May Maadham - Joy forever

If someone asks me my favorite month in a year, I would say it is the month of May. Inspite of scorching heat of the sun and soaring of mercury to great heights, I love the month as it is the month of vacation for many and when you can live your life to the fullest.

If someone asks me the name of the film that I had watched most number of times in my life, without thinking I would name it -“May Maadham”. It is not a super hit film, nor even a hit film, the hero and heroine are not in the top league in any film industry down south, the director is not an ace film maker of Tamil Cinema… Still it is one of the movies very close to my heart.

Simple love story. A love story of a girl freaking out her first vacation in Chennai, escaping form the clutches of her father and a photographer guy who does 1001 gimmicks to make both ends meet. The main plus point of the movie is the screenplay and narration that doesn’t bore you till about 15 mins before the end, where you visualize a so-so climax.

Another major highlight is the music of A.R.Rahman, one of his best compositions at that time. The classical “Maargazhi Poove”, the peppy “Paalakaatu Machaanukku”, the romantic “En Mel Vizhundha” and the melancholy “Minnale nee”(Rahman himself confessed that it is one of his best compositions, on which he worked a lot) are among Rahman’s masterpieces. Not to forget “Madras-a suthi paaka poren”, a song that will remind you your good old home city anytime you listen to it. :-)

One more reason for my liking towards the film is that you can identify the characters in the film as someone next door and no one is like imported from fairyland. Sandhya, Romeo, Calcutta, Aandal amma, All-in-all, the stammering bridegroom of Sandhya, the military-rule father of Sandhya.. Every character will surely remind you of someone in your neighborhood. And the Dabba car especially with its special background tone will surely invoke a smile on anyone’s face. Yeah, I forgot… Rahman’s background score is just amazing in the film.

Next, a few facts that you could observe in the film… One of the very few films where hero and heroine appear with bare minimal makeup. You get to see the title cards only after about 30 mins from the start of the movie. Nobody could have captured Mahabalipuram in dark as beautifully as it is shown in “En mel vizhundha mazhaithuliye” song. Hats off to P.C.Sreeram. And this song, in particular, is special because it was tuned for Vairamuthu's lyrics and not the usual way of writing lyrics for tunes.

All songs are a delight to watch and picturized well, even the ordinary “Aadi paaru mangaatha” song. The songs of the movie were reused many years after its release by ARR for his Hindi venture, Love You Hamesha.

Even today, if the movie is shown in some channel I would stop and watch it as much as I can. Sorry, I never bothered to keep up the count… ;-)