The Telugu film Tantra is replete with elements of horror and gore. There are rampant practices of black magic in many parts of the world, but India tops the list. The various segments of occult practices have been explored in the movie, and the way some people misuse them for their own benefits or to harm others has been brought out. Through the film, we get an idea of the ferocious rituals that are practiced in Hindu occult. The plot revolves around a simple girl in a village who possesses extraordinary powers and uses them to fight evil. What is Rekha’s real identity? Why did Vigathi want to sacrifice her? Let’s find out!
Spoilers Ahead
What Did Sankaram Uncle Tell Teja?
Teja and Vasu went to meet Sankaram uncle to get some knowledge on the negative and positive energies. He told them that some tribes in the Solomon Islands in the Pacific Ocean didn’t cut trees, but they moved around the trees, abusing them, and within a few days, the trees dropped to the ground on their own, all because of the negative energy. On the other hand, he also talked about a cancer treatment called ‘guided imagery’ in which patients were made to feel that piranha fishes ate away at their cancer cells, which was a form of positive energy. Teja further asked him if tantric energy was real, and he said that there were several instances from our very own religious past that proved its presence. Nikumbala Devi is a negative energy that Indrajit worshiped to gain power. Barbarika Bali from Mahabharata was an evil ritual. Sri Krishna had requested that Ghatotkatcha’s son Barbarika be sacrificed for Pandavas victory in Kurukshetra. However, even after the sacrifice, Barbarika was still alive and watched over the war (it was his last wish). Sankara told Teja that the evil eye was real.
Why Did Sankaram Practice Black Magic?
Sankaram had been speaking about black magic from his own experiences in the past. When he was just 7, his mom had run away, and his dad left him in a village temple because he was handicapped. A girl took pity on him and fed him every day for 5 years. Her empathetic heart made Sankaram fall for her.
Later, he grew interested in tantric vidya (evil rituals), and he even tried to practice such rituals with a corpse to achieve powers. The rituals required him to sit naked over a naked corpse and then chant some spells. He said that demons came to threaten him, but nothing was able to stop him because of the sacred boundary he had drawn. He further elaborated, saying that the Goddess would appear if she was satisfied, and then he would have to offer her flesh and liquor to please her. However, in his case, the corpse he was practicing on sat up, and he immediately became unconscious. This event didn’t stop him from doing evil rituals, and he later tried Vashikaran (hypnosis) on the girl (who used to feed him) after learning she was to be married off. However, she came to see him for one last time and told him that his ritual didn’t work on her. She asked him to stay away from her and never meet her again. She also made Sankaram promise her that he would never practice evil rituals again in his life.
How Was Sailaja Saved?
Rekha kept seeing dead people around her, and she realized that something strange was going on with Sailaja. She could clearly see an evil spirit hovering over her and realized that her friend was in grave danger. She approached her family along with Teja and said that someone had been performing ‘Pathala Kutti’ (an evil ritual) on Sailaja. They said that for the next 16 days she would go to the graveyard, and on the 16th day, the person who did this would come to meet her and complete the rituals. She told them that she had visited Baba from the mosque, and he had advised that they should kill the man who had been harming Sailaja before he could feed her food mixed with his blood. At night, Sailaja went to the graveyard; Teja, Rekha, and her family followed her. They noticed that a man had been practicing the rituals on Sailaja. He had plotted revenge against Sailaja for having refused his casual advances to her earlier. Right before he was about to feed Sailaja the blood-mixed rice, Teja cut off his head, saving Sailaja from his clutches.
Why Was Vigathi Looking For Rekha?
A holy man had come to Rekha’s house, warning her grandma that Rekha would be in grave danger soon, as she was subconsciously (while sleep-walking) offering blood to a negative energy. Meanwhile, Vigathi Swami had come back to Rekha’s village, looking for Rajeswari (Rekha’s mother). He learned that Rajeswari had died and that she had a daughter whom he had been meaning to harm. He later cast a spell on Rekha and sent a spirit, causing her to have sleep paralysis. She was then dragged by her hair out to the road. The very next day, Rekha went to Baba, and he said that a certain ritual could stop Vigathi’s evil rituals. Later, when Vigathi got to learn that Baba had been a hindrance to his evil plan, he used a spirit to kill him in the forest.
How Did Teja Save Rekha?
Rekha told Teja that a man named Vigathi was back in the village and wanted to harm her. He then went to Sankaram for a remedy, and he was advised to catch a bus to Devipuram and meet the priest, Chandiswamy. Upon reaching the place, he made arrangements for the prayer. Meanwhile, Vigathi had already started inflicting harm on Rekha, picking up a voodoo doll that he had prepared to kill her. However, Teja’s prayers created obstacles for Vigathi, eventually ruining his rituals.
When Teja came back, he told Rekha that some questions had been poking at him. She had told him that Baba had given the remedy for Sailaja, but when he approached Baba, he said he didn’t give any such remedy. After Baba’s death, he met Vigathi, asking him why he had killed Baba, but he said that he didn’t kill Baba but was only after Rekha’s life. Teja further said that while he was praying for Rekha, Chandiswamy said that someone had been helping Rekha with an evil remedy to overcome Vigathi. He also told her that one night, he had seen Rekha sleepwalking to the graveyard to perform evil worship. He thought that maybe she was doing all of these subconsciously.
What Was Rajeswari’s Story?
Rekha said that Teja needed to know her mother’s story to get an answer to all his questions. Her mother, Rajeswari, was blessed with divine powers, as she would often be possessed by the divine spirit. At that point, she would give solutions to the problems of the villagers. Her problems started after she got married, as her husband was not at all interested in her and often harassed her mentally. However, when Vigathi saw her, he was strongly attracted to her. He approached Kumar (Rajeswari’s husband), won his confidence, and became his closest friend.
When Kumar told Vigathi that he disliked his wife and wanted her to commit suicide, he advised him to kill her with evil rituals. He advised him to pluck out the basil plants at home and bury a sack in the yard of the house. He also asked Kumar to ensure that Rajeswari would step over it. He asked Kumar to collect Rajeswari’s nails, hair, and menstrual cloth, finally teaching him a chant. He told Kumar to mix blood in her food and feed her, and he did so for weeks. On the final day of the ritual, she was decorated like a bride and then left for Vigathi. Teja learned that the practice was “Vajroli Rati”, which was a process of sucking up bodily fluids (arousing sexual desires) through an evil ritual. This process is used to have intercourse through occult practices. In this process, excretion goes up, and then the Kundalini power awakens from Muladhara chakra to the Sahasrara Chakra. This process helps one to steal the aura and youth of a gifted individual.
Rekha later said that Vigathi wanted to sacrifice her mother but ended up getting sexually drawn to her, and it turned into a normal intercourse. The process eventually failed and hit back at Vigathi, making him lose all his powers. However, Rajeswari couldn’t forget the event and was surrounded by evil powers at all times. Unable to endure the torment, she decided to end her life, but then she realized that she was pregnant. Later, Rekha was born, and Rajeswari died. Because she was born due to an evil process, she could see spirits and talk to them.
What Powers Did Rekha Have?
It was Rekha who had given remedies for Sailaja’s recovery, not Baba. She wanted to hide her powers so that the villagers wouldn’t turn against her. Rekha also confessed that she had killed Baba after he tried to molest her while performing a ritual. Rekha added that her mother, Rajeswari knew that Vigathi would come for Rekha and hence turned into a soul and trained Rekha to fight Vigathi. She said that her powers went weak every full moon night, and hence she had to drink blood. She would drink the blood of animals, and one day (many years ago), when Teja’s mother had seen her drinking blood, she died in a truck accident while trying to run from her. Right after that incident, Rekha decided to stop drinking other animal’s blood and started drinking her own blood instead.
Later, when Teja went to Sankaram to tell him the entire incident, Teja said that he knew that Sankaram was in love with Rajeswari. He realized it after he had seen him tie a sack to a tree to secretly help Rekha with elements for her rituals in the graveyard. Sankaram said that he had started drinking in the pain of losing Rajeswari. One night, while trying to stalk her, he saw Vigathi performing a ritual on her, and he mixed weed with his alcohol. This had caused the rituals to fail. He still couldn’t save Rajeswari but wanted to help her daughter, Rekha.
Why Did Vigathi Want To Sacrifice Rekha?
When the villagers started dying one by one, Vigathi told the villagers that Rekha was an evil power. The villagers started accusing her of black magic, and Vigathi tied her up to a tree. He told the villagers that if she represented evil, she would die that night, and if that was not the case, she would survive. He asked people to stay away from that tree during the night; otherwise, they would die.
Vigathi returned to the tree where Rekha was tied and said that he knew that she was craving blood on a full moon night. He said that he would sacrifice her, as he couldn’t sacrifice her mother years ago. Meanwhile, Teja came to save her, but Vigathi paralyzed him. Somehow, he managed to bite his own tongue and spit the blood on Rekha’s face, causing her to gain a lot more power. Rekha broke free and fought Vigathi, but he started threatening to kill Teja if she restricted his rituals.
How Did Rajeswari Help Rekha?
Rajeswari appeared to Teja and asked him to chant the Gayatri mantra in his heart, handing him a sacred wand. Rajeswari instructed Teja to hit Vigathi’s face with it, as it would ruin his evil rituals if he saw his own blood. Finally, when Teja managed to hit Vigathi, it ruined his ritual, and immediately, his powers ate him up.
Was Rekha An Incarnation Of Maha Kali?
Rekha was fed up with her powers and wanted to get rid of them. She and Teja approached Chandiswamy and asked him for a way to get rid of it, and he said that God had given her powers to serve a greater purpose. Even though she had been successful in freeing her village from the clutches of an evil man like Vigathi, she had more missions to accomplish. He told her about the 10 Mahavidyas (or the 10 incarnations of Goddess Kali). Chandiswamy was of the opinion that drinking her own blood was not a sin that Rekha committed, as Chinna Masta (an incarnation of Kali) drank her own blood to protect the world.
Final Words
It took a lot of research (on tantric rituals) into the Hindu gods and goddesses to execute Tantra. However, that couldn’t justify the ridiculously long stretch of the movie! At the beginning of the film, it was quite difficult to keep track of the subplots, but after Rajeswari’s story was revealed, the film took a new direction. Nonetheless, the film was quite engaging, keeping in mind Vikas Bahl’s newly released occult film Shaitaan, which was even worse, as the events in the film lacked any basic depth on the occult. At least Tantra has some depth and has well-knitted sub-plots to boast of!
