Yogi 2007

Eeswar Chandra Prasad Prabhas is the pampered son of Ram Murthy and Santhamma, spoiled by a mother who wants nothing but to keep him safe and sheltered in their village. His father pushes for him to find a steady job, while Santhamma’s overprotective love makes Eeswar resistant to leaving home. When Murthy dies, the balance shifts: Eeswar must confront life in the city to honor his father’s last wish, and his estranged path is shaped by a street-smart friend named Basha who drifts between humor and danger as a petty pickpocket. Despite his best efforts to stay in the shadows, Eeswar’s longing for comfort collides with a harsher world, and the search for Basha becomes a trail of misadventures that sets the stage for a brutal, larger-than-life transformation.

In Hyderabad, a ruthless land mafia led by Kotayya casts a long shadow over the city and stands as a fierce rival to Narsing Pahilwan. Saidulu, Narsing’s brother, launches a violent attack on Kotayya and his gang, and in a moment of unexpected courage, Eeswar intervenes and saves them all. This act earns him a raw entry into a new, precarious economy, and soon he is taken on as a worker at a humble tea stall run by Chandranna. The city’s grind pays off: Eeswar earns enough to buy two gleaming gold bangles for his mother, a tangible token of his love and a promise to return home. Yet the fragile balance of respect and danger is shattered when Narsing humiliates him for his prior heroism and, cruelly, damages the very bangles meant to honor his mother. In a surge of anger, Eeswar takes a life, killing Narsing and instantly earning the reputation of a city’s most feared goon.

Santhamma arrives in Hyderabad as her son’s notoriety grows, unaware of how close he is and how little she understands the new world he inhabits. Kotayya scouts Eeswar’s power for his own purposes, but Chandranna sees something else in him: a protector who can shield the vulnerable. He becomes known as “Yogi,” a name that signals a forged, almost mythic identity in the city’s brutal landscape. Under that alias, Eeswar channels his rage into defending the weak and pushing back against the criminals who prey on the poor. The city’s underworld begins to reel as Yogi’s prowess unsettles both criminals and their enforcers, and soon Kotayya and Saidulu realize they must unite to bring him down. Yet Yogi’s strength is enough to topple Saidulu, and the balance of power in the city begins to tilt.

Into this shifting dynamic enters Nandini Nayanthara, a young woman finishing her practicals who comes to Hyderabad seeking an interview and, in the process, finds herself drawn to Yogi. Her connection to the man behind the mask deepens as their paths cross, and a fragile romance begins to blossom between two people who walk parallel lines—one living in the danger of a vigilante’s code, the other seeking purpose and manhood in a city that tests every conviction. The relationship hinges on trust, torn loyalties, and the idea that love can grow even when the world around them is brutally unsentimental.

Despite their intimate moments, Yogi and Santhamma’s lives run through the same city without intersecting in the open. A fateful turn comes when Basha confesses that he once laid eyes on Santhamma, and a desperate chase begins to locate Eeswar in his double life as Yogi. They trace an address, but the crucial link is missing: Eeswar is known to the street as Yogi, not as the beloved son his mother raised. Santhamma waits at a temple, the place where Basha tells them Yogi visits every Monday, hoping for a sign or a reunion.

Fear and fate, however, conspire to keep them apart. Eeswar’s dread of a renewed attack from Saidulu keeps him away from his mother on that decisive Monday, and tragedy strikes when Santhamma dies in front of the temple. Basha steps in to arrange her funeral, and Eeswar arrives too late to read the truth in the face of his mother’s covered features. He contributes to the cremation, laying flowers on what he believes to be a stranger’s body, completely unaware that the face beneath the shroud is the woman who raised him. Only when Nandini shows him his mother’s belongings does the truth finally pierce his heart, and the film closes on a tearful, emotionally charged realization.

Across these twists and turns, the story threads themes of duty, loyalty, and recognition—the way a family’s love can drive a person to protect the vulnerable, even as that same love is replayed in the memory of a life lost and a mother’s quiet sacrifice. It is a tale of a man whose transformation from a pampered village boy to a city’s steadfast guardian is marked by violence, vulnerability, and an unforgettable moment of truth that binds him forever to his mother’s memory.

Notes on cast-linked names:

• Eeswar Chandra Prasad Prabhas

• Nandini Nayanthara

• Santhamma Sharada

• Kotayya Kota Srinivasa Rao

• Chandranna Chandramohan