In ‘Balagam’, Human Relations Are Packed In Innocence, Ignorance & Superstition

'Balagam' is Venu Yeldandi's debut feature film and is streaming on Prime Video.

My father burst into tears while watching the last scene of the movie Balagam, roughly translated roughly ‘strength' in Telugu. The Telugu movie directed by debut director Venu Yeldandi, popular for the TV show Jabardasth managed to strike an emotional chord with the Telangana audience and encouraged them to take another look at the quality of connectedness in the relationships within their first family circle.

The movie was also appreciated by the stalwarts of the Telugu film industry with many appreciating the authentic portrayal of the Telangana culture.

Most sections of the people of Telangana could see their past & present reflected in the characters crafted in the movie. No doubt that the movie represents the everyday cultural setting of rural Telangana, but at the same time, we cannot ignore the celebration and justification of the deep-seated superstitious practices.

Though the people cried their eyes out as an automatic expressive form of their emotional love towards their family members, this emotion is drawn and motivated by the superstitious belief systems that rural life enforces people to strictly adhere to. The hierarchical social stratification of Indian society which is governed by Brahminical rules doesn't allow any scope for rationality and logic.

It keeps the people ignorant and any deviance from this unreasonable order results in unbearable punishment like boycotting the family, isolation, curbing everyday communication transactions, etc.

The movie revolves around the demise of Komarayya (Sudhakar Reddy), a senior citizen who is a jovial, congenial and talkative person and maintains a healthy relationship with all the people of the village but laments over the absence and love of his children. While the daughter, Lakshmi, was distanced from him due to a conflict between his sons (Ailayya, Mogili), and son-in-law, Narayana, over the issue of 'respect'/ 'ego', younger son, Mogili, migrated to Surat.

The responsibility of performing the customary death rites and rituals of Komuraiah lies on the sons and son-in-law. The entire movie is about the events that follow.  

Death brings everyone together and leads them to recollect the past. The incident of death also becomes a time when the family discusses if they took care of the person or not. It opens a discussion into judging how much the family of the deceased loved him.

In the movie, what authenticates and endorses the people's judgement is the baseless belief of a crow consuming the food offered to the soul of the dead.  It is uncritically believed that the non-consumption of the food by the crow is looked at as a bad omen and might cause trouble to all the people of the village. The village breeds these kind of superstitious beliefs and quickly gets ready to boycott the family for a crow not consuming the food. In one of the scenes, the village heads threatens to boycott the family if the crow fails to eat the food on the 10th day after the death.

Though the popular understanding of the film is the importance of human relations, these relations are still fueled by the village's irrational beliefs. The movie celebrates rural life in a convenient way by portraying one side of it and reinforcing the existing conventional belief patterns.

Borrowing from the words of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, 'What is a village but a sink of localism, a den of ignorance and narrow mindedness?'

It is quite often that we see the Telugu film industry romanticising rural life by ignoring reality. Though the movie strives to convey the message of the importance of human relations, it also upholds and justifies the conventions. Sailu's (Komuraiah's grandson) fiancé is considered bad luck for Komuraiah's family, the sick notion of treating people as possession, assuming the wishes of the dead and putting the lives of the living at stake, are all examples of irrational and pointless behaviour.

In one of the scenes, the wedding of Sailu and Sandhya (Lakshmi's daughter) is decided assuming that Komarayya's soul would be at peace with their marriage. Sandhya doesn't have a choice or even a say in this decision and she is never asked about her willingness. Everything gets decided only to satisfy the dead.

We cannot ignore the fact that the traditional Indian family system is patriarchal and hierarchical in nature. It gives an undue advantage to the elder son who inherits control over the family after father. It also pushes him to bear the moral responsibility which is legitimised and endorsed by the people around. Mogili, always had a low tone, no stake in taking decisions, positioned/pushed aside, and is considered to be his 'wife's puppet’.

The women do not have any agency to speak, represent themselves, or voice out their opinions. They are just the receivers of instructions, people who serve the meals, the unwilling victims of delicate 'male ego', and their entire life depends on the decisions made by their father/husband.

The women's plea is heard and accepted only when she cries to the core and it happens only to stop her from crying. Lakshmi is brought back to her maternal house after crying badly and when Sandhya timidly warns her father of the same prospective patriarchal husband. If the woman holds her ground and speaks, then she's questioned on her 'womanhood'.

When Sujatha, Mogili's wife, asks for their share in property to sell it and buy a house in Surat she's scolded by Ailayya and Narayana who ask, "How can you speak like this being a woman?" The men around can't tolerate a woman speaking for herself and question her ‘womanhood’ instead of paying heed to the point she tries to convey. Lakshmi’s guilt that stems from failing to take care of her father due to the rift between her husband and brothers is explicitly because of the patriarchal clutches she's in.

If people agree that the film reflects Telangana culture and human relations, then they should also take a serious look at the power dynamics amongst humans. Failing to identify dominance, control, inequality, lack of choice, under the mask of 'emotions' will only push us to naivety.

(The author, Shiva Thrishul, teaches media studies to undergraduate students at Bhavan's Vivekananda College of Science, Humanities and Commerce, Hyderabad. With an MA from the Department of Communication, University of Hyderabad, he's pursuing his PhD from Osmania University. His research interests are Education, Film Studies, Caste and Gender.)

(This is an opinion article and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)