is someone in his room. Mahesh gets bit tensed and somehow manages it. The writer is able to create a threat in this scene and thus kept the interest going.

As long as the Protagonist has a threat and if audience are aware of it, the interest is kept hold to see how he escapes from the threat.

2. Sister & Mom

Second is when we see Bhoomika hiding in a cupboard and Mahesh gives her his sister's dress to wear but in the next scene his sister will come in search of her dress and opens the cupboard keeping Mahesh and audience nervous. To everyone surprise, Bhoomika will not be there in the cupboard. Mahesh gets more nervous, as to where she has gone. He searches everywhere, keeping audience guessing. Finally she is found, hiding along with the dolls. Sister threat is solved but it follows another threat from Mother, when her Mother Geetha comes in to his room and gives him juice to drink. At that point she notices Bhoomika amond the dolls. Again, there is a tension if she can find her out but showing her innocence, writer loosened the tension and generated humor out of it.

3. Passport office

The third is in the passport office, showing the passport officer as strict officer and delaying the things for Mahesh, when he goes and asks for Passport, the officer will not agree to give it over hand. Then the Mahesh gang tease him and finally get the passport. Here the obstacle is the officer but writer chose to deal the scene humorously as audience can relax a bit.

4. Gypsy found - sniffer dogs on the way!

Right after the comedy scene, the tension multiplies itself when Mahesh hears the news that police found the gypsy he used for bringing the girl. A sudden shift from comedy to suspense thrill, makes the relaxed audience stand on their feet and watch what will happen next as the Hero is again in some danger of getting caught. But he gets escaped as sniffer dogs fail to find the trace.

Slowly the writer has loosen the threads, by revealing the suspense to Hero's sister and then they all meet at the roof-top to celebrate Bhumika's birthday followed by a song, Cheppave chirugali. All these sequences are placed to show that there is a relationship building between Hero and the Heroine, as this movie cannot have the mantra  - Hero sees the girl and falls in Love at first sight.

5. Father - the Police officer

This is the biggest threat Mahesh has from his family as his father is the police officer and he is the one who is in search of the so called Kidnapper. Here is where great writers say and follow, keep your biggest punch to the end and save energy till then. Writer showed all other family members as threats but kept his father to the end so that the blow can give bigger impact. This scene when Bhoomika, not aware of who the police officer is, brings him to the home and plays the scene. We can notice here the  threat Hero has and we can see on his face, how tensed he is. As the scene progresses, we can anticipate for the biggest revelation of the secret. His dad finally comes to know she is the girl that they are looking for, Mahesh escapes from his home with Bhoomika.

That is how, about 40 - 45 min of scenes are designed from the time Bhoomika enters Mahesh's house to the time they escape from Mahesh's dad, Mukesh Rushi. Then Mahesh decides to hide her on the great 'Charminar'.

6. Police and Villain gang surround Charminar - escape plan

As things get relaxed, the next day Police find them and call for surrender. Also the villain gang come there to catch the girl. Once again the pair is in a trouble. Interesting, showing his skills the writer/director designed the plan to escape from the Charminar to reach the airport. The fight, the chase all show the gutsy side of the Hero.

I am sure you will definitely remember the pani-puri scene that follows after this escape where again Mahesh feels the tension of loosing the girl but she comes back to present him a knee-cap. So I am not explicitly mentioning it. (or may be I did!)

Finally, when they reach the airport safely, Mahesh leaves the girl and while coming back he realizes she has already occupied his heart. Bhoomika notices that as well and she also expresses her love and they both fall in love for each other.

This portion of the film is the middle part, as the later part is when the girl is taken away by the Villain and followed by Hero-Villain scenes leading to the climax. When the girl is taken away, Hero has no threat to escape from, his goal has changed now - its to get the girl from the hands of villain.

The middle part is when Hero is not having a direct encounter with Villain but there is always a threat from someone or the other that makes him feel insecure, unsafe and thus maintaining the suspense and tension in the film.

In other words, its the Tom and Jerry show, where the Jerry is always attacked by Tom, here there are multiple Toms, each attacking Jerry one at a time and the Jerry successfully gets escaped from each Tom's  attack.

Job well done. Kudos to the writer for the design and director & actors for the execution!

- Sai Kiran