Beauty In Silence

I was getting ready for another day of cooking. With my sleeves rolled up, I entered the kitchen. I usually have some music running in the background to keep me occupied while I cook. But this day, I wanted to put on a movie instead. And today, I chose Mouna Ragam. Again. Overhearing a familiar dialogue, my partner asked, “Didn’t we just watch it a few months ago? Why are you watching it again?” As if watching it just once in a few months was enough.

But why Mouna Ragam?

The movie released six years before I was even born. I don’t even remember the first time I watched it. I only have random pieces of memories here and there. My mom telling me how “Oh ho, megam vandhadho” was a song she loved. How she watched the movie with dad  in the theatre after they got married. And how the movie made me feel – warm and fuzzy.

As a kid who watched the movie, I loved Revathy’s character. She seemed spunky. She was fun, she said what she felt, and there was a certain elegance and strength in her which even as a kid, I somehow recognized. The lovely flashback with courtship scenes between Revathy and Karthik, the understanding and respect with which Mohan treats his wife, and the songs. Ah, those beautiful songs! All of these were things that I loved in the movie which I watched and rewatched as I grew up.

As a 27-year-old though, there are a lot of other details about the movie that I now notice and admire, and a few things Revathy goes through which I can empathize with better. How would a woman feel if she were to leave behind her family, her friends, and even her city, moving into a city that is as alien as the language that is predominantly spoken there? How does it feel to have married a person she barely knows, when she is still in love with the memory of another person? No wonder we get the classic kambili poochi dialogue.

How does Mani Ratnam write legendary love stories is a question that is often asked by people over and over again. From Mouna Ragam to Alaipauthey to O Kadhal Kanmani, he somehow seems to understand the subtleties and nuances of romance over generations, keeping abreast of changes in relationship dynamics. I think at the heart of it all, it is because he simply pays attention to whatever is happening in the world around him.

Alaipauthey for me was a beautiful love story which introduced me to the person who would become my first proper crush, riding a bike with Endrendrum Punnagi playing in the background. O Kadhal Kanmani didn’t really do much for me, although Prakash Raj and Leela Samson’s performances were brilliant – theirs was the love story I related to, although I was closer to the younger couple’s age.

But Mouna Ragam for me is the best out of the three. You have the fiesty, strong Revathy who does not shy away from asking for what she wants, even if what she wants is a divorce. At the same time, she is also coy and waits to see if her random stranger-turned-lover husband makes the first move. Then you have the charming activist Karthik who sweeps you away with his witty one-lines, charm, and effortless way of romancing. Mohan is the opposite of Karthik – quiet, not too expressive, and fiercely independent but also romantic and charming in his own way. And Mouna Ragam is a concotion of these three stellar characters.

The supporting cast is beautifully written as well – be it Revathy’s family, the Sardarji who helps Revathy and her husband, or Mohan’s boss played by a brilliant V K Ramaswamy, everyone does justice to their screentime. The opening shot with the chaos of a middle-class household where the younger sisters play a prank on their married older brother and Revathy tiptoeing around her father because she hasn’t had a bath yet is such a well-written and grounded scene that it makes you wonder if Mani Ratnam was quietly eavesdropping around your house.

From the scene where Revathy excitedly puts her head out of the window and waves at random people in a bus because they are “namma ooru kaaranga” to the scene where Mohan tells her how he learnt cooking (kayya kaala suttitu) and the climax scene (I won’t spoil it for those who haven’t seen the movie yet), Mani Ratnam gives us a lot of classic moments to cherish. With each viewing, I fall in love with so many new elements of the movie. And that is why I will keep going back to it in the midst of exciting new releases, just like I need urulaikizhangu and sambar sadham though I love my pasta and French fries.