Sakuntalam

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Sakuntalam
Sakuthalam Film Poster.jpg
Directed byDushyanth Sridhar
Produced byDushyanth Sridhar
Srinivas Kannaa
under (Desika Daya Productions)
StarringPayal Vijay Shetty
Shubham Jaibeer Sahrawat
Y Gee Mahendra
T V Varadarajan
Mohanram
CinematographyMagi Natesh
Edited byB Lenin
Music byRajkumar Bharathi(music Director), Sai Shravanam(Music producer)
CountryIndia
LanguageSanskrit

Sakuntalaṃ (Sanskrit Language: Śakuntalā) is an upcoming Sanskrit language historical film directed by Dushyanth Sridhar, a renowned speaker, writer and researcher on Indian scriptures. It is an adaptation of Kalidasa's work Abhigyaan Shakuntalam.[1][2] The film is produced by Dushyanth Sridhar and Srinivas Kannaa under Desika Daya Productions. The movie stars debutants Shubham Sahrawat and Payal Shetty in the leading roles.[3]

Plot[]

The plot of the film is around Shakuntala, (the daughter of sage Vishvamitra and damsel Menaka), and Sakuntala's love for King Dushyanta (the King of Hastinapur who belonged to the dynasty of Puru and Chandravamsa). King Duśyanta goes deer hunting in a forest, and his arrow just misses hitting the hermit disciples of Sage Vaikhānasa. King Duśyanta accedes to the sage’s request and decides to visit Kanva and pay his respects to him.[4]

King Duśyanta and Sakuntala both fall in love with each other. The king is excited, but just then, the Queen’s Mother sends an emissary to recall King Duśyanta to the kingdom to deal with an emergency. King Duśyanta leaves Śakuntalā with great reluctance but gives her his signet ring, promising to come back for her.[4]

One day, in the hermitage, Śakuntalā is lost in her thoughts about King Duśyanta and her love for him, when Sage Durvāsa comes visiting the hermitage. Sage Durvāsa is known to be short-tempered, and even the very trees and animals tremble in his presence. But when Sage Durvāsa comes to Śakuntalā and announces his arrival, she does not heed his words, as she is lost in her own world of love. Angered by her ignorance , Sage Durvāsa curses her, saying that the person she was thinking of would forget her.[4]

Anasuyā and Priyamvadā witness the Sage cursing and run after Sage Durvāsa and plead with him to take back the curse. He relents a little and says that the curse could be mitigated if King Duśyanta saw an object that he could recognise Śakuntalā, however, is unaware of the curse on her. Śakuntalā becomes pregnant, and Sage Kanva consents to send her to King Duśyanta’s palace, not required to join her husband. A very happy Śakuntalā adorns a bridal dress and jewellery. Accompanied by Sage Gautami (her adopted sage mother), and hermits Shārngarava and Shārdvata, she takes leave of her adopted father and leaves by boat for King Duśyanta’s palace.[4]

At the king’s palace, Śakuntalā and the sages accompanying her, go and meet King Duśyanta, who was sitting in court alongside the Queen Mother and the Royal Priest Somarata. But King Duśyanta does not recognise Śakuntalā and refuses to accept her. Śakuntalā remembers her friends telling her to keep the ring safe, the signet ring that King Duśyanta had given her. She raises her hand to show the king her ring, but the ring is not there on her finger. It is apparent that she has lost it on her way to the palace by boat. King Duśyanta now accuses her of being a woman of low character. Enraged by the King’s accusation, Shārngarava, Shārdvata, and a reluctant Gautami, leave the palace, insisting that the King must take Śakuntalā as his rightful queen. They leave the palace, and Śakuntalā is now left completely abandoned by both her family and her lover. The Royal Priest feels pity for her and offers her a place to stay, but a proud Śakuntalā just walks away from him.[4]

In another part of the city, in a Yakshagana performance, a royal officer catches a local fisherman with the royal signet ring. The fisherman confesses to having found it inside a fish. When the officer shows it to King Duśyanta, the King recalls all his love for Śakuntalā and rewards the fisherman. On seeing the signet ring that he had given Śakuntalā, King Duśyanta, having remembered his love for Śakuntalā, is now tormented by guilt and is remorseful for having rejected Śakuntalā when she came to him. When Lord Indra requests King Duśyanta to help him fight demons, the King finds the war to be a good way to alleviate his sorrow. On the way back from the war, while pausing in the forest to rest his horses, King Duśyanta sees a brave little boy playing with a lion cub. Impressed with the boy’s bravery, the King enquires about him, only to find out that the boy is probably his own son. This is confirmed when he sees Śakuntalā in the forest. Śakuntalā, at first, almost rejects King Duśyanta, but then relents when her son Bharata accepts him as his father, and the three of them go on to live together.[4]

Salient Features[]

Around 95 percent of the dialogues of the film are in Sanskrit while the 5 percent are in Prakrit and the subtitles are in English. The lyrics of the songs comprise lines from Kalidasa's Shakuntalam, Bhatruhari's shringara Satakam, Thiruvalluvar's Thirukkural, Kshetreyya's Padam, Swati Tirunal's Padam and Goswami Tulsidas's Ramcharitamanas.The hymns recited in the background of the movie are derived from Rig Veda, Krishna Yajur Veda and Shukla Yajur Veda, dance movements are based on Bharatnatyam and ragas deployed in the movie are of carnatic and hindustani style.[3]

To incorporate diversity and national integration into every part of the film, the architecture showcased is from four prominent dynasties of ancient India. Badami, Aihole and Pattadakal (in Karnataka) depict the Chalukya architecture (6-8th century CE); Tiger Caves (in Tamil Nadu) depict the Pallava architecture (8th century CE.); Somanathpura (in Karnataka) depicts Hoysala architecture (13th century CE.); and Lepakshi (in Andhra Pradesh) depicts Vijayanagara architecture (16th century CE.).[3]

Cast and crew[]

Apart from the Director and producer, there are some key people who are associated with this film project. Rajkumar Bharati, the great-grandson of Subramania Bharathi, has composed the music while Sai Shravanam, the sound recordist of the Academy Award-winning film Life Of Pi, is the music producer for the film. Two-time National Award-winner AS Lakshminarayan has done the audiography and the editing of the film is done by five-time National Award-winner B Lenin.[5] National Award Winner Pattanam Rasheed is the makeup artist in the film. The costume designer of the film is a Chennai-based textile designer Lakshmi Srinath.[1]

  • Payal Vijay Shetty as Sakuntala
  • Shubham Jaibeer Sahrawat as Dushyanta
  • Siri Chandrasekhar as Anasuya
  • Subhaga Santhosh as Priyamvada
  • Pavithra Srinivasan as Gautami
  • Y Gee Mahendra as Kanva
  • T V Varadarajan as Vaikhanasa
  • Mohanram as Durvasa
  • Renjith-Vijna as Vishwamitra-Menaka
  • Sanjeev S as Sharngarava
  • R Lakshminarayanan as Shardvata
  • Raaghav Ranganathan as Madhavya
  • C Lakshmi Kumar as Bhadrasena
  • S M Sivakumar as Somarata
  • Ramya Ramnarayan as Rajamata
  • Maanas Chavali as Syala
  • Govindasamy as Purusha
  • K Balaji and K Bharathwaj as Tapasvi
  • Shambhavi Jagadish as Tapasvini
  • Dwarkesh Srivatsan as Raivataka
  • Master Vishnu Kaushik as Bharata(Sarvadamana)
  • C S Karthic Kumar as Suta
  • Harish as Matali

References[]

  1. ^ a b Ramanujam, Srinivasa (3 November 2021). "If you can watch 'Squid Game', you can watch a Sanskrit film: Dushyanth Sridhar on 'Sakuntalam'". The Hindu.
  2. ^ "Dushyanth Sridhar helms a Sanskrit film based on Kalidasa's Sakuntalam - Times of India". The Times of India.
  3. ^ a b c Vijaykumar, Vaishali (27 October 2021). "Stepping up for Sanskrit on the sliver screen". The New Indian Express. Retrieved 1 January 2022.
  4. ^ a b c d e f "4th century single mom". www.mid-day.com. 31 October 2021.
  5. ^ "If you happen to can watch 'Squid Recreation', you possibly can watch a Sanskrit movie: Dushyanth Sridhar on 'Sakuntalam'". Indie Times. 3 November 2021.

External links[]

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