Kothanodi: An Incredible Visualisation of Assam’s folklore

Diversity Assam

Updated on :

February 22, 2025

Kothanodi is one of the best Assamese movies produced in Assam. It is based on the four popular folktales of Burhi Aair Xadhu.

Burhi Aair Xadhu (Grandma’s tales) is the most popular collection of children’s short stories in Assamese literature to date. It is the timeless contribution to Assamese literature by the father of short stories, Lakshminath Bezbarua.

The folklore tales from Burhi Aair Xadhu are known as stories that were narrated by grandmothers to their grandchildren at bedtime. And that is how these folklores were passed down from generation to generation, and even today every Assamese can find a nostalgic relation to these tales.

Kothanodi, literally A River of Fables, is the visualization of four popular stories from Burhi Aair Xadhu. The film was written and directed by Bhaskar Hazarika, but the authenticity of the stories has been kept intact.

The title of the film “Kothanodi” justifies how the film is set in, it begins among the green valleys and villages of Assam set next to the river Brahmaputra. Hence, the fables are set next to a river. And the fables flow as a river as the stories unfold.

Kothanodi centrally tells the tale of four mothers whose lives unfold accounts of greed, love, separation, and union. And these characters are interwoven so well with each other that you will be left in wonder.

Let’s explore the stories and more about Kothanodi movie

The plot of Kothanodi

The film sets in at dark, where a man is seen digging a hole and burying a newborn baby alive in the middle of the forest. Quite a mysterious beginning it was.

Story 1: Ou Kuwori  (The Outenga Maiden)

Then the scene shifts to showing a distressed woman who is walking down the streets; this is Keteki. She has been ostracized from the village because she was rumored to have given birth to a “ou-tenga, or an elephant apple, in place of a human child.

Keteki is seen distressed and ignorant of all the badmouthing that the people of the village do, outcasting her as a witch. She’s a weaver by profession, and soon we get to unravel how her story gets more fascinating as the ou-tenga keeps following her everywhere she goes. The fruit even crossed the river on its own to be by her side.

Is this her child? Will she be able to see her child? Or is this entire thing a piece of Keteki’s imagination? You will know when you watch Kothanodi.

Story 2: Tejimola

Alongside Keteki’s story, we witness a young girl, named Tejimola, who is seen excited and carefree. She has come to the river shore to see her father off. Her father is off on a long journey for work. Tejimola was ambitious, and her father loved her dearly, but her stepmother was jealous of her. She despised Tejimola and wished her demise.

As soon as Tejimola’s father left, the stepmother turned excruciatingly torturous towards her. She made her do all household chores and hit her brutally if she ever wished to go out to play with her friends. Tejimola’s stepmother is seen in a different setting at night. She steps out at night onto a boat, and the boat takes her to another place.

Sheer horror takes over the mind as we see that the boat is pulled by a demon. The demon talks to her and guides her to get all of the wealth of her husband by killing Tejimola. The suspense of the story gets more dark from here. The next we know is that Tejimola gets the news of her friend Bonolotika’s wedding.

To her surprise, her mother allows her to attend the wedding and even packs her an ancestral dress with jewelry but sneaks in a live rat into the bag. Tejimola goes to meet her friend excitedly, where she encounters the torn dress and freaks out. But her innocence never suspects the stepmother of her evil wishes, and Tejimola leaves her friends’ place to return back home and confront the truth to her mother and apologize for her mistake.

Will Tejimola’s stepmother forgive her? What other brutality will she have to face? What was the plan the demon plotted with her? Is the demon, or is it a reflection of the stepmother’s mind? The mystery will continue to hit you until you watch the Kothanodi movie.

Story 3: Tawoir Xadhu (The Story of Tawoi)

Amidst the man who was digging and burying a newborn child is shown again, twice. But this time we have his identity; it is Poonai, a fish merchant in the same village. The story unravels as Poonai is seen burying three of his own children in the forest.

His wife, Malati, seems upset, and as she gives birth to the third child, she is determined to confront her husband. A tragic yet disturbing story meets us here. Poonai uncle is a fortune teller who has looked after him ever since his father’s death. Poonai believes his uncle’s prophecies and follows them blindly.

Meanwhile, Malati is distressed after losing three of her children, and being incapable of convincing her husband, she decides to murder the uncle to save her fourth child, a girl this time. As they go to meet the uncle, it comes into the audiences’ view that the uncle is blind, but this time as the uncle senses the newborn, he says that this child will be their first child, and she will bring them immense prosperity.

Hearing this, Malati drops her weapons, and Poonai’s uncle answers their questions by saying that the previous children would be the reason for the couple’s demise; hence he commanded Poonai to kill them. To everyone’s disagreement, the couple is requested to go back to the same place where they buried the babies at night. Here the story takes an unimaginable turn.

Can newborn babies be the reason for someone’s demise? Or was the uncle planning something evil? Will Poonai and Malati have a happy ending?

Story 4: Champawati

Remember Bonlotika? Her story is the central story to unfold. The mystery is set in a rich old man’s jungle, awaiting his servants, who bring something wrapped in a bag. The scene shifts to the visuals of a middle-aged woman, as she is referred to as “Aideu.” We encounter that she is Dhoneshwari, the wife of this rich man.

She rushed to welcome what her husband has brought for her. She performs a ritual prayer and orders the servants to keep the basket inside. The mystery unravels as it comes into view that the gift that the husband brought for Dhoneshwari is nothing else but a huge live anaconda. Dhoneshwari, with her extreme greed for money, is extremely jealous of Champawati, her husband’s second wife’s daughter.

Champawati, a beautiful young girl, used to go to the fields with her father, where a disguised voice used to ask for Champawati’s hand in marriage. Her father puts up the challenge that if the person bearing the voice comes out, he would marry Champawati off to him. To his surprise it was not a human being but a snake, an anaconda.

But as promised, Champawati had to be married off to the snake. At night she was locked in the room with the reptile. Her mother knew she would lose her daughter. The next morning they found Champawati adorned in jewels that her husband left her.

Dhoneshwari’s hate for Champawati peaked here; getting blinded by greed and jealousy, she wanted to marry her daughter Bonlotika to a snake. Hence, she ordered the wild anaconda. Bonlotika was married off to the snake. And Dhoneshwari ordered her servants to release the snake in the same room where Bonlotika would sleep.

She saw her daughter off with eyes filled with greed and shut the door. What happens to Bonlotika? Will she be magically left adorned with jewels the next morning, or will it be the end of her life?

Kothanodi Casting and Recognition

The stories, as mentioned, are intertwined with such precision that you cannot stop but be thrilled every moment. And being abbreviated from folklores, the singsong of the tales is what adds to the depth of the story. Yet the gravity these stories hold is unraveling social issues and evils. And knocking off mental dogma around the culture of Assam, the Kothanodi movie is worth every minute.

As of the casting of Kothanodi it was majorly women in leading roles with,

•  Seema Biswas as Dhaneshwari
• Adil Hussain as Devinath (Tejimola’s Father)
• Zerifa Wahid as Senehi (Tejimola’s Stepmother)
• Urmila Mahanta as Keteki
• Kopil Bora as Poonai
• Asha Bordoloi as Malati
• Kasvi Sharma as Tejimola
• Monisha Bhuyan as Bonlotika

 The way these characters have played the scenes and the story, the film became ever more convincing.

In 2015, Kothanodi won the Asian Cinema Fund’s Post Production Fund Award. The film was first screened at the 20th Busan International Film Festival which was held in October 2015. Kothanodi also won the Best Feature Film in Assamese award in the 63rd National Film Awards, in 2016.

Endnotes

With multiple accolades like so, the film has taken the industry by storm back in 2015. And all because it was a mere portrayal of Assam’s ever-fascinating culture. So, if you want to reminisce about some nostalgic childhood days or have a newer, refreshed outlook on Assam’s folklore and folk culture, then Kothanodi is a must-watch movie.

FAQs about Kothanodi

Diversity Assam

Diversity Assam is the first of its kind content publisher from Assam, proudly publishing blogs, articles and stories to promote the natural, social, cultural, and financial diversity of Assam. Contact us at editor@diversityassam.com