Sasirekha Parinayam is an Indian

folktale A folktale or folk tale is a folklore genre that typically consists of a story passed down from generation to generation orally. Folktale may also refer to: Categories of stories * Folkloric tale from oral tradition * Fable (written form of the a ...

based on oral traditions popular in Telugu States. While it uses characters who appear in the ''

Mahabharata The ''Mahābhārata'' ( ; sa, महाभारतम्, ', ) is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India in Hinduism, the other being the '' Rāmāyaṇa''. It narrates the struggle between two groups of cousins in the K ...

'', the story is not present in the epic. The plot concerns the marriage of Sasirekha, called Vatsala in some versions, the daughter of

Balarama Balarama ( Sanskrit: बलराम, IAST: ''Balarāma'') is a Hindu god and the elder brother of Krishna. He is particularly significant in the Jagannath tradition, as one of the triad deities. He is also known as Haladhara, Halayudha, Bala ...

, to

Abhimanyu Abhimanyu is a legendary warrior from the ancient Hindu history ''Mahabharata''. He was born to the third Pandava prince Arjuna and the Yadu princess Subhadra, who was Krishna's younger sister. The ''Sambhava Parva'' of the Adi Parva states ...

, the son of

Arjuna Arjuna (Sanskrit: अर्जुन, ), also known as Partha and Dhananjaya, is a character in several ancient Hindu texts, and specifically one of the major characters of the Indian epic Mahabharata. In the epic, he is the third among Panda ...

. It echoes the marriage of Arjuna to

Subhadra Subhadra ( sa, सुभद्रा, Subhadrā) is a Hindu goddess mentioned in ancient Hindu scriptures like the ''Mahabharata'' and the ''Bhagavata Purana''. She is described as the favourite child of Vasudeva and the younger sister of d ...

in the ''Mahabharata''. The story is popular in performances, including Tholu bommalata (shadow puppets), Yakshagana, and

Kuchipudi Kuchipudi () ( Telugu: ) is one of the eight major Indian classical dances. It originates from a village named Kuchipudi in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Kuchipudi is a dance-drama performance, with its roots in the ancient Hindu Sa ...

. By early 1950s, Surabhi theatre troupes made the folktale popular across

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode ...

-speaking regions. The story was adapted to cinema multiple times. According M. L. Narasimham of ''

The Hindu ''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It began as a weekly in 1878 and became a daily in 1889. It is one of the Indian newspapers of record and the sec ...

'', Baburao Painter adapted the folktale thrice as a

silent film A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, w ...

in 1919, 1921 and 1923 with V. Shantaram as Lord Krishna. Nanubhai Vakil directed the first talkie version of the tale in 1932 in Hindi. R. Padmanaban made a Tamil film based on the story in 1935. P. V. Das adapted it into his 1936 Telugu film '' Mayabazar'' (also known as ''Sasirekha Parinayam''). The most popular film made on the folktale is the 1957 Telugu film '' Mayabazar''. On the centenary of Indian cinema in 2013, ''

CNN-IBN CNN-News18 (originally CNN-IBN) is an Indian English-language news television channel founded by Raghav Bahl based in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India. It is currently co-owned by Network18 Group and Warner Bros. Discovery. CNN provides internat ...

'' included the 1957 ''Mayabazar'' in its list of "100 greatest Indian films of all time". In an online poll conducted by ''CNN-IBN'' among those 100 films, it was voted by the public as the "greatest Indian film of all time." The 2008 Telugu film '' Sasirekha Parinayam'' was also named after it. The story was adapted into a Hindi film titled '' Veer Ghatotkach'' in 1948 and was remade in 1970, from

Ghatotkacha Ghatotkacha ( sa, घटोत्कच, , literally: "Bald Pot") is a prominent character in the story of ''Mahabharata''. His name comes from the fact that his head was hairless (''utkacha'') and shaped like a ghatam, or a pot. Ghatotkacha ...

's perspective. It was also made into the animated film ''Ghatotkach'' in 2008.

References

{{myth-stub Kuchipudi