General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Oru Kaidhiyin Diary (ஒரு கைதியின் டைரி)

Oru Kaidhiyin Diary (ஒரு கைதியின் டைரி; English: A Prisoner's Diary) is a 1985 Tamil-language action thriller film directed by Bharathiraja, written by K. Bhagyaraj, and starring Kamal Haasan in a dual role as a wrongfully imprisoned father and his son.¹^•² It was released on 14 January 1985, runs 152 minutes, and was produced by Chandraleela Bharathiraja under Janani Art Creations.¹^•³

Key fact	Detail
Release	14 January 1985, Tamil, India; 152 minutes¹
Director / story	Directed by Bharathiraja; story by K. Bhagyaraj, screenplay by Bharathiraja³
Music	Ilaiyaraaja; all lyrics written by Vairamuthu³^•⁴
Lead cast	Kamal Haasan (David / James alias Shankar), Radha (Rosy), Revathi (Sharadha), Janagaraj (Velappan), Malaysia Vasudevan (Suryaprakasam)⁵
Plot	David, loyal to the politician Suryaprakasam, is framed and imprisoned after the politician rapes and kills his wife Rosy; he returns after 22 years to take revenge⁶
Box office	Ran 175 days in theaters, a silver jubilee success²
Adaptations	Dubbed in Telugu as Kaithi Veeta; remade in Telugu as Marana Gomam with Krishnam Raju and in Hindi as Aakhree Raasta (1986)¹

Spoilers

Plot

David, a prisoner, tries to escape from prison, is caught, and has his sentence increased; he is released after 22 years and visits his friend Velappan.³ The flashback shows David and his wife Rosy living happily. David takes part in politics at the grassroots level, and with trust in Suryaprakasam, the influential politician who heads his party, he presents to him both his wife and their just-born son; with Suryaprakasam's blessing the baby receives the name James.³

Suryaprakasam, smitten with Rosy, organizes a political protest that obstructs rail traffic with David as its leader, knowing David will be arrested and giving him access to Rosy.³ When Rosy comes to him for help in getting David released, he manipulates her child away from her and, with his henchmen, rapes her.³ Shamed and humiliated, Rosy hangs herself and leaves her husband a handwritten note with the details.³

David confronts Suryaprakasam at his birthday function. Inspector Viswanathan (Vinu Chakravarthy) and Dr. Unnikrishnan (Vijayan) pretend to help David but are the politician's friends; they take Rosy's note from him and destroy it, the entire evidence of the crime.³^•⁵ The trio then frames David for Rosy's murder and wins the case in court. David leaves his son with Velappan, promising the boy will be raised as a hardened thug to help avenge Rosy; on release he finds that Velappan has instead educated the boy and raised him righteously, and James has become a police officer.³^•⁷ The climax turns on how David takes revenge on the three men responsible without his son's support.⁷

Production

Bharathiraja and Kamal Haasan had together shot about 5,000 feet of a film called Top Tucker before abandoning it, because its story resembled their earlier film Sigappu Rojakkal.¹ Bhagyaraj then came forward to help, and the story he wrote became Oru Kaidhiyin Diary.¹ According to Bhagyaraj's own account, he handed the completed screenplay to his guru Bharathiraja and told him to make whatever changes he wanted.⁸

The climax was one place where the film departed from Bhagyaraj's script. Bharathiraja changed it so that the hero stands motionless, disguised as a statue of Veer Shivaji, and kills the villain when he comes near; Bhagyaraj credited this change to Bharathiraja and said South Indian audiences celebrated it.⁹ A scene in which the father and son meet at a graveyard, a key stage of Bhagyaraj's story, appears in the Hindi version but not in the Tamil film.⁸

Cast and crew

Kamal Haasan plays the dual role of David and his son James alias Shankar, with Radha as Rosy, Revathi as Sharadha, Janagaraj as Velappan, Malaysia Vasudevan as Suryaprakasam, Vinu Chakravarthy as S. P. Viswanathan, and Vijayan as Dr. Unnikrishnan.⁵ The film was photographed by B. Kannan, edited by V. Rajagopal, and scored by Ilaiyaraaja, with all song lyrics by Vairamuthu.³^•⁴ Playback singers on the soundtrack included K. J. Yesudas, S. P. Balasubramaniam, Vani Jairam, Uma Ramanan, S. P. Sailaja, and Gangai Amaran.⁴

Reception and adaptations

The film was financially successful and completed a 175-day theatrical run, becoming a silver jubilee film.² On IMDb it holds a rating of 7.2/10.¹⁰ Reviewers on Letterboxd have singled out its non-linear screenplay, which opens with a long flashback, and Kamal Haasan's dual-role performance.¹¹

The film was dubbed into Telugu as Kaithi Veeta and was also remade in Telugu as Marana Gomam, starring Krishnam Raju.¹ Bhagyaraj himself later directed the Hindi remake Aakhree Raasta (1986), produced by T. Rama Rao and A. Purnachandra Rao under Lakshmi Productions, with Amitabh Bachchan in the dual role alongside Jaya Prada, Sridevi, and Anupam Kher; Sridevi's voice was dubbed by Rekha.¹² The Hindi version became a box-office success for Bachchan after a series of setbacks.¹²

The title has remained in circulation in Tamil cinema. In August 2026, actor Shanthnu Bhagyaraj, Bhagyaraj's son, announced a new film titled Oru Kaidhiyin Diary, written and directed by Suseenthiran with actor-politician Seeman in the cast, explicitly taking its title from the 1985 film; the new film is set in Madurai in 2001, with music by Sam CS.¹³

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Indian films (individual works) › Tamil films before 2000 › Released 1952 to 1991

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

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