Srimanthudu 2015

Harsha Vardhan [Mahesh Babu] is the sole heir to Ravikanth’s sprawling business empire, a ₹25,000 crore fortune built on ambition and long days in the city. At a birthday party hosted by his friend Apparao, he meets Charuseela [Shruti Haasan], a woman with a clear, practical dream: harness technology to transform Devarakota, her rural homeland in Uttarandhra. What begins as a chance encounter gradually grows into a grounded friendship as Harsha enrolls in a university course on rural development and Charuseela shares the village’s struggles with him. The two see in each other not just romance but a shared conviction: wealth matters only if it serves the people who touch it most.

The village’s fate is tightly interwoven with power and politics. Sashi [Sampath Raj], the brother of the Central minister Venkata Ratnam [Mukesh Rishi], exploits Devarakota’s natural resources, driving locals to migrate in search of a better life. Narayana Rao, the village head, clings to a hope that conditions will improve, while the minister’s son Radha [Harish Uthaman] uses blackmail to threaten Ravikanth’s family if Ravikanth stands in the way of a prestigious highway contract. Karthik [Rahul Ravindran], Ravikanth’s nephew who hopes to inherit the business, leaks insider details about the bid to Radha, drawing Harsha into the fray. Harsha, sensing a larger agenda at work, quietly bids lower than the competition on Ravikanth’s behalf and secures the contract, signaling a shift in Harsha’s priorities and exposing the simmering tension between wealth, power, and the village’s welfare.

When Charuseela discovers the truth about Harsha’s lineage—Ravikanth’s son trying to shape the fate of Devarakota—she initially pulls away. Harsha seeks a deeper understanding of the village by travelling incognito, and in Devarakota he introduces himself as a student studying rural development. His sincerity soon shines through: he pledges to adopt the village and lead its development, a pledge that puts him at odds with Ratnam and Sashi, who want credit for any improvements as a means to win elections. Through Rao’s memories of Ravikanth’s youth—a time when a dairy farm had started the village’s welfare—Harsha finds a blueprint for his own mission. The revelation that Ravikanth once dreamt of making a difference fuels Harsha’s resolve, even as Ratnam and Sashi intensify their attempts to derail him. A tragic twist arrives when the dairy farm is set ablaze by Sashi’s men, leading to the wrongful arrest and humiliation of Ravikanth, who eventually walks away from Devarakota to rebuild his life in the city.

Despite the blowback, Charuseela’s perception begins to shift. She sees how Harsha’s plans to restore the village’s vitality mirror the old dream Ravikanth had nurtured. Harsha’s absence from the office, taken with his long holiday to devote himself to Devarakota, becomes a test of love and loyalty. When he returns to the city, Ravikanth decides to place Harsha back in Devarakota, a move that deepens Harsha’s affection and commitment to the people who depend on him. With Ravikanth’s support, Harsha steps back from the corporate throne long enough to hand the reins to Karthik and reaffirm his own vow to serve the village. The power struggle intensifies as Ratnam and Sashi attempt to control water resources and land around Devarakota for political gain as the coastal industrial corridor is announced, threatening the village’s long-term future.

A crucial confrontation unfolds at a water bottling unit that also draws from the village’s drinking-water source. Harsha’s attempt to shut it down draws a violent response from Sashi’s henchmen, leaving him hospitalized. Ravikanth brings Harsha back to Hyderabad, where he resumes his corporate life only to be drawn back to Devarakota by the gravity of his mission and the pull of Charuseela’s belief in him. In a pivotal turn, Ravikanth sends Harsha back to Devarakota with a renewed sense of purpose, and Harsha’s love for Charuseela grows stronger as he confronts the forces threatening the village. He relinquishes control of the business to Karthik, choosing to focus on the village’s ongoing development rather than personal advancement.

Back in Devarakota, Harsha confronts Ratnam and Sashi in a climactic moment. He kills them at the factory, framing the deaths as the result of an accidental short circuit—an echo of the earlier arson that had ruined Ravikanth’s life and nearly destroyed his future. The act is presented as a just, if drastic, response to the tyranny that has plagued the village for years. The film closes on a hopeful note: Ravikanth and his family visit Rao’s house on Sankranthi, where Harsha, now Charuseela’s husband, welcomes them with warmth and steadfast resolve. The couple’s union signals a new era for Devarakota, one in which ambition is tempered by duty, and the legacy of Ravikanth’s early dreams finally begins to take root in the lives of the villagers he set out to serve.

Throughout, the story is told with a measured, grounded tone that emphasizes character and motive over spectacle. The bond between Harsha and Charuseela evolves from curiosity to shared purpose, while Ravikanth’s journey from a city-dreamer to a village-protector provides the emotional throughline that binds the disparate threads of wealth, politics, and rural renewal. The result is a saga that feels expansive in its ambitions yet intimate in its emotional core, driven by bold moral choices, a robust cast, and a steady focus on the people whose lives lie at the heart of the village’s future.