Pushpak-A Speechless Movie with a Louder Message

After so many years of so much speech in the movies Singeetam SrinivasRao came up with a speechless movie in 1988 and it is the winner of National Award too.

The movie has a simple plot(so to say and so it seems) of an unemployee's staying in a star hotel in the name of a rich drunkard and his coming back to normal life after great realization.

Search for happiness having money in mind is the main theme of the movie. Just looking for and having a close look at the other side of the pasture. The poster of Karl Marx in the unemployed youth's room, the rich drunkard's photos with his wife, the hotel owner's photos from his small tea stall to a five star hotel-These three are the models dealt with in this movie.

i) The first is a graduate and unemployed. He is in a bad need for money, his cup of tea is half full, he has his artificial ways to show the world that they cup is full. Getting into the rich drunkard's identity is symbolised here.

ii) The second is very rich and is extremely into the habit of drinking. With richness he has acquired this habit, his wife has an illicit relation with other man and that man wants to kill this drunkard. He has hired a killer to do this. By that time our unemployed man is there tasting the facilities of the rich, in the room where the drunkard used to stay.

iii) And the third, the owner of the five star hotel who has taken hardships to attain the current financial position. He fondly remembers the way he has come up this ladder.

The first stealing the identity of the second and staying at the rich hotel of the third, forms the main plot of the movie.

Two deaths are contrasting and important in the movie. One is the death of the Pushpak hotel's owner and the other is the death of the beggar. At death both the corpses are not at all respected. Lovers using this occasion to have time for sweet nothings and when the money is discovered at the beggar the body is thrown and all fighting for money.

Other things to observe in this movie are:

a. The beggar seems as important as the hero in this movie. When the hero shows the coin, beggar makes fun of him by showing more notes, when the hero shows his currency bundle(which doesn't actually belong to him) the beggar has appreciating looks at him, when the beggar dies the collected money is taken by some workers who were lifting his body. This scene makes the hero feel sorry for the beggar and probably himself for he had not understood the realy value of the money. It is also interesting to note that when the hero waves the currency notes, the beggar waves his plate. The right way v/s wrong way!

b. The girl and the richness are like mirages. Now here, now nowhere.

c. is nicely portrayed in the movie. The hero who does not have money and longes for money, the girl has money she wants a small flower which is there on the broken wall.

d. the hero has to cross through the noisy market on his way to Pushpak is also a symbol. Your way to richness is not all that calm.

e. with richness come worries. When the hero was unemployed life seemed very cool. He had to handle a killer when he becomes a rich man.

In this way the movie talks so loudly about an issue which is always there around us...