AGNI VARSHA
’’Agni Varsha’’ which if literally translated would mean ’’Fire Rain’’. The story is based on a Novel titled Fire and Rain by Girish Karnad.
Characters
Paravasu – Maha Purohit (Jackie Shroff)
Aravasu – Paravasu’s brother (Milind Soman)
Vishaka – Paravasu’s wife (Raveena Tandon)
Yavakri – Paravasu’s cousin (Nagarjuna)
Nithilai – Aravasu’s lover (Sonali Kulkarni)
Rakshash - (Prabhu Deva)
Paravasu’s father – (Mohan Agashe)
God Indira (Rain God) – (Amitabh Bachchan)
The story is set in ancient Indian era. A kingdom is faces drought for more than 10 years. Most of the villagers have fled away from the village and those staying there are suffering. The king of that Kingdom with the intention of getting rain has started a seven year Yagna to please Indira. Paravasu is the Maha Purohit for the yagna. Paravasu goes away from home for a period of seven years leaving his young wife Vishaka at the custody of his father and brother.
Aravasu is in love with Nithilai who is a tribal girl. He goes to the mountains to meet Nithilai, he promises to marry Nithilai at any cost. He assures her that he will come and meet her dad at the panchayat meeting. Aravasu through his uncle comes to know that Yavakri has come back and he would like to meet Aravasu.
Here I have to describe about Yavakri. Yavakri is the cousin of Paravasu and Aravasu. Yavakri had been to the forest and done tapasya for a period of ten years and obtained Brahma Gyan from Lord Indira. Before going to the forest he and Vishaka are in love with each other. On departure of Yavakri, Vishaka is married off to Paravasu.
Vishaka comes to get water on her way back she is confronted by Yavakri. She tries to avoid him, but he reminds her of all the olden days when they were in love with each other. Vishaka who is young and inspite of being married staying alone once again falls for Yavakri and they enjoy sexual bliss with each other.
Nithilai and Aravasu comes there and sees Yavakri and Vishaka. On seeing Aravasu Vishaka gets up and runs off taking her water pot. Before she goes Yavakri takes a small pot ful of water from Vishaka’s pot. On reaching home Vishaka sees her father-in-law he is mad at her. He tries to ask Vishaka where she and had been and with whom she had enjoyed, Vishaka remains silent. Seeing her silence he asks Aravasu with whom she was unable to bear his torture Vishaka tells him that she was enjoying with Yavakri. Hearing this he gets furious he takes the pot of water and sits for Tapasya. He tells Vishaka that from this pot of water he going to create a Rakshasha to kill Yavakri.
Hearing this Vishaka is shocked she runs to Yavakri and tells him that his father-in-law is trying to create a Rakshasha to kill destroy him. Yavakri tells her that Vishaka’s falling in his trap, Aravasu’s seeing them together, her father-in-law early return, all these are not coincidence but these are created by him with the power obtained by his Tapasya. He wanted to destroy not only her father-in-law but also her husband who had taken away the opportunity of his father’s becoming Maha Purohit. He also tells Vishaka that as long as he has the small pot of water the Rakshasha cannot do any harm to him. Listening to this Vishaka throws off the water. Rakshasha comes and kills Yavakri.
Because of Yavakri’s death Aravasu is unable to go to the Panchayat, because of which Nithilai gets married to another tribal boy.
One night Paravasu comes back home. His father tells him about Vishaka’s affair with Yavakri. Paravasu tells him that he has come to know about it. His father leaves them alone and walks away. Vishaka blames Paravasu for every thing she tells had he not left her high and dry this would not have happened. She also tells him that in his absence even his father used to enjoy with her. She pleads to Paravasu to kill her for having betrayed him. Paravasu instead kills his father and returns back to the yagna.
Vishaka also leaves the kingdom. Aravasu is now left all alone. Nithilai asks him to go and join his brother in the yagna. On reaching there Paravasu asks him the reason for his coming. When he tells that his father has been murdered and now he is left all alone. Paravasu puts the blame of murder on Aravasu and asks the guards to beat him up and throw him away.
On his being thrown he is being rescued by a group of drama artists they take him with them. On hearing his condition Nithilai comes and joins him. With the help of Nithilai Aravasu slowly recovers. He goes to the kingdom along with the drama troup to perform a play, Nithilai too goes to watch the play where she also meets Vishaka. Seeing Nithilai, her husband and her brother comes and murders her. Seeing the death of Nithilai Aravasu gets wild he enters the Yagna and with the fire of yagna he starts burning the entire place. Looking at this Paravasu realises the mistake he enters the burning fire and sacrifices his life.
Impressed with the love of Aravasu for Nithilai, the repentance of Paravasu and sacrifice made by Nithilai, Indira appears in front of Aravasu and gives him an opportunity to ask for a wish. Aravasu is about to ask for the life of Nithilai, when the Rakshasha comes there and tells him that he has been created by Aravasu’s father so Aravasu is his brother. He tells him that as a Rakshasha your father has called me to this world so now only you can give me moksha, so he begs to Aravasu to ask Indira for his moksha. Feeling pity for the Rakshasha, Aravasu asks Indira to give moksha to Rakshasha instead of life to Nithilai. Impressed by his sacrifice Indira grants moksha to the Rakshasha as well as rain to the village.
Performance wise each and every character has done the given part in a fantastic way. Raveena has not only given a wonderful performance but is pretty hot too.
I have one small doubt which if possible MS readers can help me out. The movie is set in an ancient time. That was a time when neither blade nor hair removing lotion was introduced. In such case how is it that both the leading ladies in this movie are having a clean arm-pit (were Gillette or Anne French available then ?)
In a nut shell as the name itself says Agni Varsha, the movie is a combination of both fire and rain. Its can neither be called a commercial movie nor a art movie. Its neither a movie for the elite class nor the movie for the front benchers. Only time will tell whether it can be called a hit movie or a flop movie.