Directed by Ani I.V. Sasi, Uppu Kappurambu is a lighthearted comedy starring Keerthy Suresh and Suhas. The story is about a village whose inhabitants faced a crisis when the burial ground ran out of space. No one knew how to address such a peculiar problem, and the village headman, who had just taken over, also found himself in a bind. Let's find out if the villagers found a solution and what challenges they faced during the process.
Chitti Jayapuram had a fascinating history and played a key role in the lives of the villagers. Once upon a time, the ruler of the area faced a great conflict when his kingdom was struck by a deadly famine. The priest at the time told him that to appease the gods, everyone should offer something. The king thought he could use his material wealth to save his people, but he was wrong. The priest devised a solution: he said that to stop the famine, the dead would have to be buried in a specific area in the north of the kingdom. So, from that day on, no one in the entire kingdom was cremated; instead, everyone was buried in that cemetery. Another peculiarity was that the cause of death was engraved on the tombstone. Thus, if someone died from alcohol abuse, the reason for their death was clearly stated.
Director: Ani. I.V. Sasi
Writer: Vasanth Maringanti
Stars: Keerthy Suresh, Suhas, Subhalekha Sudhakar
Years passed, and the villagers continued this tradition. They believed that if someone cremated their dead, the village would suffer another famine. The curious thing was that the villagers were so meticulous about this that it seemed they eagerly awaited the day they breathed their last. There was much debate about what type of tombstone to use, what would be engraved on it, and so on. It was 1992 when the village headman, Subbaraju, passed away. His tombstone was carved from shiny, expensive marble, which aroused some envy among the others. The cemetery land had been donated to the village by Bheemayya's family, one of the richest people in the village, and the village took great pride in it. Besides Bheemayya, there was another person named Madhubabu who aspired to one day become the village leader. Madhubabu ran a movie theater in the village, and although he was not as wealthy as Bheemayya, he had recently made huge profits and built his own empire. There was an unspoken rivalry between the two, and both only wanted to establish their own supremacy in the village. They were not happy that Subbaraju's daughter, Apoorva, was elected as the next village head. But they had no choice, as it was not a democratic system, and the leader's son took over the post after his death. Madhubabu and Bheemayya decided to make Apoorva's life difficult to show the villagers that she wasn't competent enough to lead them. They underestimated Apoorva and didn't imagine she would truly be up to the challenge.
Apoorva didn't want to become a chief, feeling incompetent. She didn't know how to find a solution when the villagers came to her with their problems. Furthermore, at least to some extent, people distrusted her because she was a woman, and their egos were hurt by accepting leadership from a woman. During the first community meeting, both Bheemayya and Madhubabu tried to put Apporva in a difficult position, but she somehow managed to resolve the situation. But then Chinna, the gravedigger, asked her a question she couldn't answer.
Chinna informed her that there were only four spaces left in the cemetery, and they would soon be filled. Apoorva had no idea what to do in that situation, so she told everyone she would need a couple of days to find a workable solution. Apoorva, along with Chinna, went to nearby villages to ask their respective chiefs if they could sell her a few acres of land to bury the dead there. The chiefs either mocked her or flatly refused to give her land. However, one person told her he could give her land for 100,000 rupees.
Apoorva knew she didn't have that kind of money, and the chief simply wasn't willing to negotiate. Apoorva decided to hold a lottery and assign those four graves to the people whose names came up. She believed this would buy her some time, as she hadn't expected four people to die together. Madhubabu's name came up in the lottery, and she was so pleased that she threw a feast for the entire village. At that feast, four people met their final fates by consuming poisonous alcohol. So, instantly, those four graves were used for her burial, and Apoorva was once again in trouble.
Apoorva devised another solution: he discovered that there were many unmarked graves between 100 and 200 years old, and they could reuse them to bury the dead. However, this created a serious problem when people began to dig into their past, and chaos broke out throughout the village as they began to quarrel over their ancestral rivalries. Thus, the disputes that had been forgotten, long forgotten, resurfaced. Moreover, in the midst of all this, Chinna tried to reserve space for his mother, who wanted to be buried in the village. But unfortunately, Bheemayya found out and raised a huge fuss. Apoorva was accused of conspiring with Chinna and favoring him, and was eventually forced to resign.
Bheemayya became the village headman, and he couldn't be happier. Chinna's mother passed away, and he had nowhere to bury her. Chinna and Apoorva had gone to school together, although the latter couldn't remember being in the same class as him. Chinna had to leave school after fourth grade when his father passed away and he started working to support his family. Evidently, Apoorva felt sorry for him and decided to support his cause and end the problem once and for all. He organized a secret meeting with the villagers without informing Bheemayya, for he had a plan in mind. The villagers were very angry to find Chinna also at the meeting. It was then that Apoorva took charge and told them that Chinna's intention was not to harm or betray them. He said he was just being a good son and only wanted to give his mother the burial she desired.
Bheemayya, just after becoming chief, had declared that the empty space in the graveyard where Chinna wanted to bury his mother would be auctioned off. He was sure that no one could match his bid. But Apoorva had made some plans and knew that, if all went well, he would outbid him. We had seen, earlier in the film, that one of the Jats had asked Apoorva for one lakh rupees in exchange for land. So Apoorva asked the villagers to keep increasing the bid until it reached one lakh rupees. He knew Bheemayya's ego was so great that he would keep bidding until he got the land. The next day, during the auction, the villagers did as they were asked. Bheemayya won the bid, but had to pay a considerable sum just to get a burial site. Apoorva used that money to buy more land, and Chinna eventually buried his mother there. Bheemayya felt like a fool knowing he had been tricked.
At the end of Uppu Kappurambu, the people made it very clear that they wanted Apoorva as their leader. In fact, people from other villages came to her with their problems, as they had also heard about how she had managed to get ahead in an innovative way. Apoorva never wanted to carry so many responsibilities, but I guess she doesn't have much choice now. People trust her and know she can't let them down.
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