Trailer
Plot summary
In Srinagar, a Kashmiri terrorist, Wasim Khan (Shiva Rindani), is captured by a team led by Colonel Rayappa (Nassar). In Southern India, 18-year old Roja (Madhoo) is a simple village girl born and brought up in Sundarapandiapuram in Tirunelveli district in southern Tamil Nadu. Roja fervently wishes that her sister Shenbagam's (Vaishnavi) marriage proposal with Rishikumar (Arvind Swami), a Cryptologist working with the R.A.W. of India (originally from Meerut), goes smoothly. Unknown to her and her family, Shenbagam is in love with the son of her paternal aunt.
When Rishi wishes to speak to Shenbagam alone, she gathers enough courage to convey this and politely asks him to reject her in front of her parents, to which he obliges. To everyone's surprise Rishi requests Roja's hand in marriage instead. Being unaware of Shenbagam's love affair, Roja is not willing to accept Rishi's proposal as she believes that he is the best match for Shenbagam but she marries Rishi, and the couple go to live in Madras while Shenbagam marries her cousin.
Initially Roja does not like what Rishi did, but when she learns of Shenbagam's love affair and consequent rejection of Rishi, she apologizes and starts seeing him in a new light. Love blossoms, and life is blissful for the couple for a short while. Meanwhile, due to the illness of his Chief Chandramoorthy (S. Ve. Venkataraman), Rishi is assigned to an army communications center in Baramulla to intercept military intelligence.
Cast
- Vatsala Rajagopalas Roja's paternal grandmother
- S. Ve. Venkatramanas Chandramoorthy
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Roja (1992)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Roja was inspired by the kidnapping of K. Doraiswamy, an Indian Oil Corporation executive seized by Kashmiri militants on 28 June 1991 and held for two months. According to Mani Ratnam, the film was based on his wife's fight for his release.
- Arvind Swamy was signed to play the lead in Roja after Rajiv Menon declined, and Aishwarya and Ayesha Jhulka were the first choices for the female lead before turning it down over dates; Madhoo, credited as Madhubala, got the role.
- Mani Ratnam approached Karisma Kapoor to play a Kashmiri girl in Roja but decided against casting her, believing she was "far too expensive for a Tamil film"; the role went to another actress.
- Mani Ratnam had planned to shoot Roja in Kashmir, but extreme terrorism there forced him to use other hill stations that resembled it, including Coonoor, Ooty and Manali in Himachal Pradesh.
- Roja was made on a shoestring budget, with its technicians working for less money on the understanding that the film would also be sold for less money.
- Cinematographer Santosh Sivan said many images in Roja were written in at the script level; in the Kashmir sequences the audience sees the snow only when Roja sees it for the first time.
- Roja was the first film for which Mani Ratnam used a Steadicam, in the shot that introduces the terrorists' hideout to the audience.
