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Pranali: A never-ending story of a Devdasi

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Pranali
The social awakening about the morbid lives of devdasis has been explored in many serials and documentary films and even some films that have not really captured any fancy. Pranali or the journey of a devdasi fails to impress you firstly because it doesn’t really speak about a journey, the growth is only timid and you wonder whether it the story or a woman or the investigation into a bad social tradition.

Rating: 2/5

Hirdesh Kamble definitely seems to have been in a fix about the film which led to the film dragging along the borders the tagline. Finally, the journey is lost in oblivion and becomes a reformation camp and finally leads to erewhon or nowhere. The storyline is not clearly defined, so are the moral ideas incorporated in it. What could have seemed like an age-defying saga, seems like a strip in a magazine that you pick for a journey. It isn’t an easy task to take up a serious topic that talks about a social issue deep rooted in our tradition needs a very subtle and delicate treatment and a slight mistake will lead to a disaster.

Check out Pranali movie stills

The documentary on sexworkers in the borders of Karnataka and Maharashtra in some news channel had brought out the depressing tradition that forces the women from the lower caste to become devdasi. Though the movie got very little hype and publicity, it has raised some hopes but unfortunately it doesn’t really fulfill any hopes associated with it.

The movie depicts the story of Pranali from being a little girl to a matured woman. Pranali (Nargis), who belongs to a lower caste family living in a village, is leading her life with full vigor and childhood fancies becomes prey to a lame social tradition that needs her to be dedicated to God. She sacrifices her dreams and happiness of a girl to lead a life of no respect and stability. Pranali becomes a devdasi and in turn becomes an object or lust to the high priest of the temple and soon turns a sex worker to please the well-to-do in the village. Having no other way out Pranali starts leading the life of a Devdasi or a prostitute.

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Nargis Bagheri in Pranali

Things go somewhat smoothly till she decides to give birth and after a number of depressing incidents Pranali reaches the red light area of Mumbai. She delivers a daughter and the thought of putting her daughter to the same tortuous life scares her, and she vows to educate her daughter and give her a secured life. She fails to do so as schools refuse to give admission to a sex worker’s child.

Her life along with the other devdasis including Chanda (Dipsshikha), Akka (Sudha Chandran), Kanchi (Rohini Kapoor) and Salma (Vaidehi Singh) are living a gloomy life when an NRI Vijay (Raman Trikha) brings in some trying to stabilize their lives and place them back into the society with respect. While they fight for legalization of prostitution, they face many hurdles which unveils the white-collared and respectable men from the higher society who patronize prostitution yet shy out from the thought of its getting legalized as that will bring in unwanted attention. This is the plot that sees Pranali turn from a prostitute to a social worker and finally the book happens to add to the various situations in the film.

The film though tries to bring into light the darker truths of an age-old society that fears to acknowledge and its hypocrisy is more than blood thick. The movie fails to achieve what it has been aimed for. The movie’s music by Pandit Birju Maharaj, Kailash Kher and his band member Kailasha and has high classical impact, which was not required for the story.

Nargis Bagheri in Pranali

Speaking about acting, the rest of the actors excluding Nargis give below average performance. Nargis comes as a revelation and shows enough latent talent that could have been further explored. She makes even veteran performers like Sudha Chandran look under the mark but the girl needs to be selective to showcase her talents. Upendra Limaye who shows unwanted bhaigiri as the taxi driver is not only pathetic but burdensome.

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Over all, the movie fails to impress and can be seen for a change.

Rating: 2/5

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1 COMMENT

  1. this is very interesting and it should be opposed, and we should give
    legal and other status mentioned in indian constitution to every citizen,
    we should respect prostitute………

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