Songadya (1970)

Marathi comedian Kondke’s first independent production inaugurates his particular style: a vaguely Tamasha-derived ribald comedy featuring an innocent bumbling hero, a sexy heroine and dialogues replete with sexual puns and innuendo. The script is by Sabnis, whose Tamasha-derived stage hit Vichcha Majhi Puri Kara (1965) saw Kondke’s breakthrough performance. The innocent Namya (Kondke), the son of the tough Shitabai, is taken by his friends to see a Tamasha performance. He gets so excited by the Mahabharata scene of Draupadi’s vastraharan (in which the enemy Kauravas try forcibly to disrobe her) that he jumps on stage disrupting the performance. He goes to the next village to see the performance again, where (as the actor who is to play the monkey-god Hanuman gets drunk) he is invited to understudy the part. Namya’s distraught mother kicks him out of the house, but the dancer Kalavati (Chavan, Kondke’s usual female lead) offers him shelter. The clutch of hit songs includes the duet Malyachya malya madhi kon ga ubhi.