Jagadeka Veeruni Katha

Jagadeka Veeruni Katha is a 1961 Indian Telugu-language fantasy swashbuckler film, produced and directed by K. V. Reddy under the Vijaya Productions banner. It stars N. T. Rama Rao, B. Saroja Devi with music composed by Pendyala Nageswara Rao.

The film was subsequently dubbed into Tamil (Jagathalaprathapan), Kannada (Jagadekaveerana Kathe), Bengali, Oriya, and Hindi languages. Released on August 9, 1961, the film was a box office success.

Plot
The king (Mukkamala) and queen (Rushyendramani) of Udayagiri have two sons, Pratap (N. T. Rama Rao), a famous and valiant warrior, and Jagjit (Lanka Satyam), who is cowardly and jealous. When the king asks to know their desires, Pratap reveals his wish to marry the four Devakanyas (Celestial Maidens), Indrakumari Jayanti (B. Saroja Devi), Agnikumari Marichi (Bala), Varunakumari Varuni (Jayanthi), and Nagakumari Nagini (L. Vijayalakshmi). Knowing it, the enraged King exiles him until he triumphs over his aim. Now, Pratap starts his adventurous journey with the blessings of his pitiful mother.

As he starts his journey he saves a jester named Rendu Chintalu, meaning "two wishes, (Relangi) from two vetalas, who grant them three wishes for sparing them. Rendu Chintalu shares his two wishes to marry his true love and rule a kingdom, and Pratap reveals his wish. Rendu Chintalu uses the first wish to take them to a spring where the maidens bathe and accidentally uses the last two to prepare a feast and get some betel leaves.

Pratap then hears the voices of the girls and sees them bathing, and tries to woo them, to which Jayanti makes him a statue. Sensing trouble, the queen prays to Parvati (Kannamba) for his safety. Thus, she appears as an old woman and restores him. The old woman then takes them to her home, where Pratap venerates her and asks her for her help. She thus reveals a curse on Jayanti from Sage Durvasa, that she must marry the man who steals her sari and stay on Earth as his wife until she gained it back. Pratap then sneakily steals the sari while the girls are busy teasing Jayanti about her attraction to Pratap. The old woman then hides the sari in Pratap's leg and tells him to keep it there except when going into battle. She turns him into a baby, and Jayanti asks the old woman to turn Pratap back to human (now loving him due to the curse) and promises to fully love him and never leave him. With that, she restores him to his original form and has the two married.

Pratap, Jayanti, and Rendu Chintalu move to the Kamakuta kingdom, ruled by King Threesoka (Rajanala), who longs for the perfect wife. His sly minister, Badarayana Praggada (C. S. R.), shows him many brides, but none suffice. One of them Ekasha, meaning "one wish", (Girija), whose one desire is to become a queen, uses her wits to force Badarayana to let her stay in the palace as the chief of the servants. Badarayana and Threesoka then go undercover to find more prospective brides, during which the latter sees Jayanti and begins to lust for her.

He sends troops to get her, which are only defeated by Pratap. They then bring the three to the palace under the ruse of an award for Pratap's valor. They hire Ekasha to help them, but she only two times them. Rendu Chintalu immediately falls for her and believes her to be his true love, due to her beauty and corresponding wish. Pratap promises them that he will fulfill their wishes and gets them engaged.

Threesoka then fakes a headache and Badarayana asks Pratap to bring the cure, the poison of the snakes of Nagaloka, in hopes of killing him. Jayanti gives him a magic ring, which teleports him to a lake, where he must throw the ring, revealing an entrance to Nagaloka. In Nagaloka, he is welcomed by many Naga dancers, headed by Nagini, who accepts him as her husband. Meanwhile, Ekasha and Rendu Chintalu foil one of the king and minister's schemes. Pratap then learns a mantra ("Om eko aneko hamasmi") from Jayanti to clone himself, so he can spend time with all his wives.

Later the king claims that the poison has relieved his headache but given him a stomachache, which requires a gem from Varunaloka. Pratap leaves and Ekasha and Rendu Chintalu, with Jayanti and Nagini's help, foil yet another scheme of the king's, this time to dress up as maids. Soon Pratap returns to Kamakuta safely, with not only the gem but also Varuni as his wife.

Rendu Chintalu instills doubt in the king that maybe Pratap never actually went to any loka. To prove it, he suggests throwing Pratap in a fire and sending him to Naraka, where he can talk to Badarayana and Threesoka's fathers. Pratap is sent in a fire, and returns with the last Devakanya, Marichi, as his wife. Jayanti writes fake letters asking the king and minister to go to Naraka as well and talk to their fathers in person.

The king and minister fall for the trick and enter the fire alongside Pratap. Pratap returns alone, due to his piousness, while the king and minister die. With the evil king and minister out of the way, Pratap reinstates the former minister, gets Ekasha and Rendu Chintalu married, and crowns them king and Queen of Kamakuta, fulfilling their respective wishes.

In Udayagiri, the Senapati has betrayed the Jagjit and chased him away, while the king and queen have escaped their cell and made it to Kamakuta, where they reunite with Pratap. The king's eyesight is restored and he meets his new spiritual son and 5 daughters-in-law and sends Pratap to war. Remembering his warning, Pratap entrusts the sari to his mother, who misinterprets its use and gives it to Jayanti.

Meanwhile, Pratap reunites with the refugee Jagjit, who poisons him and leaves him to die. The Devakanyas, seeing this, heal him, only for him to realize his circumstance and roam around heartbroken and Jagjit is arrested by the army for betrayal.

Pratap's struggles and pain of losing his wives resonates with the girls, who ask their fathers to let them marry him. The gods at first rejected, but Brihaspati, guru of the gods, cites that mortal men whose prowess was equal to the divine powers of the gods, like Pururavas, had married celestial maidens, like Urvashi. The gods then decide to test him.

Pratap soon hears the voice of a woman calling for help and fights the many goons that are trying to kidnap her. Finally, he comes to the demon who is holding her and enters a ring of fire to save her. It is revealed to be Agni and his wife, Svaha who announce that he has proved that he has the courage and strength of a god.

Next, Pratap sees an old man stuck in stone, who explains that the only way to free him is for a man to play the tanpura, veena, dholak, and tabla placed nearby at the same time. Using the mantra he learned from Jayanti, he creates four clones of himself to play the four instruments and continues to sing a song in worship of Goddess Parvati. At the end of the song, the man reveals himself to be Varuna, who explains that he has proved himself to have the musical abilities of the celestial musicians, the gandharvas.

Varuna takes Pratap to the gods' court, where Indra (Mikkilineni) shows him five women, all who look like Jayanti, and asks him to identify who isn't his wife. Pratap exclaims that any woman who isn't his wife is like a mother, and prays to the "mother" to reveal herself to her "son." Thus, the imposter is revealed. Then Indra asks him to reveal each one of his wives. Pratap continues to sing that his wives would feel remorse to leave their husbands, and by Goddess Parvathi's power, if his wives were loyal to stay with him, they would uncover their disguise, and thus the wives are revealed. The gods, now convinced of his devotion and wisdom, offer their daughters to him.

Pratap regains the kingdom and recrowns his parents, content with his life as a crown prince with his four wives. They all pray to the Goddess Parvati in gratitude, ending the movie.

Cast

 * N. T. Rama Rao as Pratap
 * B. Saroja Devi as Jayanthi/Indra Kumari
 * Rajanala as Threesoka Maharaju
 * Relangi as Renduchintalu
 * C. S. R. as Badarayana Praggada
 * Mikkilineni as Indra
 * Mukkamala as Maharaju
 * Vangara as Paata Mantri Buddisagar
 * Lanka Satyam as Jagajithu
 * Kannamba as Goddess Parvathi
 * Rushyendramani as Maharani
 * L. Vijayalakshmi as Nagini / Naga Kumari
 * Girija as Ekaasa
 * Jayanthi as Varuni / Varuna Kumari
 * Bala as Mareechi / Agni Kumari
 * "Gemini" Chandra - Dancer

Production
K. V. Reddy's next project after Pellilnati Pramanalu (1958) was the Vijaya Productions' fantasy film Jagadeka Veeruni Katha. The film was adapted from a popular Tamil folktale on which a previous film, Pakshiraja Films’ Jagathalapratapan (1944) was also based. Screenwriter Pingali and K. V. Reddy took the core plot from Jagathala Prathapan, but added new characters, made other changes to the story and prepared the script of Jagadeka Veeruni Katha which made it quite distinct from the 1944 film.

Soundtrack
Music composed by Pendyala Nageswara Rao. Lyrics were written by Pingali Nagendra Rao. The song "Sivasankari Sivanandalahari" is set in the Carnatic raga known as Darbari Kanada,

Box office

 * The film has celebrated 100 days in 30 centres. The Centenary celebrations were held at Naaz theater in Guntur city. The film unit felicitated an individual who saw the movie 100 times. The film ran well even in each of the subsequent releases.