ॐ – the cult of 600 releases

Om, a Kannada movie that took its birth in 1995 from the artistic mind of Upendra went on to become an iconic masterpiece that released itself over 600 times in over 400 theatres in Karnataka. I had heard a lot about this movie back in school days but never felt the urge of watching it as the plot revolves around the life of a hooligan with shades of raw violence and bloodshed, a subject that was not very inviting at that age.

The movie limited itself to theatres for around 20 years and had finally landed into a DVD only in the year 2015 and it was also aired on television for the first time in the same year. It was only last year while I was browsing Youtube for a good movie, when my eyes fell on this movie which had a very decent print and I decided to immerse into their world.

I must say I was blown away by the storyline that bottles deep emotions of love forcing an ordinary man to twist himself into a dreaded Rowdy and the sadistic behavior taking pride in troubling his lady love. Upendra has brilliantly sewn the plot together presenting a hard hitting story to the viewer. No actor other than Shiva Rajkumar would have done justice to the role and his involvement into the character’s soul is clearly visible through his expressions exhibiting anger, resentment, hatred and guilt.

The songs composed by Hamsalekha were quite a hit back then and the song ‘O Gulabiye’ (Hey! Rose) sung by Dr. Raj Kumar is still afresh and soothing.

After the journey of 2.5 hours, I realized the reason of the movie earning a cult status. Brilliant effort of storytelling.

I had the opportunity to catch a glimpse of the Actor Shiva Rajkumar on one of my visit to the IPL Match, where he had turned up to cheer up for RCB. He looked quite cool and relaxed in real life than the movie character in reel life :-).

Thanks Upendra and Shiva Rajkumar for bringing a story to life.