Indrudu Chandrudu

Indrudu Chandrudu
Directed by	Suresh Krishna
Produced by	D.Rama Naidu
Starring	Kamal Haasan Vijayashanti Srividya Charan Raj Jayalalitha (actress)
Music by	Ilaiyaraaja
Release date(s)	1989
Running time	158 min.
Country	India
Language	Telugu

Indrudu Chandrudu (Telugu: ఇంద్రుడు చంద్రుడు) is a 1989 Telugu language film starring Kamal Haasan and Vijayashanti in lead roles. The story of the film is inspired by Richard Dreyfuss's 1988 film Moon Over Parador, which was also a remake of 1939 hit-The Magnificent Fraud. It was later dubbed in Tamil as Indran Chandran. It was also dubbed in Hindi as Mayor Saab.

Plot

G.K Rayadu (Kamal Haasan) is a corrupt Mayor and along with his assistant Charan Raj takes bribe and sells a market to a rich businessman and forces the poor people doing business in the land to move out threatening physical harm. Although the Rayadu is married (to Srividya), he has a mistress. Rajendran comes to find out that his assistant and his mistress are married and has been cheating him out of his money for a long time. He finds the assistant’s stash of diamonds and takes it. After spending some time with his wife and kids, Rajendran gets a change of heart and decides to expose his and his assistant’s illegal activities. Before he leaves, he hides the diamonds inside one of his children’s toys. His assistant finds out, murders Rajendran in a fit of rage and stores the body in a freezer.

Panicking that soon people will realize that the Mayor is missing, he notices Rayadu's younger lookalike, Chandram (Kamal Haasan) in a mental institution. Deducting that Chandram is faking his mental breakdown to beat a murder charge and avoid jail, they blackmail Chandram into playing the Mayor till a major deal is completed and the assistant gets a lot of money. Chandram is promised freedom if he is successful. Chandram learns Rayadu’s speech and mannerisms and with heavy prosthetics and make up, becomes a suitable double for the Mayor.

Meanwhile, an investigative reporter (Vijayashanti) is trying to expose the Mayor for his illegal activities but she hasn’t found any real evidence yet. As she almost comes close to exposing the identity of Chandram mistakenly, the assistant sends goons to kill her. Chandram, having heard this, removes his disguise, sneaks out and saves the reporter from the goon. When the reporter gets suspicious about the resemblance between him and the Mayor, Chandram lies that he is the Mayor’s son who doesn’t like his father’s illegal ways. The assistant’s search for his diamonds using Chandram proves futile.

The reporter decides to charm Chandram to get real evidence of the Mayor’s illegal activities and flirts with him and they try to meet many times. This leads to hilarious situations in which Chandram has to sneak out without the assistant’s knowledge. The assistant tries to kill her one more time, but Chandram, again saves her but his cover is blown. Both are on the run from the corrupt police and the assistant.

Chandram finally reveals the truth about his murder charge to the reporter. He used to be a singer and a dancer. A corrupt politician, on the pretext of helping him and his female dance partner become famous invites them to a hotel room. While the politician sends Chandram on an errand run, he brutally rapes and murders the female dancer and uses his influence to put the blame on Chandram. Chandram is found guilty but during trial, he fakes mental retardation and is put in the mental institution. The reporter and Chandram then falls for each other. Tired of running, they hatch a plan to stop the assistant and the politician who murdered the female politician, who also happens to be the assistant’s partner.

Chandram, goes back to the crowded market that he sold in the beginning of the movie, and proclaims that he will give the land back to the people and expose illegal activities he had committed with his assistant, in a big public gathering soon. The assistant, realizing that if he killed the mayor he would become the first suspect, searches for a way to get the upper hand. He traces down Chandram’s mother, kidnaps her and uses this as a leverage to blackmail Chandram into not doing anything silly at the public meeting.

The day before the meeting, since the Mayor’s children wanted to spend time with their father, Chandram impersonates the Mayor and play with the kids. He accidentally finds the diamonds and leaves clues so that the children could find it in the future.

On the day of the meeting, a huge crowd is built up to hear the speech and it is attended by prominent ministers. Chandram, impersonating Rajendran, is being held on a close watch by the assistant. With the help of the reporter and her father, he finds the location where his mother is being held captive by the corrupt politician who had sent him to jail. He weasels into the car of a prominent minister who asks the assistant to use a different vehicle. Finally free from the assistants view, Chandram uses the opportunity to leave and rescue his mother and the corrupt politician gets killed in the process. Chandram comes back to the minister’s vehicle just in time as the vehicle reaches the press conference, so the assistant doesn’t suspect anything.

During the press conference, Chandram details all the illegal activities he had committed along with his assistant and other politicians and businessmen with evidence. Just as he finishes his speech, he is shot by an unknown assailant. Chandram turns to his assistant and blames him before he collapses and dies. The crowd of people become agitated and beats the assistant. An ambulance comes and picks up the Mayor’s body.

In the ambulance, Chandram gets up seemingly unharmed. The ambulance is driven by the reporter’s father and he was the unknown assassin. The faux assassination was a distraction to let everyone think that Chandram/Mayor is dead. They then reveal the real body of the Mayor inside the ambulance. They drive the ambulance into a power grid after jumping out of the vehicle. The ambulance explodes with the real Mayor’s body inside and to everyone concerned; the Mayor was killed by the assistant during the press conference. Chandram, then walks away to start a new life with the reporter.

Cast

• Kamal Haasan - Mayor G. K. Rayudu and Chandram (Dual role)
• Vijayashanti - News reporter
• Srividya - Wife of Rayudu
• Nagesh
• Charan Raj - Assistant of Mayor Rayudu
• Jayalalitha
• P. L. Narayana
• Gollapudi Maruthi Rao
• E. V. V. Satyanarayana - Police inspector

Soundtrack

All music composed by Ilaiyaraaja.

No.	Title	Lyrics	Singer(s)	Length
1.	"College Agelo Teenage Mojulo"	Veturi Sundararama Murthy	S. P. Balasubramaniam, P. Susheela	4:05
2.	"Dora Dora Donga Muddu"	Veturi Sundararama Murthy	S. P. Balasubramaniam, S. Janaki	4:46
3.	"Laali Jo Laali Jo Ooruko Papayi"	Sirivennela Sitaramasastri	S. P. Balasubramaniam	4:47
4.	"Nachina Fuddu Vechani Beddu"	Sirivennela Sitaramasastri	S. P. Balasubramaniam	4:33
5.	"Sandhya Ragapu Sarigamalo"	Veturi Sundararama Murthy	S. P. Balasubramaniam, S. Janaki	4:43
Total length:				22:54

Awards

• Kamal Haasan won Filmfare Award for Best Actor – Telugu in 1989.

Features

• For the Tamil dubbing, Kamal Haasan, Srividya and Nagesh dubbed their own voice for their part.
• This is the only film that both Kamal Haasan and Vijayashanti acted together.
• This is second film for Director Suresh Krishna with Kamal, the other is Sathya and Aalavandhan.
• All the songs in the film was rendered by singer S.P. Balasubramaniam and S. Janaki (Mano and K. S. Chithra for Tamil version).
• Famous Telugu director E V V Satyanarayana was one of the assistant directors for the film, early in his career.
• Producer Eknaath is popular for his Eknaath Video Magazine programme in the late 80's before he become film producer, produced the Tamil version.
• The climax of the film was adapted completely from the climax of Moon Over Parador.
• One ghana song was added for Tamil version considering the popularity of the songs in Aboorva Sagotharargal.

External links

• Indrudu Chandrudu at IMDb.
• Listen to Indrudu Chandrudu songs at Raaga.com