General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Gods of Dharmapuri

Gods of Dharmapuri (G.O.D) is a 2019 Indian Telugu-language action drama web series created for the streaming platform ZEE5, directed by Anish Yohan Kuruvilla and starring Raj Deepak Shetty, Sruthy Jayan, Satyadev Kancharana, and Karthik Ratnam. Set in the 1960s and 1970s, it follows the mining mafia's rise that takes Pratap Reddy from poverty to power in the fictional town of Dharmapuri, near the Andhra Pradesh–Karnataka border, until he becomes the target of his own friends and family.¹

Key fact	Detail
Premiere	23 October 2019 on ZEE5; one season of 10 episodes¹
Setting	Fictional mining town of Dharmapuri in the Rayalaseema region, during the 1960s and 1970s²
Director / producer	Anish Yohan Kuruvilla; Radhika Lavu of Ellanar Films¹^•²
Lead cast	Raj Deepak Shetty as Pratap Reddy, Sruthy Jayan as Saroja, Satyadev Kancharana as Venu Reddy, Karthik Ratnam as Ravi Reddy, Chandini Chowdary as Swapna, L.B. Sriram as D.N. Reddy¹^•³
Languages	Telugu original, dubbed in Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, and Hindi; English subtitles¹
Episode length	About 31 to 54 minutes per episode⁴
Audience rating	7.7/10 on IMDb (166 votes)⁵

Spoilers

Premise and story

The series opens with Pratap Reddy, a man from Kadapa, migrating to Dharmapuri with his wife Saroja and their two sons, Venu and Ravi, to work as laborers in a mine. The town is ruled by violent and unlawful men under the feudal lord and Sarpanch (elected village headman in rural India) D.N. Reddy. When the local goon Odappa demands protection money, Pratap refuses, and the confrontation ends with Pratap killing Odappa.¹

From there Pratap is drawn into the town's power struggle. Arrested for the killing, he is rescued on bail by Ranga Rao, a communist party leader who contests against D.N. Reddy, and is made union leader of the mining factory. After a bloody confrontation with D.N. Reddy's henchmen, and with leftist political support behind him, Pratap dethrones D.N. Reddy and becomes Sarpanch of Dharmapuri, which draws the wrath of the established powers.⁶ As the years pass, his two sons develop problems of their own, and Pratap eventually becomes the target of his friends and family.¹

The story spans two generations across its ten episodes, tracing the Reddy family's rise from nothing and the violence that engulfs its members over two decades. Reviewer Hemanth Kumar C R, writing in The News Minute, described the show as thematically similar to Gangs of Wasseypur in portraying violence and vengeance as a disease, and noted that by tracing one family's rise it offers an insight into how local events feed larger political power centers.⁷

Cast and characters

Raj Deepak Shetty as Pratap Reddy, the mine laborer who seizes control of Dharmapuri¹
Sruthy Jayan as Saroja, Pratap's wife, a role the director called the soul of the show¹^•⁸
Satyadev Kancharana as Venu Reddy, Pratap's elder son¹
Karthik Ratnam as Ravi Reddy, the younger son³
Chandini Chowdary as Swapna, a village girl who marries Venu¹^•⁶
L.B. Sriram as D.N. Reddy, the tyrant Sarpanch Pratap displaces³^•⁶
Supporting roles include Samyuktha Hornad as the journalist Divya Mathews, John Kottoly as the leftist leader Ranga Rao, Jagadeesh Prathap as Chalapathi, Vijay Adhiraj as Vengal Reddy, and Bala Aditya⁶^•²

Season 2

A second season was in development as of September 2021. Producer Radhika Lavu said at that time that only some of the actors from the first season would be retained for the second installment.² As of the latest listings, the series remains at one season, streaming on ZEE5 with a paid subscription.⁵^•¹³

Production

The series was produced by Radhika Lavu of Ellanar Films and marked Anish Kuruvilla's return to directing.² Kuruvilla shot the series at Anegundi near Hampi, a UNESCO protected heritage site, whose untouched vegetation and rock formations allowed the 1970s setting to be recreated with little set dressing; he credited producer Radhika Lavu with approving the more expensive outdoor location.⁸ Production designer Srikanth Ramisetti built the vintage rural decor, and the writing team pursued dialectal realism: dialogue writer Bharghav Karthik grew up near the Karnataka–Rayalaseema area, and the team interacted with locals to reproduce the regional culture authentically.⁸

Hyderabadi author K.V. Aditya, known for the mythological fantasy book Daitya Diaries, worked on the additional screenplay during pre-production, his first screenwriting credit. He described the switch from books to screen as a move toward dialogue-heavy writing constrained by production budgets.⁹

The music was composed by Shakthi Kanth, with a background score that reviewers singled out for lifting the drama, and the theme song "Rakaasi Loya" sung by Ramya Behara. Cinematography was by Naveen Yadav and editing by Abhinav.⁶

Reception

Critics received the series well. The Envoy Web scored it 3.5 out of 5, calling it a rustic Telugu web series on the lines of Gangs of Wasseypur and Mirzapur, and praised Karthik Rathnam, Sruthi Jayan, Chandini Chowdary, and L.B. Sriram in particular.⁶ 123telugu gave it 3 out of 5, calling it a well-made series with a rustic backdrop and gritty performances that was slow to start but built to solid drama in its last five episodes.¹⁰ LetsOTT gave it 4 out of 5 stars, writing that it was a statement that the regional segment in the digital space had arrived, and the binged.com reviewer Srivathsan Nadadhur highlighted the performances of L.B. Sriram, Sruthy Jayan, and Karthik Ratnam.¹¹

The show also performed commercially for its platform. On its first anniversary in October 2020, MediaNews4U reported that it remained among the top 3 Telugu shows on ZEE5 with 60% season engagement, that most viewers watched more than one episode at a sitting, and that the platform's subscriptions had increased by 50%.¹²

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026