Jai (2004 Telugu film)


Jai is a 2004 Indian Telugu-language romantic drama film written and directed by Teja, starring Navdeep in his debut, and also has Santhoshi and Ayesha Jhulka. The film was successful. The story tries to marry romance and patriotism. The film was dubbed and partially reshot in Tamil as Jairam.

Plot

Jairam "Jai" is a son of a rich widow whose husband was killed by the Pakistanis in the war. As usual, she neglects her son and is busy earning money for him in the business. Jai is a brilliant student who possesses high moral values. He falls in love with Farah, whose father teaches him boxing. Jai's mother holds the Indo-Pak Boxing Match. India loses the match, and the Pakistan champion challenges the Indians saying that even after 56 years of independence, Indians cannot stop Pakistanis from butchering the Indian army members. Jai challenges that he will win a boxing match against them in 56 days. The twist in the tale is that the Pakistani boxer is none other than the ISI member sent by Lashkar-e-Taiba Chief Maulana Masood Azhar. When young Jai challenges them, he started his training and he gained punch weight up to 75 kgs, which was high compared to his opponent. Then Pakistanis started trouble with Jai. When he's training, they rushed into fight and threw a stone at Jai's chest and crushed his right hand with their knee. Afterwards, Jai was rescued and admitted to a hospital. The doctor reported that his ligament was torn and his ribs were fractured, causing pneumothorax. That postpones the boxing challenge, because it would put him in a hospital for 6 months. But Jai doesn't want to give up and started testing himself by punching a pillow, but that caused his hand to tear severely, and blood was dropping from his hand. After, a doctor warns him if he does like that again, he may lose his hand. So, he started his training by using only his left hand. But the Pakistanis also troubled his trainer. After 15 days, Jai attends the boxing match but got a hit to his chest, which leads to Pakistan getting points, but Jai never gives up. He started punching even by using his right hand which was injured. When it bleeds, he doesn't care about it and continued punching his opponent. After his opponent got knocked out, blood is shown dripping from the opponent's ear, showing that Jai defeated him with his broken fist. Jai began chanting 'Vande Mataram'. Afterwards, India won the boxing challenge and proved that they defeated Pakistan.

Cast

  • Navdeep as K. Jairam
  • Santhoshi as Farah
  • Ayesha Jhulka as Jai's mother
  • Salim Baig as Shakib
  • Tanikella Bharani as Sheikh
  • Abhinayashree
  • Venu Madhav as Sachin Undulkar, the school principal
  • Duvvasi Mohan as Auto driver
  • Venu Yeldandi as Jai's friend
  • Geetha Singh as Farah's friend
  • Chammak Chandra as Sheikh's supporter
  • Dhanraj
  • Junior Relangi as Professor
  • Chitti Babu as Priest
; Tamil version
  • Pandiarajan as Sachin Undulkar, the school principal
  • Chinni Jayanth as Auto driver
  • Madhan Bob
  • Chitti Babu as Chemistry professor

    Production

The film was shot in Chennai, Pollachi, Chalakudy and Hyderabad.

Soundtrack

The music was composed By Anup Rubens and released by Sohan Audio. All lyrics were penned by Kulasekhar.
;Tamil Track list
Jeevi of Idlebrain.com rated the film three out of five and wrote that "Instead of concentrating more on what he is good at, director Teja has chosen to elaborate and exploit the patriotism aspect. He failed in getting emotions right through patriotic episodes". Similarly, a critic from Sify wrote that "It is better for Teja to make good love stories than dabble in complicated storylines".