Revisiting Abhinandana (1988): Beautiful Musical of a Troubled Family and its Responsibilities

The whole music album of Abhinandana is such a pleasure to your ears. Ilayaraja really seems to have composed the music first and the story of triangled-love story is made very much intense and depthful to match the musical prowess of Ilayaraya’s melodies compositions.

Raja (Karthik) and Rani (Shobhana) love each other at the very first sight. There isn’t much fluff on a love track. Within no time, we see that hero and heroine talking about marriage alongside a liberal father of Rani (Somayajulu) happily living the life of a rich upper middle class man who isn’t feeling, not one but two, daughters in the house as a burden. The conflict of neither caste nor religion is the main hurdle in their relationship. The hurdle is the responsibility imposed upon themselves to be the sacrificing one’s for the sake of others.

When Rani’s sister dies in an accident after a miscarriage, Rani is burdened with taking the responsibility of the homemaker, replacing her sister’s role in her home: to take care of the children and, obviously, the husband Srikanth (Sarath Babu). Srikanth doesn’t exploit this situation as a classic villain usually does. The great thing about Abhinandana is that it doesn’t have any traditional villains. It has conflicting values that spring up the intense Devdas-level tragic-drama.

The conflicting values of forced responsibility and self-enforced value of sacrifice of Srikanth, Raja, Rani and her father has a very good dramatic arc that brings the liberal values to the conservative society that India was and still is. The poeticness of the quality of love and the lost love is expressed through the songs composed by Ilayaraja. All the songs were written by Acahrya Athreya. Each and every song has so much emotional depth built into it.

Abhinandana is definitely a classic that will be remembered for its great music and also as the epitome of unrequited love.