Ye Maaya Chesave

Ye Maaya Chesave (meaning “What magic have you done?”) is a 2010 Telugu romantic drama written and directed by Gautham Vasudev Menon and produced by Manjula Ghattamaneni under Indira Productions. Naga Chaitanya stars opposite Samantha in her debut as a lead, with music by A. R. Rahman, cinematography by Manoj Paramahamsa and dialogue by Umarji Anuradha. Shot alongside the Tamil Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa, it was released on 26 February 2010 to positive reviews, did well at the box office, and is listed by Film Companion among the 25 greatest Telugu films of the decade.

What the story is about

Karthik, a mechanical engineering graduate who dreams of becoming a filmmaker, lives with his family on the ground floor of a house in Hyderabad. Upstairs lives a traditional Syrian Catholic family, and Karthik falls for their daughter Jessie at first sight, even though she is older than him and has been brought up under strict watch. When he tells her, she turns him down, unwilling to start anything given how conservative her father is. But when Jessie goes to visit relatives in Alappuzha, Karthik follows her there, and a friendship begins that neither of them can quite keep as just a friendship, with her family’s faith and expectations standing in the way.

Cast

• Naga Chaitanya as Karthik
• Samantha as Jessie (voice dubbed by Chinmayi)
• Krishnudu as Karthik’s friend Krishna
• Sanjay Swarup and Surekha Vani as Karthik’s parents
• Devan and Lakshmi Ramakrishnan as Jessie’s parents, and Sudheer Babu as her brother Jerry (uncredited)
• Sapan Saran as Nandini
• Puri Jagannadh as himself, with cameos by Silambarasan and Trisha

How it was made

When Gautham Menon announced the Tamil project, then called Jessy, Manjula Ghattamaneni approached him for a Telugu version with her brother Mahesh Babu. Menon agreed, though he felt it was “not Mahesh kind of film”, and when Mahesh Babu could not give dates, Naga Chaitanya was cast. Samantha, who had three unreleased Tamil films behind her, made her debut. Menon shot many portions of the two versions together, but the Tamil version has a different cast and ending. He said the film would be “conversation driven” and follow Karthik and Jessie over almost three years. It was filmed in Chennai, Alappuzha, Goa and Hyderabad, with the climax in Central Park and a song at Princeton University in the United States.

Music

The soundtrack began A. R. Rahman’s collaboration with Gautham Menon. It has seven songs, with Telugu lyrics by Anantha Sreeram set to the same tunes as the Tamil version, and won Rahman his first Filmfare Award in Telugu. He reused the tunes for the Hindi remake.

Box office

BollywoodLife describes it as a box-office success. Wikipedia, citing Sify and The Indian Express, gives a budget of ₹10 crore and a gross of ₹30 crore.

What critics said

Rediff.com called it “a must watch especially for those fond of love stories”. The Times of India praised how Menon handled “the initial hiccups, scepticism and charming trepidation of first love”, and Jeevi of Idlebrain.com said it had “all the ingredients for a movie to remain as a timeless classic”.

Legacy

The film was remade in Hindi as Ekk Deewana Tha. Its scenes have been parodied in Sudigadu (2012) and Nenorakam (2017), and its title and songs inspired the names of Ye Mantram Vesave (2018) and Kundanapu Bomma (2016).

Where to watch Ye Maaya Chesave

We do not have a confirmed streaming platform for Ye Maaya Chesave on file. The OTT details on this page will be updated when a platform’s own listing confirms it.

Sources: the Wikipedia article on Ye Maaya Chesave and the reviews and articles it cites, linked above; Wikidata; our own cast and crew records.