We all know the Kannada proverb hettorige heggana muddu, meaning that to parents, their own child is precious, regardless of the flaws. It is also a neat cultural shorthand for the way families can sometimes look past the rot within their own walls. Debutant Avinash Balekalla takes that familiar saying and gives it a rather interesting spin in Heggana Muddu. Here, the proverb is not about parents and children, but marriage, and the lengths to which two people with radically different temperaments will go to make a relationship work, or at least appear to be so.
The bandicoot becomes a metaphor for the problems inside the marriage. Just as a pest quietly damages a house from within while everything looks fine outside, the cracks in their relationship also grow without anyone noticing.
Director: Avinash Balekalla
Cast: Poornachandra Mysore, Aditi Sagar, Vijay Shobaraj Pavoor, Rekha Kudligi, Mysore Anand, Chenna Banaka, Bharath Nayak, and Ravi Poojari
The director's interest lies in the small fractures that develop inside an arranged marriage. Enter Ajitha (Poornachandra Mysore), an ordinary middle-class man whose head has been turned by an MLM outfit called AMP. For Ajitha, life is an unbroken sales pitch where volume equals power. Rehearsing before the mirror, he obsesses over a corporate cliché: “Simha kadina raaja yaake?” In his head, the lion rules purely because of attitude, a pushy mindset he drags straight into his arranged marriage.
The film captures the unspoken pressure of an arranged match with sharp precision, right from the pre-wedding demands down to the loneliness of entering a stranger's house. For Prerana (Aditi Sagar), leaving everything behind is overwhelming. In one poignant moment that so many brides will recognise, she locks herself in a room, breaks down, and quickly forces a smile to steady herself.
Their dynamic carries little warmth and plenty of rules. Ajitha insists on being called by his name under the garb of being modern, yet behind this progressive mask sits a petty, self-righteous man convinced he is always right. He nitpicks over small expenses, questions her film choices, and dictates domestic boundaries. Prerana, on the other hand, is a quiet observer who swallows her hurt with a smile. In a candid moment, she decides to be honest and confides in him about an old college friend. Ajitha initially responds with a rehearsed casualness: “Past is past, don't chew it like chewing gum.” However, that liberal facade doesn't last. The fragile male ego takes a hit, and sleep-robbing questions begin to chew his brain: Is it just friendship? Or is there something more?
What follows is a creeping surveillance. The so-called broad-minded husband turns into an obsessive monitor, secretly vetting her contacts and tracking her interactions. Even when Prerana takes up a job at a jewellery showroom, an income he happily welcomes, her autonomy rattles him, prompting him to hover around her workspace to keep tabs on her day. Nachiketh Balekkala’s camera stays tightly framed inside cramped rooms, while a subtle score build unease.
The film slips once it steps out of the house into police stations and crime investigations. What starts as a sharp look at a troubled marriage suddenly turns into a regular thriller, relying on too much spoken explanation and losing the quiet tension built so well within those four walls.
Thankfully, the performances keep the film afloat. Poornachandra Mysore makes the most as Ajitha, a man who is desperate to appear larger, wiser, and more progressive than he actually is. Poornachandra plays the genuinely irritating character without turning him into a caricature.
Aditi Sagar is equally effective, often communicating more through her facial expressions than dialogue, and when she matters with her words, there is a quiet dignity to Prerana, a woman who tries to hold on to herself while constantly adjusting to the demands of her new life. The director captures that contradiction well: the outward firmness, the genuine affection for her husband, and the hurt she chooses to swallow.
Rekha Kudligi and Mysore Anand blend naturally into the world, while Vijay Shobaraj Pavoor and a few others bring a different, khaki-clad shade to this family drama.
Heggana Muddu is an assured debut for Avinash Balekalla, although the film occasionally loses its way. Its second half may not sustain the sharpness of its domestic drama, but the film’s central idea remains interesting. By turning an old proverb inside out, the director looks at the false smiles that can conceal discomfort within a marriage. And beneath all the suspicion, ego, and surveillance is a simpler thought: relationships survive not because one person always gets their way, but because both learn when to forgive, when to compromise and, perhaps most importantly, when to stop treating marriage like a territory to be controlled.
