During Karthik’s search for his lost wife, two scenes worth mentioning are the one where he meets his mother-in-law (this happens to be the first-ever scene that Madhavan shot for the movie) and the one where he goes to the police station to enquire what happened to the FIR that he had filed saying his wife is lost.

In the first scene, the mother’s concern for her daughter though they are not in speaking terms anymore is shown with a dialogue like, ‘Enna paNNa en poNNa’ (What did you do to my daughter?).

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In the second scene, Karthik telling the inspector, ‘Adhu un pondattiyaa irukkum!’ (That must be your wife!) when the inspector tells him his wife must have run away with someone brings out Karthik’s frustration at that time at not being able to do anything to find his wife and having to listen to that Inspector’s nonsense talk.

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Instead of using lengthy dialogues or showing some other stupid scenes to make Karthik understand what married life is all about, Mani Ratnam introduces two new characters, Ram (Arvind Samy) and Meera (Khushboo) after Shakti’s accident. Just seeing the way they both talk to each other itself, Karthik actually realizes his mistake (and understands how a nice and understanding husband behaves like? ;) ).

Right from the very first scene where the character of Ram is introduced, you can see that he is a guy so typical of Mani Ratnam’s movies, an understanding and straight-forward guy like Chandrakumar (Mohan) of Mouna Raagam, Rishi (Arvind Samy) of Roja and Shekhar (Raghuvaran) of Anjali. (At least that’s what I felt) While Ram initially does shout at his wife for not waiting for enough time after the accident to ensure that the girl was safe and also for driving the car when she doesn’t even have a license, later, he comforts her and then, takes the responsibility upon himself to see that everything is done to save the girl’s life.

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At no point of time does he scold his wife for letting the accident happen (in fact, he asks her to relax at home while he checks what happened to the girl!) and goes to the extent of taking the blame upon himself. Quoting Karthik’s dialogue in the climax,‘VeLila oru purushan caraala ethi nesikkittu vandhurkara pondattiya paatthu nee onnum seyyala ma naan paatthukaraennu sollittu poaraan!’ (There’s a husband outside who is telling his wife who has made an accident with her car that she hasn’t done anything and he will take care of everything). Meera too doesn’t want to let Ram take the blame and tells that it was she who did the accident when she is no longer able to bear seeing Karthik shouting at her husband.

With the ‘lesson’ learnt, Karthik tells Shakti, ‘Enakku purinjuduchu. Inime namakuLLa sanDa nadakkaadhu.’ (I have understood. We will never fight from now on.)

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When Shakti finally regains consciousness (I love the scene where Shalini’s eye trying to open is shown in close up), the conversation between her and Karthik is one of the sweetest what with Shakti telling him, ‘Pondatti poittaa’ and struggling to bring the next word out of her mouth given her condition, before which Karthik panics on hearing it and then, she jovially telling him, ‘Pondatti poittaa jollyaa irukkalaannu nenachiya?’ (You thought you can live happily after your wife dies?) :) After that, the unforgettable dialogues of Alaipayuthey, ‘I love you’, ‘trainlaendhu gudhippiyaa’ (Will you jump from the train?), ‘Appadinna enna mean paNre?’ (What do you mean by that?), ‘theriyaadhu aana I love you!’ (I don’t know. But, I love you!’)(Incidentally, Poorni is the only other person in this scene who would understand the significance of the dialogues, ‘trainlaendhu gudhippiyaa’, ‘Appadinna enna mean paNre?’ apart from the audience, of course ;) )

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And, so ends, my most favourite movie and this post too. But, shouldn’t we see how Shakti Selvaraj fell in love with Karthik and vice versa? ;) Coming soon is the next post that is not going to be serious even one single bit. :)