''Santosham'' ( Happiness) is a 2002 Indian

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of South India ** Telugu literature, is the body of works written in the Telugu language. * Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Tel ...

-language

comedy drama Comedy drama (also known by the portmanteau dramedy) is a hybrid genre of works that combine elements of comedy and Drama (film and television), drama. In film, as well as scripted television series, serious dramatic subjects (such as death, il ...

film directed by Dasaradh who co-wrote the film with

Gopimohan Gopimohan (born Pinnamaneni Gopi Mohan) is an Indian screenplay and story writer who works in the Telugu language, Telugu film industry. Gopi Mohan was born in Kurumaddali village Near Vuyyuru, Krishna District of Andhra Pradesh. From childho ...

and

Trivikram Srinivas Trivikram Srinivas (born Akella Naga Srinivasa Sarma; 7 November 1971) is an Indian film director and screenwriter known for his work in Telugu cinema. Recognised for his witty dialogues, humour, and philosophical themes, he is one of the high ...

. It stars

Nagarjuna Nāgārjuna (Sanskrit: नागार्जुन, ''Nāgārjuna''; ) was an Indian monk and Mahayana, Mahāyāna Buddhist Philosophy, philosopher of the Madhyamaka (Centrism, Middle Way) school. He is widely considered one of the most importa ...

, Gracy Singh and

Shriya Saran Shriya Saran Bhatnagar ( born 11 September 1982) is an Indian actress who primarily works in Telugu language, Telugu, Tamil language, Tamil and Hindi films. Although Saran aspired to become a dancer, she became an actress and made her film deb ...

in lead roles, with

Prabhu Deva Prabhu Deva (born 3 April 1973) is an Indian dance choreographer, film director, producer and actor who has worked predominantly in Tamil language, Tamil, Hindi and Telugu language, Telugu language films also appeared in few Kannada and Malayal ...

and K. Viswanath playing the supporting roles. The music was composed by R. P. Patnaik. The film won two

Nandi Awards The Nandi Awards are annual awards presented by the Government of Andhra Pradesh to recognise excellence in Telugu cinema, theatre, and television, as well as lifetime achievements in Indian cinema. The awards are named after the monolithic ...

and two

Filmfare Awards South The Filmfare Awards South are annual awards that honour artistic and technical excellence in the Telugu cinema, Tamil cinema, Malayalam cinema and Kannada cinema. They are presented by ''Filmfare'' magazine of The Times Group. When it was intr ...

. Released on 9 May 2002, the film was well received by critics and was declared a ''Blockbuster'' at the box office. It became the highest grossing film in Nagarjuna's career and was one of the highest grossing films of the year. It was a welcome break for Nagarjuna from the consecutive flops he suffered since 2000. It was dubbed in

Tamil Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka ** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...

as ''Santhosha Vanille'' and in

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

as ''Pehli Nazar ka Pehla Pyaar''. The film was remade in

Kannada Kannada () is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly in the state of Karnataka in southwestern India, and spoken by a minority of the population in all neighbouring states. It has 44 million native speakers, and is additionally a ...

as ''

Ugadi () or (), also known as Samvatsarādi (), is the first day of the year on the Hindu calendar that is traditionally celebrated by the Telugu people and the Kannadigas in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Tamil Na ...

'' (2007).

Plot

Karthik is a rich architect in

Ooty Ooty (; officially Udagamandalam (), Anglicisation, anglicized: Ootacamund , abbreviated as Udagai, ) is a town and municipality in the Nilgiris district of the Indian States and territories of India, state of Tamil Nadu. It is located north ...

. He falls in love with Padmavathi "Padhu". Padhu is hesitant to accept and reciprocate Karthik's love, as she doesn't know what kind of a person he is. Padmavathi has a younger cousin named Bhanu. Bhanu encourages their love and gives courage to Padhu's feelings. When Padhu reveals her love, her father Ramachandrayya enraged, resists and asks her to marry the guy he has chosen for her. Motivated by Bhanu's words, Padhu leaves a letter to her parents and elopes to marry Karthik. Angered by her actions, Ramachandrayya breaks family ties with her. Karthik and Padmavathi get married and migrate to

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

, and later give birth to a kid named Lucky. Padmavathi is very eager to get back to her parents and get their blessings. Padhu, unfortunately, dies in a car accident. Ramachandrayya has a huge joint family. A few of the family members opine that inviting Karthik and his kid for a marriage to happen at their place would allow getting a closer look at Lucky. When Karthik visits Ramachandrayya's place he gets mixed responses from different people in the house. Ramachandrayya doesn't like Karthik and others like him. Over some time, Karthik impresses them all and when he is about to go back to New Zealand, Ramachandrayya expresses his repentance for whatever happened and says that he is accepting Karthik as his son-in-law. Bhanu has fallen in love with Karthik. She meets Karthik, a widower now. She still has feelings for him. But at the same time, there is Pawan - a childhood friend of Bhanu - who is deeply in love with her. Karthik returns to New Zealand. Bhanu along with Pawan visits Karthik. During that period, Bhanu gets closer to Karthik. When Karthik realizes her intentions, he fixes Pawan as her fiancée for her. Now Bhanu is about to marry Pawan. Bhanu loves Karthik, but Karthik hesitates to repeat the history by marrying a girl against the wishes of her family. Just as Karthik is about to leave for good with his son, Ramachandrayya stops him from leaving and pleads with him to marry Bhanu. Also, Pawan comes and pleads with Karthik to marry Bhanu as he can tell that Bhanu is not happy about the marriage. The film has a happy ending with Karthik and Bhanu marrying.

Cast

as Karthik * Gracy Singh as Padmavathi / Paddu, Karthik's wife (Voice Dubbed by Sunitha) *

as Bhanu (Voice Dubbed by Savitha Reddy) *

as Pavan, Bhanu’s fiancee *

Kota Srinivasa Rao Kota Srinivasa Rao (born 10 July 1942) is an Indian character actor known for his work primarily in Telugu cinema and Telugu theatre. He has also starred in a few films in Tamil cinema, Tamil, Hindi cinema, Hindi, Kannada cinema, Kannada and Ma ...

as Himsaraju / Vikram *

Brahmanandam Kanneganti Brahmanandam (born 1 February 1956) is an Indian actor and comedian known for his work in Telugu cinema. Recognised as one of India's finest and highest-paid comic actors, he holds the Guinness World Record for the most screen cred ...

as Giri from Mangalagiri *

Sunil Sunil (सुनील) is a first name for males, often found in the South Asian community. The Sanskrit word ' means "dark", "very blue", and is also an epithet of Krishna. Notable people * Sunil (actor), Indian Telugu film actor * Sunil ( ...

as Kranthi Kumar / Seetayya *

Suhasini Maniratnam Suhasini Maniratnam (; born 15 August 1961) is an Indian actress who works in Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada films. Early life Suhasini's paternal cousins Anu Hasan, Shruti Haasan and Akshara Haasan have also since become acto ...

as Snehalatha, Karthik's mother *

Sarath Babu Sathyam Babu Dixithulu (31 July 1951 – 22 May 2023), known by his stage name Sarath Babu, was an Indian actor who worked predominantly in Tamil and Telugu cinema. He appeared in more than 300 films, including in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and ...

as Panduranga Rao, Karthik's father *

Paruchuri Venkateswara Rao Paruchuri Venkateswara Rao (born 21 June 1944) and Paruchuri Gopala Krishna (born 25 September 1947), collectively referred to as the Paruchuri Brothers, are a screenwriting duo whose work is predominant as story writers, dialogue writers, ac ...

as Venkat Rao, Ramachandrayya’s first brother and Bhanu’s father * Chandra Mohan as Chandram, Ramachandrayya’s second brother and Seetayya’s father * Pruthvi as Sriram, Karthik’s brother-in-law * K. Viswanath as Ramachandrayya, Paddu’s father *

Ahuti Prasad Ahuti Prasad (born Adusumilli Janardhan Vara Prasad; 2 January 1958 – 4 January 2015) was an Indian actor who worked in Telugu film industry. He was renowned for the wide variety of roles he played, including father-figure, comedian, and ant ...

as Prasad, Paddu’s first brother *

Banerjee Banerjee, also known as Bandyopadhyay, is a Bengali Kulin Brahmin surname originating from the Bengal region of the Indian subcontinent. The surname belongs to the Rarhi clan of the Hindu Bengali Brahmin caste. History Notable people N ...

as Suri, Paddu’s second brother *

Preeti Nigam Preeti Nigam is an Indian television actress, known for her performances in Telugu-language serials. She has had a career spanning over two decades, with notable roles in both positive and negative characters. Her acting career began in the 1990 ...

as Rani, Prasad’s wife * Sumithra as Lakshmi, Paddu’s mother *

Sudha Sudha (Sanskrit : सुधा) is a Hindu/ Sanskrit Indian feminine given name meaning living water and also, in other variations, nectar. Notable people named Sudha * Sudha (actress), Telugu actress * Sudha Bhattacharya (born 1952), Indian ac ...

as Savitri, Bhanu’s mother *

Tanikella Bharani Tanikella Bharani (born 14 July 1954) is an Indian actor, screenwriter, poet and playwright who works predominantly in Telugu cinema. He has worked as an actor in more than 750 films, including few in Tamil, Kannada and Hindi; while he was al ...

as Narayana Murthy, Abbulu’s father *

Melkote Melukote in Pandavapura taluk of Mandya district, Karnataka, in southern India, is one of the sacred places in Karnataka. It is built on rocky hills, known as Yadugiri, Yaadavagiri or Yadushaila, overlooking the Cauvery valley. Melukote is ...

as Paddu’s manager * L. B. Sriram as Srisailam, Paddu’s grandfather * Vajja Venkata Giridhar as Wedding Abbulu * Madhu Mani as Malika, Suri’s wife * Indu Anand as Chandram’s wife and Seetayya’s mother * Anitha Chowdary as Anitha, Karthik’s sister * Lahari as Durga * Aajaam * Swapna * Devisri * Saraswatamma * Master Akshay as Lucky, Karthik and Paddu’s son * Sophiya Haque as in item song

Production

The film was shot in

and

Soundtrack

The music was composed by R. P. Patnaik. The music was released on SUPREME Music Company.

Reception

A critic from ''

Sify Sify Technologies Limited (formerly Satyam Infoway) is an Indian information and communications technology (ICT) company providing telecom services, data center services, cloud & managed services, transformation integration services, and ...

'' wrote that "Debutant director Dasarath has done a fairly decent job, and the music of R.P.Patnaik has good hummable melodies". A critic from '' Idlebrain.com'' wrote that "First half of the film is entertaining. The beginning of second half is little boring. But the director got the audiences back into his grip half an hour before climax". A critic from ''Full Hyderabad'' wrote that "I recommend this movie to people who enjoy musical/romantic movies and to Nag fans". ''Andhra Today'' wrote "Though the story has an old formula the director gives a feel-good treatment for the entire movie with a good mix of entertainment and fun.The director showed lot of confidence in deftly handling various situations in the movie".

Awards

;

- 2002 * Best Actor -

Akkineni Nagarjuna Akkineni Nagarjuna Rao (; born 29 August 1959) is an Indian actor, film producer, entrepreneur, and television presenter known for his work primarily in Telugu cinema, as well as in a few Hindi and Tamil films. He has appeared in over 90 films ...

* Third Best Feature Film - Bronze - K. L. Narayana ;

* Best Film - Telugu - K. L. Narayana * Best Music Director - Telugu - R. P. Patnaik

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Santosham (2002 Film) 2002 films Telugu films remade in other languages 2002 romantic comedy-drama films Indian romantic comedy-drama films Films scored by R. P. Patnaik 2000s Telugu-language films Films shot in Ooty Films set in New Zealand Films shot in New Zealand Indian family films 2002 directorial debut films