A village called ‘Military Madhavaram’ sparked off the idea and it was but natural for an astute filmmaker called Radhakrishna Jagarlamudi to narrate its story in the form of a film called ‘Kanche’ that got attention at the national-level and got nominated as the Best Regional Film.
“I am so happy that an untold story bagged national attention. From this village alone, about 2,000 people fought for the allied forces in World War II, all over Asia. Each one of them is a story and I wish I could narrate each of them the way I did, in ‘Kanche’, produced by my father Sai Babu Jagarlamudi and my friend Y. Rajeev Reddy,” is what Krish, as the filmmaker is popular, had to say once he got news of the award. The film has Pragya Jaiswal and Varun Tej in the lead.
‘Military Madhavaram’ per se dates around from the 17th century and history says that the then King Pusapati Madhava Verma Brahma of the Gajapati dynasty ruling the Deccan and Orissa regions built a fort in Arugolanu village about 6 km from Madhavaram to protect his kingdom from enemies. He deployed soldiers from northern Andhra to this fort and provided them with agricultural land and housing sites.
According to senior citizens, Mahatma Gandhi once visited this village and a war memorial like the Amar Jawan Stupa at India Gate has been built in the memory of the soldiers from this village who sacrificed their life for the nation.
The village is called ‘Military Madhavaram’ because atleast one person from each family has worked in the military. Agriculture apart, an ambition for most of the youth is to join the armed forces, the filmmaker recalled, speaking about ‘Kanche’.
The nearest rail heads are Tadepalligudem and Nidadavolu. Asked about what sparked off the idea of making a film with this theme, Krish said, “No one really is aware that a whopping 25 lakh Indian soldiers fought in the World War II, the biggest event that changed the economic, political and power scenario of the world. I was keen on telling the world that India played a major role in this gigantic war.”
Since morning, the filmmaker’s phone hasn’t stopped ringing and his office is full of bouquets from people like Nandamuri Balakrishna, Prakash Raj and filmmaker Singeetham Srinivasa Rao, to name just a few !
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> National> Andhra Pradesh / by Suresh Krishnamoorthy / Hyderabad – March 29th, 2016