I started writing a longish post about this episode. But I could not bring myself to write it with the detachment that I wrote the piece on Thattathin Marayathu (TM). You can read that post here. http://sgchalayil.blogspot.in/2015/07/thattathin-marayathu-and-thalassery.html
I am severely pained by the fact that George the hero did not eventually marry Malar the heroine. You can read the story here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premam.
I do not know why I am so devastated by this episode. Devastated indeed I am.
Is it a tribute to the various people such as the director and the actors involved in depicting that story? Or is it the story itself? Is it the adorable guilelessness of the heroine? Is it the sincerity of the hero's feelings for her, which was not based on any careful calculation or reason? Is it the fact that one projects oneself on to the story and sees a bit of oneself being lost with the failed romance? Is it a subconscious connection between some incident in one's own life that one cannot even put a finger on, painful memories of which are revived by the story?
I do not know. I can merely see that I am undergoing a tremendous, wrenching sensation, a sense of heaviness as if a massive boulder was pinning me down to the earth into a state of breathlessness. It is the kind of feeling that I have experienced only thrice before.
The first time I was so sad was after I read Maugham's The Razor's Edge. I wept my heart out over a rainy weekend as my mind kept going back to Sophie who was tricked out of Larry's life, after being tempted back into drinking and demise by a scheming Isabel. The numerous shots of whisky that I drank over that weekend, all by myself in my paying guest accommodation, could not burn away my sorrow as the incessant torrential monsoon rains threated to nearly inundate the sprawling ghetto of Sion Koliwada where I lived.
The second instance was after I finished writing certain parts of a still born novel where the man who was about to marry my star-crossed heroine is killed cruelly in a riot. Having written that piece I cried for two days, again. Such was the pain that the poor woman suffered. Needless to state, the heroine was more than a mere figment of my imagination to me. I was reliving the pain of someone I had consoled unsuccessfully years earlier in my life, resulting in a relationship that I will never be able to bring myself to speak of.
The third time was when late into the night I read about the immense personal loss that someone with whom I had decided to, more or less one-sidedly, engage in a paternal relationship had suffered. I kept lamenting about it to Lakshmi my wife, in one lugubrious spell after another, as the pain gnawed away at me. That pain was quite like the one that makes me write this.
Is it worth being so affected by a movie? I guess not. There is a sane voice within me which tells me that it is a story after all. It is not even a real life story like Ennu Ninte Moideen, a moving real life story.
Is it a sneaking fondness for the heroine that makes me feel so sad? I am reasonably sure it isn't. The many interviews of Sai Pallavi I viewed after I saw the movie tell me that she might well be a Malar like character in real life - full of verve, firm but mild mannered, complete with twinkling eyes and a perennial, winsome smile, willing to see beauty in many of nature's small creations like the butterfly and innocuous flowers and so on. But then I know that come another movie she might well portray another character who is very different from the Malar that George seems to have been madly in love with. So that is probably not it.
I am reminded of an interesting comment Mammootty makes in the movie Katha Parayumbol. He tells the audience in a speech that when they all loved him in a movie it was not Mammootty the man that they were identifying with but the character he presented on screen. And so, he goes on to argue, there never is any bonding between a thespian and his or her fans.
That is a clinically sound view. But how many of us would vouch for it? While we all know that we love the stars of our choice for the parts that they play could we say that our feelings do not rub off on the star? So much so we might even forgive their many foibles, that we might not in lesser people?
I really do not know. I am at a loss. Clearly it is not normal behavior I can agree.
Assuming that it is not normal am I the only mad fellow around? Well, one of the many accounts I read about people's reaction to the movie says that many people have gone to UC College, Aluva, where those scenes from Premam were shot, hoping to see "Malar Miss" there. I wish I could do that too. But I know I will stop well short of that. So much for my madness.
On a more practical note I know that this pain will subside, God willing, with the passage of a few days. There is so much going on in my life these days that I will soon find that this pain is a luxury I can ill afford, as I deal with those other issues that will require my attention.
I know just as well that at the same time my terribly hyper-linked brain will bring back this pain from time to time, like the ghost limbs that V Ramachandran talks about, . I know that from now on the song Malare that I used to enjoy happily for its melody till I saw this movie will trigger this pain. As will the sight of Sai Pallavi's picture anywhere. And as will many other trivia that will set off a connection to this sad story.
And thus it is with a heavy heart, fearing the onslaught of those painful visitations, that I sign off...
Nanni....Namaskaaram...
I am severely pained by the fact that George the hero did not eventually marry Malar the heroine. You can read the story here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premam.
I do not know why I am so devastated by this episode. Devastated indeed I am.
Is it a tribute to the various people such as the director and the actors involved in depicting that story? Or is it the story itself? Is it the adorable guilelessness of the heroine? Is it the sincerity of the hero's feelings for her, which was not based on any careful calculation or reason? Is it the fact that one projects oneself on to the story and sees a bit of oneself being lost with the failed romance? Is it a subconscious connection between some incident in one's own life that one cannot even put a finger on, painful memories of which are revived by the story?
I do not know. I can merely see that I am undergoing a tremendous, wrenching sensation, a sense of heaviness as if a massive boulder was pinning me down to the earth into a state of breathlessness. It is the kind of feeling that I have experienced only thrice before.
The first time I was so sad was after I read Maugham's The Razor's Edge. I wept my heart out over a rainy weekend as my mind kept going back to Sophie who was tricked out of Larry's life, after being tempted back into drinking and demise by a scheming Isabel. The numerous shots of whisky that I drank over that weekend, all by myself in my paying guest accommodation, could not burn away my sorrow as the incessant torrential monsoon rains threated to nearly inundate the sprawling ghetto of Sion Koliwada where I lived.
The second instance was after I finished writing certain parts of a still born novel where the man who was about to marry my star-crossed heroine is killed cruelly in a riot. Having written that piece I cried for two days, again. Such was the pain that the poor woman suffered. Needless to state, the heroine was more than a mere figment of my imagination to me. I was reliving the pain of someone I had consoled unsuccessfully years earlier in my life, resulting in a relationship that I will never be able to bring myself to speak of.
The third time was when late into the night I read about the immense personal loss that someone with whom I had decided to, more or less one-sidedly, engage in a paternal relationship had suffered. I kept lamenting about it to Lakshmi my wife, in one lugubrious spell after another, as the pain gnawed away at me. That pain was quite like the one that makes me write this.
Is it worth being so affected by a movie? I guess not. There is a sane voice within me which tells me that it is a story after all. It is not even a real life story like Ennu Ninte Moideen, a moving real life story.
Is it a sneaking fondness for the heroine that makes me feel so sad? I am reasonably sure it isn't. The many interviews of Sai Pallavi I viewed after I saw the movie tell me that she might well be a Malar like character in real life - full of verve, firm but mild mannered, complete with twinkling eyes and a perennial, winsome smile, willing to see beauty in many of nature's small creations like the butterfly and innocuous flowers and so on. But then I know that come another movie she might well portray another character who is very different from the Malar that George seems to have been madly in love with. So that is probably not it.
I am reminded of an interesting comment Mammootty makes in the movie Katha Parayumbol. He tells the audience in a speech that when they all loved him in a movie it was not Mammootty the man that they were identifying with but the character he presented on screen. And so, he goes on to argue, there never is any bonding between a thespian and his or her fans.
That is a clinically sound view. But how many of us would vouch for it? While we all know that we love the stars of our choice for the parts that they play could we say that our feelings do not rub off on the star? So much so we might even forgive their many foibles, that we might not in lesser people?
I really do not know. I am at a loss. Clearly it is not normal behavior I can agree.
Assuming that it is not normal am I the only mad fellow around? Well, one of the many accounts I read about people's reaction to the movie says that many people have gone to UC College, Aluva, where those scenes from Premam were shot, hoping to see "Malar Miss" there. I wish I could do that too. But I know I will stop well short of that. So much for my madness.
On a more practical note I know that this pain will subside, God willing, with the passage of a few days. There is so much going on in my life these days that I will soon find that this pain is a luxury I can ill afford, as I deal with those other issues that will require my attention.
I know just as well that at the same time my terribly hyper-linked brain will bring back this pain from time to time, like the ghost limbs that V Ramachandran talks about, . I know that from now on the song Malare that I used to enjoy happily for its melody till I saw this movie will trigger this pain. As will the sight of Sai Pallavi's picture anywhere. And as will many other trivia that will set off a connection to this sad story.
And thus it is with a heavy heart, fearing the onslaught of those painful visitations, that I sign off...
Nanni....Namaskaaram...
this too shall pass,Sir!
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