Sadma 1983

Nehalata, Sridevi, a young woman, suffers a car accident while returning from a party and is rushed to the hospital with severe head injuries. When she awakens, doctors diagnose retrograde amnesia, leaving her mentally regressed to the mind of a six-year-old and unable to recognize her elderly parents. As she undergoes treatment, her condition isolates her from her past life, and the family who once watched over her is left to wonder what remains of the person they knew.

During this vulnerable period, Nehalata is abducted and sold to the madam of a brothel, a brutal turn that throws her into a world far from her former life. The trauma of her memory loss and the discovery of her new vulnerability cast a shadow over everyone who cares for her, and the search for answers becomes a fragile thread that holds her family together.

Somprakash, also known as Somu, Kamal Haasan, visits the brothel with an old friend to unwind. The madam, recognizing an opportunity, sends Nehalata, renamed Reshmi, to Somu’s room. Somu immediately perceives that she is intellectually and emotionally childlike, and his pity deepens into a protective resolve. He asks her about family and background, but her memory gap is a wall that cannot be scaled, and the fragments of her life refuse to cohere into a story that can guide him to her parents.

Somu’s compassion drives him to act, and he orchestrates a quiet rescue. Rather than returning to a life of indifference, he brings Reshmi away from the brothel under the pretense of a pleasure trip and takes her to his home in Ooty, where he lives as a schoolteacher. In this hill town, an older neighbor—the kindly figure Somu calls Grandmother, Leela Mishra—offers steady support. She helps care for Reshmi, nurturing a sense of safety and routine that is new to both of them. The bond that forms between Somu and Reshmi is grounded in care and guardianship rather than romance; even as Reshmi grows familiar with Somu’s gentle presence, she remains effectively a child in many ways, and Somu accepts the limits of their relationship with quiet devotion.

The film’s tension thickens when a local woodcutter named Balua, Gulshan Grover, covets Reshmi and attempts to assault her. Reshmi manages to defend herself, and Somu’s fury erupts in protective rage, nearly driving him to violence against Balua. This surge of passion, although rooted in concern, underscores the precariousness of Reshmi’s safety and the emotional weight Somu carries for her welfare. In a parallel thread, Soni, the lonely younger wife of Somu’s middle-aged headmaster, Silk Smitha, repeatedly tries to seduce Somu, adding another layer of tension to the household’s dynamics, though Somu remains emotionally anchored to Reshmi’s well‑being.

Reshmi’s father continues to search for his daughter, publishing a newspaper advertisement and clinging to a thread of hope. A co-passenger from the train they had taken to Ooty offers a crucial lead, rekindling the possibility of reuniting the family. Meanwhile, Somu, increasingly protective, takes Reshmi to a medicine man for treatment, hoping to unlock the parts of her memory that lie dormant. The authorities eventually arrive at Somu’s house, pressing for information about Reshmi, and Somu, fearing investigation and danger, keeps himself distant from their path. Yet the medicine man’s work bears fruit: Reshmi’s memory begins to return, and she recognizes her parents, a moment of relief that is tempered by the sudden memory loss of the intervening period between the accident and recovery.

With her memories restored, Nehalata experiences a joyful reunion with her parents and prepares to leave Ooty for home. The moment of triumph, however, is tempered by the knowledge that the past has shifted and the present has brought new questions. The family departs, the police leave their place, and Somu’s world shifts into a deeper ache he cannot escape.

In the aftermath, Somu chases the departing car, then rushes to the railway station, his body battered and mud‑streaked from the chase. He calls out to Reshmi from the platform, attempting to catch her attention through a memory she cannot access. He mimics a dancing monkey—an act that had once drawn a warm response from her—but to Nehalata, now an adult in memory, the gesture seems alien and incomprehensible. She remains unable to recognize him as the train pulls away, leaving Somu standing at the station, heartbroken and alone. The film closes on a quiet, unresolved ache: a man’s steadfast care and a woman’s regained memory, set against the unanswerable distance between two people who shared a deeply human, if fragile, bond.