Katha 2009

Chitra Genelia D’Souza is a quiet, independent woman who travels to Araku hoping to find a teaching job. There, she crosses paths with Krishna Thrigun, an ambitious aspiring director who has come to the town to run a test shoot and to finish the script for his debut film. The two strike up an unlikely friendship as they navigate their separate dreams in a place where the everyday can feel uneasy.

The town’s uneasy calm is intensified by the presence of the Circle Inspector Prakash Raj, a man who is married with young children and who keeps a tight rein on events around him. The story also features Kanakala Rao Raghu Babu and Constable Raju Shafi, whose roles in the local police add layers to the unfolding mystery. The cast is rounded out by Tulasi Tulasi, whose part helps flesh out Araku’s close-knit, village-like atmosphere.

Chitra has carried a heavy past: she spent a year in a mental asylum after witnessing the slaughter of her own family. Despite this trauma, she remains perceptive and stubborn, and her bond with Krishna grows as they share their vulnerabilities. One day, while looking through her binoculars, Chitra witnesses a murder and sees the victim’s face clearly. She immediately informs the police, but initial investigations fail to turn up evidence, leaving her to question whether her past trauma is resurfacing as hallucination.

As the investigation deepens, the police uncover that the female victim indeed existed and possess a CD that captures the Circle Inspector with the victim in a store. The victim turns out to be the daughter of the Circle Inspector’s dead girlfriend, a revelation that exposes a disturbing, illegitimate relationship the inspector has tried to keep hidden in order to protect his reputation. The inspector’s motive becomes chillingly clear: he lured the girl to Araku to kill her, a plan that would never be acknowledged publicly.

Chitra’s eyewitness account is met with disbelief and anger from the Circle Inspector, who resents being questioned and tries to frame Chitra’s memory as a fantasy. Undeterred, Chitra and Krishna attempt to seize the disc and escape, but the inspector uses force against them. Krishna is injured as the inspector closes in, and the inspector at one point holds Krishna at gunpoint. In a decisive moment, Chitra refuses to surrender the disc, and, moved by defiance rather than fear, she slaps the inspector.

Facing exposure, the Circle Inspector chooses a final, self-destructive path: he commits suicide rather than let the truth come out. Chitra explains that she never believed the inspector would kill her and Krishna—she recognizes that he had already used a dead officer to frame the murder and silence any challenge to his control. With the crucial disc now in their hands, Chitra and Krishna bring it to the police, ensuring the truth behind the murder is documented and pursued.

The film closes on a note of cautious hope: the trauma of the past is acknowledged, the evidence is secured, and two souls who found each other in a moment of danger—Chitra and Krishna—move forward together, united by the ordeal they survived in Araku.