Golconda High School

Golconda High School (Telugu: గోల్కొండ హై స్కూల్) is a 2011 Indian Telugu sports drama written and directed by Mohan Krishna Indraganti under the Artbeat Capital banner, which earlier produced the hit film Ashta Chamma (film). It stars Sumanth and Swati Reddy in the lead roles. The noted cinematographer, K. K. Senthil, was the DOP for the film, and the music was scored by Kalyani Malik. The movie is based on the book The Men Within, written by Hari Mohan Paruvu.^[1] Released on January 15, 2011. In addition to receiving excellent reviews, it was declared a commercial hit as well. It also received a very high TRP rating on its Television premiere on April 17, 2011.

Plot

Golconda High School's Board’s Trustees' member Kireet Das comes up with a proposal of turning the cricket playground into an IIT coaching center. Principal K.Viswanath opposes that proposal vehemently with the support of few trustees. Kireet then tells the principal to show positive results in at least one sport if he wants to hold on to the playground. Viswanath comes up with a proposal that the playground should be retained if GHS’s cricket team manages to win the State level cricket league tournament. He summons his former GHS student, Sampath, an idealist who leads a dejected life. Sampath, after confronting Kireet, joins GHS as the cricket coach and he has three months to convert the disoriented GHS cricket team of 14 students into champions.

Led by Siddanth and their lack of discipline, the team initially resists Sampath's training. Despite trying to get under Sampath's skin, they fail to persuade their coach to change his methods. Frustrated, Siddanth challenges Sampath to a students vs. teachers cricket game—the deal being that if the students win, they will not follow Sampath's coaching anymore. Towards the end of the game, the frustrated Siddanth deserts his losing team. Gowtham subsequently takes over captaincy and the students manage to tie the game when Sampath purposely gets bowled out in the last over. The students get very impressed with Sampath's cricketing prowess and decide to follow his coaching despite Siddanth's opposition.

Later, after Sampath helps remove a police case against another student, Mikey, they realize his compassionate nature and embrace his coaching entirely. Siddanth too follow suit. The GHS team, after coming to know of the deal between Kireet and Viswanath over the cricket ground, get further motivated and raise their efforts towards winning every match. The team advance to the finals of the championship—the final match being against the very strong Everglades team. Right before the finals, the GHS boys come to know that the Everglades coach Sundar and Sampath share some bad blood from the past. When Sampath refuses to reveal his personal history with Sundar, they start doubting Sampath and lose focus, letting their opponents amass over 190 runs in 20 overs. During the break, Viswanath, coming to know of the misunderstanding between coach and team, tells the boys exactly what had happened between Sampath and Sundar almost 15 years ago—Sundar, also an ex GHS student Sundar purposely got Sampath run out during the final championship match, where latter had played brilliantly. To attain personal glory, Sundar went onto black list Sampath, depriving him of any future in cricket.

The team, upon realising the truth, apologise to Sampath for misunderstanding him. Sampath motivates them with a stirring speech subsequently. GHS comes onto field with 10 batsmen as Siddanth suffers an injury during fielding. They virtually chase down the big score and the match is tantalizingly poised in the last over. Siddhanth, to the surprise of everyone, unexpectedly comes back from injury and wins the game for GHS on the last ball.

Golconda High School wins the championship for the first time in 15 years, and the cricket ground is saved.

Cast

• Sumanth as Sampath
• Swati Reddy as Anjali
• Subbaraju as Kiriti Das
• Tanikella Bharani as Viswanath
• Shafi as Madhu Babu
• Vidya Sagar Rachakonda as Umpire

Cricket Team

• Santosh Sobhan as Gowtham
• Srinivas Sai as Siddanth
• Suraj Gontla as Vikas
• Farookh as Michel
• Sangeet Sobhan as Varun
• Vasudev Sastry as Ramesh
• Sai Kiran as Ashish
• Sai Pradeep as Shameem
• Lalith as Rajeender
• Sri Raj as Nissar
• Nikhil Saketh as Karthik
• Rohith as Noel
• Sudhir Kumar as Sanjay
• Bharath Raj as Khaleem

Soundtrack

Kalyani Malik has composed the original score and soundtracks for the film.^[2]

References