Okkadu is a film about Ajay, a young aspiring police officer and Kabaddi player, who goes to Kurnool for a match and crosses path with a local gangster forcing himself on a young girl in the middle of Kurnool. It isn’t just any place in Kurnool. It’s opposite the iconic Konda Reddy Buruju or Konda Reddy Fort.
The fort is named after its last ruler, who managed to escape through the secret tunnels known only to him and his family, after the nawabs had imprisoned him. The fort has that kind of legacy. It’s part-myth, part-history – melding to become ‘folk’. Just like Konda Reddy, another folk legend was being made on the screen.
The villain, played by Prakash Raj, is a tormentor of women and happy families in south India. In Telugu films, villains aren’t just bad guys, they are rakshasas. Called Obul Reddy, Prakash Raj’s villain in Okkadu, was perhaps based on the real-life gangster named Obul Reddy, in the neighbouring district of Anantapur, who was known for his atrocities against women. The people in Kurnool knew the dark context of what was being depicted on-screen.
At one point in the film, Prakash Raj’s Obul Reddy is in peak form opposite Konda Reddy Buruju, doing what he does to...
