Alaipayuthey came out when I was a hormonal teenager of 14 years. As ardent fans of AR Rahman, all of us possessed a cassette of the film's music and knew every song before we watched it on the big screen. 'Pachchai Niramey', 'Kadhal Sadugudu', 'Mangalyalm', 'Yaro Yarodi' and 'Endrendrum Punnagai' were instant favourites. 'Snehithane' and 'Evano Oruvan' grew on us with every rewind -- it helped that we could picture the delectable Madhavan while listening to the music. The screechy 'September Madham' was tolerated because the rest of the album was so good. And of course, the recasting of 'Alaipayuthey', a devotional carnatic song, as a romantic number had most of us in raptures.
I watched the film in Abirami Theatre in Chennai's Purasaiwalkam along with an older cousin and her group of friends. It was not common in those days for girl gangs to go to the theatre without an accompanying 'guardian' to ensure their safety. To begin with, the film had to be 'decent'. It was assumed that if it didn't have any racy content, the crowd by and large would be 'respectable' people. Such pronouncements, of course, were based more on hope than data of any kind, but Alaipayuthey received a clearance from the authorities who governed our lives.
Though Mani Ratnam's films were not devoid of the risque, he had a reputation for making "classy" movies. Or at least, my Malayali family condescendingly agreed that he was "better" than his contemporaries in the Tamil film industry. So, the great adventure was approved. Tickets were purchased and the big day when we would finally watch the movie came.
When Madhavan's smiling face appeared onscreen, riding a bike and listening to 'Endrendum Punnagai' on his earphones, I promptly fell in love. I instantly recognised that he was 'cool' - a status we desperately vied for as adolescents.
The film's frame story is Karthik's (Madhavan) search for Shakti (Shalini); he's a frantic husband searching for his missing wife. But the main story is about how they met, fell in love, got married and discovered that marriage wasn't really the paradise that they'd imagined it to be.
At the time, most romance films we watched were college love stories. We were convinced that the fundamental reason for the existence of colleges was to find someone to fall in love with. Unlike the more sober Mouna Ragam, Alaipayuthey had the vibe of a "youth" film but it also led to a story that was unfamiliar to us. What happens after boy meets girl and she approves of him? The driving point for most Tamil romances in those days was the hero's struggle to get the heroine or her father to say yes, but Alaipayuthey began from where those films ended.
It was different because it showed two young people -- recognised as adults -- taking charge of their lives and deciding to live with each other despite their families not agreeing to the match. It was not that Tamil cinema had not shown couples eloping before this, but the way it was done in this film was...modern. The plot was not about how they're hunted down for their actions or receive divine retribution for letting down their families. Instead, it revolved around the two of them and the changing dynamics in their relationship. The drama was minimal, and this is perhaps best illustrated by how casually Shakti treats her thaali, often the epicenter of high sentiment in Tamil cinema.
Karthik is a software engineer who's trying to put together a startup with his friends. It was a very new millennium job for the hero to have, at a time when words like 'startup' were yet to become terms that everyone easily understood. Shakti has a more conventional profession - she's a medical student. While he's a risk taker, happy to live in the moment and at times oblivious of his privilege, she's more conservative and measured in her approach.
The two of them meet at a wedding (during the 'Yaro Yarodi' song) and sparks fly. There's a bit of comedy, too, with Karthik making a faux pas with Shakti's father, asking him who that "vaayadi" girl is. Shalini, with her expressive eyes, and girl-next-door beauty wasn't presented as an exotic creature to be possessed, but as a free spirited young woman who had opinions of her own. They see each other again in trains (only to be expected in a Mani Ratnam film) that are going in opposite directions, and Karthik becomes convinced that there is something happening. Shakti, interestingly, does not lower her gaze or act coy when he stares at her, she looks right back at him.
There's been much debate, years after the film released, about whether the romance would be considered stalking in present times. After all, Karthik does find out Shakti's house and arrives there without having a single meaningful conversation with her. Would that make women in real life feel uncomfortable? Probably yes. But we're also shown Shakti being interested in Karthik and looking for him at the railway station, so it's clear to the audience at least that the attraction is not from one side alone. For the year 2000, that proposal on the train which had us all swooning, wasn't bad at all.
The villains in romance films were typically caricatures in those days. The controlling father, the bitchy mother-in-law, the goon who lusts after the heroine and so on. But in Alaipayuthey, there were no easy antagonists. The parents were affectionate, annoying, lovable, prejudiced -- much like our own. Karthik's exchanges with his plain-speaking and class conscious lawyer father (Pyramid Natarajan) would today be straight off a family WhatsApp group. KPAC Lalitha, who plays his mother, is the conduit between the two.
In the superbly staged 'Alaipayuthey' song, Karthik boldly tells his mother that Shakti is the one he's going to marry, right in the middle of a family function. Such irreverence was rare onscreen in those days and the surprises had us giggling for days after we watched the film. In fact, lines from the film still have amazing recall value. A simple "Hi pondatti" is enough to remind us of the scene -- Karthik getting into a PTC bus and initiating conversation with his secretly wed wife, even as a fellow passenger is convinced that he's harassing Shakti.
Shakti's sister, Poorni (Swarnamalya), is another character who is refreshing. The dialogues between the two sisters sound real and unstaged. The conversations wouldn't pass the Bechdel test but considering we barely saw women speak to each other onscreen with love, it was precious. Shakti's parents (Jayasudha and Selvaraj) and their views, too, have as much importance in the narrative as Karthik's parents - again not something that's common even now.
At first, the unfinished house to which Karthik and Shakti shift merely looks like a charming prop, adding flavour to their exploits. The beautifully conceptualised 'Kadhal Sadugudu' song had the adolescent me convinced that this was the kind of prime real estate worth investing in. But, the house is really a metaphor for their relationship; there's a long way to go before it can achieve completion, and marriage is only the beginning. As in his later film OK Kanmani, Mani Ratnam uses older couples as reference points for young love; couples who've weathered storms together and emerged stronger.
Karthik tries in his own way to be a better husband and Shakti battles with her sense of guilt and insecurities -- at one point, nothing seems to be working, and it takes a life-threatening incident for the two of them to find each other again. The climax has come under much criticism, and it does seem overblown in retrospect, but the first time I watched the film, I bought into it completely. By the time Karthik found Shakti in the hospital, I was 100 percent invested in their lives and wanted nothing more than the two of them to get back together.
Listening to the album after having watched the film made all the songs even more memorable. My cousin and I got netted and layered salwars just like the ones Shalini wears in 'Pachchai Niramey', and spent hours swirling around in our dreamland. It seems idiotic now but that was the kind of grip that the film had on us.
20 years after Alaipayuthey, it remains one of the few urban Tamil romances that got the pulse right. At 14, I was mesmerised by the film and its lead pair, and at 34, I'm still fond of Shakti-Karthik and their unfinished house (though I have a better understanding of love and real estate now). That's saying something.