Abhilasha

Abhilasha (Telugu: అభిలాష, English: Desire) is a 1983 Telugu film, directed by A. Kodandarami Reddy and was produced by K.S. Rama Rao. It is the film adaptation of Yandamuri Veerendranath's novel of the same name. Chiranjeevi, Radhika, Rao Gopal Rao, and Gollapudi Maruthi Rao played vital roles. Music was scored by Ilayaraja.

Plot

This story was based on a unique point of removing Section 302 from Indian Penal Code, which sentences death. Struggling lawyer Chiranjeevi (Chiranjeevi), lives with his roommate (Allu Aravind), and dreams of removing IPC Section 302. The reason behind his determination was his father's death sentence under 302, for rape and murder, which he didn't commit.

Viswanatham (Rao Gopal Rao), a famous criminal lawyer in that city, sends an invitation to every famous lawyer for a party at his place. By his secretary's mistake, one invitation reaches Chiranjeevi and he gets a chance to meet Viswanatham and express his idea about IPC 302. He also meets Viswanatham's niece Archana (Radhika) at the party and falls in love with her. When their love starts blossoming, after a couple of dates, Archana has to attend a meeting in another country and she leaves for few days.

During this time Chiranjeevi comes up with an idea: to plan a fake murder, in which he will trap himself and gets death sentence. According to his plan, Viswanatham will show original pictures of the dead body to the governor at the last moment and rescue Chiranjeevi. Then, both wanted to file a petition in Supreme Court against IPC 302. They manage a lady's dead body and Chiranjeevi is sentenced to death, just as Chiranjeevi planned. In jail, guard Ganapathi (Rallapalli) is surprised to see Chiranjeevi happy before his death. Archana returns from abroad and finds out that Chiranjeevi will be hanged the next day. She goes to the jail to meet Chiranjeevi, and he acts like if he really did commit the crime out of lust (Archana does not know Chiranjeevi's plan). Archana leaves in disgust. Just a night before Chiranjeevi's hanging, Viswanatham, who is on his way to meet governor to rescue Chiranjeevi, has an accident.

Tense Chiranjeevi reveals to Ganapthi that this was all a fake and that he did not kill the woman and pleads for his help. Ganapathi runs to Archana's house to tell her the truth. After a night-long struggle, they manage to get in touch with Viswanatham, who is alive and in hospital. They get the original negative photos and in the last moment Chiranjeevi is saved from being hanged.

Viswanatham throws a party to celebrate Chiranjeevi's success and announces Chiranjeevi and Archana's engagement. A drunk (Gollapudi) drags Chiranjeevi out of the party and Archana gets suspicious about their secret talk. She follows him. Meanwhile Chiranjeevi believes that the dead body he used was not a natural death: She was killed by someone. A postmortem report shows that she was killed by a guy with four fingers on one hand. Archana remembers a goon, who attacked her on the night she saved Chiranjeevi, when she reached him to find out the source of dead body. Chiranjeevi reveals that he bought the body from that four-fingered goon. It slowly unfolds that the lady who was killed was Viswanatham's daughter from his extramarital relationship. Viswanatham is arrested and in court the judge sentences him to death. But Chiranjeevi objects. He finds that the death penalty is ridiculous and that it is not a punishment to kill someone. To punish, one must suffer for his/her actions. After a short speech, the judge also objects and instead sentences seven years to prison.

Two American films The Man Who Dared (1946) and Life of David Gale (2003) also share similar plot.

External links

• Abhilasha at the Internet Movie Database
• Abhilasha Film At Basthi.com