PremiumTatsama Tadbhava: Bengaluru top cops give Meghana Raj-Prajwal Devaraj’s thriller the thumbs up
Meghana Raj Sarja’s comeback film revolves around the investigation into the disappearance of her character Arika’s husband, Sanjay
Last Updated: 07.14 PM, Oct 04, 2023
When a police procedural film has been made in which cops are presented in the most positive light, it’s got to be shown to the real men and women in khaki. And that’s what the team of the Kannada film Tatsama Tadbhava did recently. Produced by filmmaker Panaga Bharana and directed by newcomer Vishal Atreya, the murder mystery was the comeback vehicle of Meghana Raj Sarja, who’d been on a brief self-imposed hiatus following the demise of her husband, Chiranjeevi Sarja, and subsequent change of focus, as she welcomed their first born, Raayan Raj Sarja.
In the film, Meghana plays Arika, whose husband Sanjay goes ‘missing’ after a row with her, only to be found dead in the basement of their house a few days later, making her the prime suspect in the investigation. But then Arika seems to have an air-tight alibi. How the investigating officer, Aravind Ashwatthama, played brilliantly by Prajwal Devaraj, goes about unravelling the mystery behind Sanjay’s death forms the crux of the of the narrative. Interestingly, the team decided to keep the police procedural as realistic as possible, with the setting rarely shifting from the police station and the interrogation.
The team then decided to show the film to some real-life cops, including B Dayananda, Commissioner of Police and CK Baba, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Bengaluru City. CK Baba, who found the film interesting, told the team that missing people cases are among the highest recorded every year. Several police officers were impressed with the realistic depiction of the investigation and urged audiences to watch the film to understand how cops go about cracking cases. The Commissioner added that Tatsama Tadbhava effectively portrayed a part of a policeman’s day-to-day work.
Interestingly, at the end of the film, many of the real-life cops were still unsure about the twist in the plot and walked out saying that they would need a second viewing to truly understand the mystery.