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

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

-language

comedy drama Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and Drama (film and television), drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple co ...

film directed by

Dasaradh Dasharatha (Sanskrit: दशरथ, IAST: Daśaratha; born Nemi) was the king of the Kosala kingdom and a scion of the Suryavamsha dynasty in Hinduism. He ruled from this capital at Ayodhya. Dasharatha was the son of Aja and Indumati. He ha ...

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), often credited as Trivikram, is an Indian film director and screenwriter who works in Telugu cinema. In 2021, he became one of the highest-paid directors in Cinema of South ...

. It stars

Nagarjuna Akkineni Akkineni Nagarjuna Rao (born 29 August 1959), known mononymously as Nagarjuna, is an Indian actor, film producer, television presenter, and entrepreneur. Nagarjuna has acted predominantly in Telugu, along with a few Hindi and Tamil language fil ...

Prabhu Deva Prabhu Deva (born 3 April 1973) is an Indian dance choreographer, film director, producer and actor who has worked predominantly in Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, and Kannada language films. In a career spanning 32 years, he has performed and designed a ...

Gracy Singh Gracy Singh (born 20 July 1980) is an Indian actress who primarily works in Hindi films. She is best known for her role in the films ''Lagaan'' and ''Munna Bhai M.B.B.S.'' ''Singh'' is also a trained Bharatnatyam and Odissi dancer. Career Bor ...

(her Telugu debut) and

Shriya Saran Shriya Saran Bhatnagar (; born 11 September 1982) is an Indian actress who works predominantly in Telugu, Tamil, and Hindi-language films. Although Saran aspired to become a well-known dancer, she became an actress with her film debut in 2001 ...

. The music was composed by

R. P. Patnaik Ravindra Prasad Patnaik is an Indian music composer, singer, actor, screenwriter and film director who works in Telugu, Kannada and Tamil. He won three Filmfare Awards and three Nandi Awards. He has toured the world to perform his live shows. ...

. The film won two

Nandi Awards The Nandi Awards are the awards that recognise the excellence in Telugu cinema, Telugu theatre and Telugu television, and Lifetime achievements in Indian cinema. Presented annually by the Government of Andhra Pradesh, the award is named after ...

and two

Filmfare Awards South Filmfare Awards South is the South Indian segment of the annual Filmfare Awards, presented by the Filmfare magazine of The Times Group to honour both artistic and technical excellence of professionals in the Indian film industry encompassing ...

. 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 consecutive flops he suffered since 2000. It was dubbed in

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...

as ''Santhosha Vanille'' and in

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

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

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

as '' Bandhan'' (2004) and in

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

as ''

Ugadi Ugadi or Yugadi, also known as Samvatsarādi (), is New Year's Day according to the Hindu calendar and is celebrated in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Karnataka in India. It is festively observed in these regions on the first ...

'' (2007).

Plot

Karthik is a rich architect in

Ooty Ooty (), officially known as Udhagamandalam (also known as Ootacamund (); abbreviated as Udhagai), is a city and a municipality in the Nilgiris district of the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is located north west of Coimbatore and so ...

. 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, causing Padhu to elope and marry Karthik. Padmavathi is very eager to get back to her parents and get their blessings. Karthik and Padmavathi migrate to

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

and they give birth to a kid named Lucky. Padhu, unfortunately, dies in an accident. Ramachandrayya has a very big 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 was 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 for Bhanu, 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 *

as Pavan *

as Padmavathi / Paddu, Karthik's wife *

as Bhanu *

K. Viswanath Kasinadhuni Viswanath (born 19 February 1930) is an Indian film director, screenwriter and actor, known for his works primarily in Telugu cinema. He is recipient of five National Film Awards, seven state Nandi Awards, ten Filmfare Awards South ...

as Ramachandrayya *

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, Hindi, Kannada and Malayalam. As a former politician, Rao has s ...

as Himsaraju / Vikram *

Brahmanandam Kanneganti Brahmanandam (born 1 February 1956), known mononymously as Brahmanandam, is an Indian actor, comedian, impersonator, and voice actor known for his works predominantly in Telugu cinema. He is particularly known for his comic performa ...

as Giri from Mangalagiri * Sunil as Kranthi Kumar / Seetayya * Chandra Mohan as Chandram * Paruchuri Venkateswara Rao as Venkat Rao * Pruthvi as Sriram *

Banerjee Banerjee or Bandyopadhyay is a surname of Brahmins originating from the Bengal region of the Indian subcontinent and from Bangladesh. Lineage and ancestry Banerjees are from the ancient Shandilya Gotra, which means all Banerjees are descended fr ...

as Suri *

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 anta ...

as Prasad *

Preeti Nigam Preeti Nigam is an Indian actress who is known for her negative roles in Telugu-language television serials. Career Her career began when a Telugu short filmmaker noticed her while she was giving a dance performance. The maker insisted that s ...

as Rani *

Sumitra Sumitra ( sa, सुमित्रा, IAST: Sumitrā) is a princess of Kashi in Hindu mythology. The wise Sumitra is the third queen consort of Dasharatha, the king of Kosala, who ruled from Ayodhya. She is the mother of the twins Lakshmana a ...

as Lakshmi * Sudha as Savitri *

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

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 and Yadushailadeepa, overlooking the Cauvery valley. Melukote i ...

L. B. Sriram L. B. Sriram (born Lanka Bhadradri Sri Ramachandra Moorthy; 30 May 1952) is an Indian actor, comedian, writer, playwright, producer, and thespian known for his works in Telugu cinema and Telugu theatre. He made his feature film debut with '' ...

* Vajja Venkata Giridhar as Wedding groom * Aajaam * Madhu Mani as Malika * Indu Anand * Anitha Chowdary as Anitha * Lahari as Durga * Swapna * Devisri * Saraswatamma * Master Akshay as Lucky *

Sophiya Haque Sophiya Haque (14 June 1971 – 17 January 2013) was an English actress, singer, video jockey and dancer. She is best known for playing the role of Poppy Morales in ''Coronation Street'' between 2008 and 2009. Early life Haque was born Syeda S ...

as in item song

Soundtrack

The music was composed by

. The music was released on SUPREME Music Company.

Awards

;

- 2002 * Best Actor -

Akkineni Nagarjuna Akkineni is an Indian surname that may refer to * Akkineni Lakshmi Vara Prasada Rao, popularly known as L. V. Prasad was a famous Indian film actor, producer and director * Akkineni Ramesh Prasad son of Akkineni Lakshmi Vara Prasada Rao * Akkineni ...

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

* Best Film - Telugu - K. L. Narayana * Best Music Director - Telugu -

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