'Padi Padi Leche Manasu' teaser: Yet another glorification of stalking

The Indian film industry, especially Tollywood has glorified

stalking

time and again, by turning something that is a gigantic problem in the real world into a declaration of love on-screen.

Hanu Raghavapudi’s ‘

Padi Padi Leche Manasu

’ unfortunately seems to follow the same beat, yet again, with the

teaser

blatantly showing the character of Sharwanand as a stalker and Sai Pallavi’s as the one who’s initially annoyed, but of course, eventually falls for him. In fact, an official fan group of the lead actor even seem to be proud of the fact as they wrote on social media, sharing the teaser, “He stalks her. She questions him...witness this intimidating romance of #Sharwanand & @Sai_Pallavi92 in the teaser of #PadiPadiLecheManasu. Link: https://youtu.be/O7oOl5oyTQg. @hanurpudi @Composer_Vishal @SLVCinemasOffl @Rajkamal0069. #PPLMOnDec21st #PPLMTeaser.” (sic)


The director and lead actress on the other hand thankfully steered clear of the word stalker in their posts, albeit still equating stalking with love. Hanu Raghavapudi wrote, “#PadiPadiLecheManasu teaser, a breezy love story from an epic city, the city of Joy #Kolkata on Dec21St. #PPLM” (sic) Sai Pallavi too wrote, “love n love only #PadiPadiLecheManasu” (sic)

In the teaser that features music by Vishal Chandrasekhar, Sharwanand can be seen constantly stalking Sai Pallavi, while she uses public transport, as she goes about her work and even when she hangs out with her friends. When confronted by her, he brushes it off, admits to stalking her and walks away. His character too equates stalking with love with his dialogue. The teaser has raked in more than 20K views at the time of writing and the film is slated for

release

on December 21. It remains to be seen if the film will disappointingly and worryingly continue in the same vein.