Ponmuttayidunna Tharavu (1988), Manoj Bajpai, Dus Tola and Aspirin

If you have a set of raised eyebrows and your eyes have finished one glorious back flip before you even began reading this, think about yours truly who sat through the movie, just because my curiosity got the better of me. The dictionary describes whimpering as ” crying with low, plaintive, broken sounds”. Which is exactly what I did for the 20 minutes by brain allowed me to take in the drama (?).

Now that I have put the griping behind me, here is it upfront. It seems to be the debut feature of Director Ajoy, of remaking Sathyan Anthikkad‘s classic Ponumattiyudanna Tharavu (1988), and ended up throwing the classic under the bus. And it came out, dipped in red.

Suresh Gopi in Odeyil Ninnu(1965)

Was watching Kesavdev’s film adaptation of his popular work, Odayil Ninnu(1965), and thought I need to share this with you, the very young Suresh Gopi’s debut in Malayalam Cinema, as the feudal landlord’s son, a character who also becomes the root cause for which the young Pappu ( Sathyan), played by Master Dasarathan, runs away from home to the big, bad town of Kollam!

S Pavamani | A Producer of Classics and Popular Cinema.

Ayodhya (1975)

S Pavamani‘s first film production, it was the remake of the NTR starrer Samsaram (1950), directed by PN Sundaram under the newly formed PrathapChithra banner. He spared no expense in getting Prem Nazir, the reigning celluloid god to play the hero and KR Vijaya as the main female lead. A pure commercial blockbuster, he made sure the buzz factor notched up a few notches up with getting the one and only Kishore Kumar to sing in Malayalam.

S Pavamani | The visionary who gifted MT, Sathyan Anthikkad and KS Chithra to Malayalam Cinema

1934 – 31 August, 2010

S Pavamani, who passed away on 31 August, 2010 joins the ranks of an illustrious visionary greats from the old school of Malayalam Cinema, who will invariably turn footnotes if they are lucky. He belonged to that rare breed of producers who had an uncanny capability of finding productions or talents that would make them with the right balance of art and money. Though, for most of the times, he was willing to forgo the money part, and went with his convictions.

Else, how we would ever get greats like MT, Sathyan Anthikad and for that matter, our nightingale, KS Chithra become a part of the Malayalam film industry. He started as a distributor in the early 60’s, with getting the Ashok Kumar starrer Jeevan Sathi ( 1957), directed by RS Tara to Kerala, which was the precursor of things to come.I guess Pavamani was the one who made the Malayalis familiar with the then running superhits from up North, even going as far as Calcutta and getting Ray’s films down to Kerala. It is said that he was a great friend of Satayajit Ray, which explains how Debi (1960), Mahanagar(1963) and Charulata (1964) enjoyed their screen time, way down south in Kerala, a place which curiously had absolutely no idea how Bengali sounded like, and I’m sure at great personal risk in the commercial sense !

The Most Memorable House Owner in Malayalam Cinema. Ever.

Intricate and innocent – hardly the pair of words you would associate with the quintessential species called the ‘house-owner’ seen in Malayalam movies through the years. In my college years, I spent a great deal of time living in rented houses and had my share of interaction with this species. None of it was heavenly and, if at all I did gain a perspective about them, it wasn’t the least laudatory.

They would fight with you for the rent (inevitably late!), spy on you lest your female friends made it a habit to visit you for socially questionable reasons, and face a barrage of questions every time your mates descended for a raucous party which would shake the neighbourhood and leave everyone’s eardrums in tatters. Life as a tenant was essentially about time spent in pursuit of clandestine arts – how to hoodwink and how to deal with a pest called the ‘house-owner’.