Shivamani

Shivamani (also spelled Sivamani) is a 2003 Telugu romantic action film co-written, directed and produced by Puri Jagannadh under the Vaishno Academy banner. Nagarjuna plays the title role, with Asin, Rakshitha and Prakash Raj, and Chakri composed the music. Part of the story is taken from the 1999 Hollywood film Message in a Bottle, based on the Nicholas Sparks novel. It was released on 23 October 2003 and runs 143 minutes.

What the story is about

Pallavi, a newspaper editor, finds a typed love letter in a bottle on the seashore. Intrigued, she shows it to her colleagues, the paper prints it and the responses pour in. Pallavi wants to meet the man who wrote it, Sivamani, but he ignores her, until a man called Rajnikanth helps her get closer and Sivamani’s past comes out. He was an honest police inspector in Visakhapatnam who fell in love with Vasantha, an aspiring singer from Kerala, and made an enemy of the local mafia don Dattu, who happens to be distantly related to her. The film moves between Pallavi’s search and that past, and what Dattu’s revenge cost Sivamani.

Cast and crew

• Nagarjuna as Circle Inspector Sivamani
• Rakshitha as Pallavi
• Asin as Vasantha
• Prakash Raj as Dattu
• Sangeetha as Sivamani’s mother and Mohan Raj as Vasantha’s father
• Ali as Rajnikanth
• Banerjee as the ACP, Brahmaji as Dattu’s henchman, AVS as Pallavi’s boss and M. S. Narayana

Writer, director and producer: Puri Jagannadh. Music: Chakri (soundtrack on Sohan Audio).

Reviews

Critics were unconvinced. Sify called it a “let down” and “a kichidi that neither pleases the classes nor the masses”. Jeevi of Idlebrain said you could watch it “for Nagarjuna and the cool flashback episode of the first half”, and Mithun Verma of Full Hyderabad felt Puri had tried “to cram in everything possible”.

Box office, awards and legacy

Audiences were kinder: the film was a success, and T2BLive lists a distributors’ share of ₹10 crore. M. S. Narayana won the Nandi Award for Best Male Comedian. Sivamani’s line “Na peru Sivamani, nakkonchem mental” (“My name is Sivamani, I’m a bit mental”) became a popular catchphrase.

The film’s use of a real mobile number in its full title led to a lawsuit from the number’s owner, who said fans calling in hope of reaching Nagarjuna had caused him “immense agony”. In April 2020, during the COVID-19 lockdown, Nagarjuna shared a reworked clip from the film in which Sivamani warns goons to wear masks and keep their distance, as The Times of India reported.

Where to watch Shivamani

We do not have a confirmed streaming listing for Shivamani on file. If we verify one with a platform, it will appear on this page.

Sources: the Wikipedia article on Sivamani and the reviews and reports it cites, linked above; our own cast and crew records.