Producer Shyam Prasad Reddy's Arundhati, starring Anushka Shetty in the lead, is a classic. Directed by Kodi Ramakrishna, the 2009 film had the character of fakir as one of the most important ones. The character was directly inspired by a Hollywood movie.
The Omen (1976) was one film Reddy watched multiple times when he was a teenager. As a 16-year-old, Reddy was so captivated by the horror classic that he watched it an astonishing fifteen times at a theatre in Chennai. The film profoundly registered in his mind. The priest character in the film relentlessly warns Gregory Peck's Robert Thorn about the impending evil of Damien.
This very priest served as the direct inspiration for the character of Fakir, portrayed by Sayaji Shinde, in Arundhati. In The Omen, Father Brennan (played by Patrick Troughton) is a tragic and increasingly desperate figure. He recognizes the true nature of Damien as the Antichrist and attempts, with escalating urgency, to alert Thorn to the supernatural danger lurking within his own family. His warnings, often dismissed as madness or fanaticism, are proven horrifyingly true.
