Sahayathrika - the co-traveller

Our Malayalam dialogue writer Paliyath Aparna Menon, who is also a  friend, has penned a few lines. It would be important to say here that Aparna has been a loyal warrior believing in the project and propping my spirits up until the filming actually started. We have shared our childlike madness over this script - the Malayalam version of which was born over innumerable phone calls between Mumbai and Bangalore and the longest e mails! My sahayathrika/co-traveller writes about the early days when we travelled together.

"The commencement of Anjali's creative journey of Manjadikuru dates couple of years back.

But when and where did I join her? Was it destined twelve years back when we were in college? a time when she scowled at me for penning down a poem instead of tallying a balance sheet in our accountancy class!

-or is it just three years back when she called me up from Mumbai, in search of a telephone number. This time she realised that the air of literature is still on my head, and entrusted me with a telefilm Kalyani ( our first project together), for translation and dialogues.

With profound joy let me also gracefully unveil my gratitude to Kalyani,  as she paved my way into Manjadikuru.

I plunged into the English draft of Lucky Red Seeds/Manjadikuru- as well as my childhood memories in no time! At the end of a great nostalgic journey, I struggled with a stubborn apprehension- will I be able to do justice to it? will I be able to live up to the expectations ? questions rippled in my mind...

Gaining confidence from encouraging words of Anjali herself and my dear husband Vinod, I started my journey with Manjadikuru. Soon we became so much a part of each other, that I failed to unravel myself from the emotional intricacies of the script. During my metamorphosis from a writer to a screen writer, I realised our Manjadikuru suffused everv inch of my life- it became my breathing air! The oxygen that kept me alive and balanced , even next to my mother's death bed... The strength that percolated to the deepest cell of my body even when fate snatched away my greatest fortune on earth- my mother....

A small poem for Krishna who has brought these lucky red seeds into my life:

Kannanu nandi

Kunjikkai randile

manikkya thullikal

manniluthirnnu mula virinju...

Thalirathu maramayi

kayathil bhagyathin

kodanukodi spandanamay(i)

kattonnu pulkuvan

kathu nilkumpole

pottichirichavar peythirangi..

Ammini kunjinde

kaivella methayil

chanjurangeedunna kanmanikal...

thannannam thanannam

padikkondavarunni

kannane thedi yathrayayi !

Kannande thrippadam

pookunna dhanyamam

kunnikkuruve namicheedave..

Athilonee kaiyyilum

vannu pathichathil

ponnunni kannanu nandi chollu..."

Manjadikuru- the first draft

For many days now I have been asked to start my journal about Manjadikuru- the feature film that we are making.


I don't exactly know when or where the journey began... perhaps it was when I found my first red seeds at my tharavadu; or perhaps it was when the first line of the script slipped out onto paper before me. Somewhere started this exploration of my childhood and that of many others with relation to the land we no longer inhabit. The land that holds our roots and our origins. Nostalgia, childhood, reminisces... all these words tend to usually total upto plenty sentimental mush. But beyond those rose-coloured memories- there were others... that shaped the way we thought, the way we sensed and in general the way we grew up.


The touch of moss, the new born puddles, the alert mynas, hot payasam on banana leaf, the hunchbacked sweeper, the baby kittens- I could go on and on... and so I did go on and on and when collated on paper- it turned into some sort of a script. A script that told a story so different from what we usually see on our screens. I was excited that this could be the script of my first feature film. Like every other film graduate- "the feature" rankled in my head all the time!


But there were issues. Being a second generation Malayalee expatriate I had never learnt to read and write Malayalam in school- something I regret very much. Gathering my courage and embarrassment, I asked a friend to translate my English script into a Malayalam draft. She was more a friend than a writer (bless her!), so the result was a stilted literal translation.


This knocked-up-in-a-week version was offered by an apprehensive me to an esteemed writer of Malayalam screenplays. He was kind enough to read it. His comment was - "DON'T MAKE THIS AS YOUR FIRST FILM". To me it sounded more like "DON'T MAKE THIS!" He was vague about the reasons as only genius writers can be - he believed that there was promise in the story but I just hadn't found it! Heartbroken, I set it aside.


I sulked for a while but was soon carried away into other spirited stories. My love affairs with these scripts and characters flourished, but each time my heart was broken, I would run back to this one. Almost like an old flame who turns into an old friend. I'd write a few more pages each time and set it aside again. Somehow now, I was writing for myself and no one else.