Before ‘RRR,’ There Was ‘Anniyan’
Shankar’s 2005 vigilante drama cracked the pan-India formula long before it had a name — by speaking to ordinary people on their own terms.
Recently, while doom-scrolling through Instagram, I came across several videos of young Indians braving waterlogged streets during monsoon showers. They head out to buy groceries, only to find their roads flooded. Cue: the sad lullaby music from Shankar’s Anniyan, the 2005 vigilante anti-corruption drama starring Vikram, Sadha, and Prakash Raj. In the movie, a young girl falls into knee-deep water with loose electrical wires and is electrocuted to death.
The sad lullaby comes to elegize a life cut short and sanctifies the protagonist’s trauma and vengeance. The background music not only unites a generation of audience who have watched Anniyan or dubbed iterations, but also highlights the absurdity of life in India. But long before the pan-India bug bit many ambitious filmmakers, Anniyan was scripting the very formula for the genre’s success.