Gamyam

Gamyam (“Destination”) is a 2008 Telugu road film written and directed by Radhakrishna Jagarlamudi (Krish) in his directorial debut, starring Sharwanand, Allari Naresh and Kamalinee Mukherjee. Loosely inspired by The Motorcycle Diaries, it was a critical and commercial success and won four Nandi Awards and four Filmfare Awards South, including Best Film and Best Director at both. It was released on 29 February 2008.

What the story is about

Janaki is an orphan who has fought her way through hardship to become a doctor, and spends much of her time and earnings on charity. Abhiram is the opposite: the London-educated only son of a multimillionaire, who spends his days at parties and with women in Hyderabad. Attracted to Janaki, Abhi takes a bet with his friends that he can seduce her, but finds himself genuinely falling for her. When she discovers the bet at his birthday party, their quarrel ends in a road accident.

Abhi wakes up in hospital to find that Janaki has left for her orphanage, and sets out to find her and ask her forgiveness. On the way he falls in with Gaali Seenu, a good-hearted motorbike thief, and their journey through the villages of Andhra Pradesh exposes the spoilt rich boy to the hard realities and simple joys of rural life. The film is about that journey and what it changes in him.

Cast and crew

• Sharwanand as Abhiram
• Allari Naresh as Gaali Seenu
• Kamalinee Mukherjee as Janaki
• Rao Ramesh as Sheshu, a Naxalite
• Vijayachander as Bala
• Giri Babu as Poorna
• Hema as Saraswathi
• Brahmanandam as the Pessimist
• Krish in a guest appearance as a Naxalite

Writer and director: Krish. Producer: Saibabu Jagarlamudi (First Frame Entertainment). Music: E. S. Murthy and R. Anil. Runtime: 128 minutes.

Making the film

As Idlebrain’s “postmortem” of the film recounts, Krish returned from graduate studies in the United States wanting to make films; when his parents were unsupportive he ran an education consultancy while assisting the director Rasool Ellore. The spark came on a research trip across Maharashtra, from his bond with his driver, and grew into a story about two people with opposite outlooks travelling together. He first imagined it in Hindi, as Aaj Jeeyenge, before reworking it for Andhra Pradesh with the theatre writer Nagaraju Gandham. The eighth draft became the shooting script, and with no producer committed, his father Saibabu Jagarlamudi produced it. The soundtrack was released by Vel Records on 17 December 2007.

Reviews, box office and awards

G. P. Aditya Vardhan of Rediff gave it three and a half stars out of five, praising a serious theme “blended with the right mixture of comedy and very good performances” and writing that “Allari Naresh has finally found his groove”. Idlebrain rated it 3.25 out of 5, and Sify gave 3 out of 5, calling it “a good cinema with a touch of artistic values” whose strengths are writing and direction. Idlebrain listed it among the top 14 Telugu films of 2008, and T2BLive credits it with a distributors’ share of ₹11 crore.

At both the Nandi Awards and the Filmfare Awards South, Gamyam won Best Film (the golden Nandi at the Nandis), Best Director for Krish, Best Supporting Actor for Allari Naresh and Best Lyrics for Sirivennela Sitaramasastri’s “Enthavaraku”. It was remade in Tamil as Kadhalna Summa Illai and in Kannada as Savaari (2009).

Where to watch Gamyam

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

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