Idolle Ramayana 2016

Set against the vibrant backdrop of the Rama Navami festival, the story centers on Bhujanga [Prakash Raj] a respected businessman who has just returned from the Gulf. He owns a small commercial property beside his house, renting it out to nearby shopkeepers, with one shop stubbornly left vacant. Bhujanga is short-tempered and pushes hard on two points: keeping his daughter from continuing her studies and steering her toward an arranged marriage. His rigid stance hardens further when his daughter is arrested for staging a protest, and he spends his evenings in the vacant shop, drinking with old friends as they reconnect and cement their social circle.

In the midst of this, Bhujanga encounters Susheela [Priyamani], a prostitute who awakens in him a conflicted desire to bond, even as he fears that any close association could tarnish his hard-won reputation. The tension thickens when Shiva [Aravind Kuplikar], an auto-rickshaw driver and a friend of Rajeeva, arrives with Susheela and, in a startling turn, locks her inside the shuttered shop with Bhujanga, promising to unlock it only after they spend some time together.

Complicating matters, Shiva meets one of his passengers, a film director [Achyuth Kumar] who had forgotten his bag in the auto that morning. Shiva tells him he saw the bag inside the locked shutter and vows to fetch it, a revelation that turns the director into a momentary ally who buys him a couple of drinks. Their celebratory mood is cut short when they land in trouble with the police for drunken driving, and they fail to return that night to unlock the shutter. Inspector Ramdas [Rangayana Raghu], a close friend of the director, helps them be released the next morning, but the lock remains untouched. As a result, Bhujanga and Susheela are forced to spend a second night trapped together inside the shutter, waiting for Shiva’s return.

During those days of confinement, Bhujanga overhears conversations listening from outside and learns about the real faces of people he once believed to be friends and foes. Those overheard stories gradually reshape his worldview, revealing the hidden depths and flaws of those around him. His initial judgmental stance toward Susheela softens as he comes to see her as a complex and good-hearted person rather than a mere stereotype.

When the shutter is finally opened by an unseen hand, Bhujanga and Susheela emerge into a quiet, almost surreal world, unsure of who unlocked the door. Back home, Bhujanga finds his daughter has kept a crucial truth to herself, telling him that her friend was the one who opened the lock. This revelation moves Bhujanga deeply, prompting him to reconsider his priorities: he decides to postpone the marriage plans for his daughter and to support her desire to continue studying. The threads of the story also bring the director back into focus—having recovered the bag’s contents, including the script Susheela had found inside the shutter—hinting at a future where the events inside the shutter inspire a film, tying Susheela’s experiences to a larger creative project [Achyuth Kumar] / [Priyamani].

In the end, the narrative leaves a hopeful note about growth and possibility: a man who once clung to tradition learns to trust his daughter’s choices, a woman whose life intersected with his world gains a voice, and cinema itself latches onto a story born from real, intimate moments inside a locked room. The cast’s performances—[Prakash Raj], [Priyamani], [Achyuth Kumar], [Aravind Kuplikar], [Rangayana Raghu], [Sudha Belawadi], [Bhargavi Narayan], and [Teju Belawadi]—bring that quiet transformation to life with nuance and restraint.