20 years of Alaipayuthey, it is!

20 years of Alaipayuthey, it is!

When Alaipayuthey came out in 2000, some well-wishers had made it apparent to my parents that I was not to watch the movie at all. "Such a bad influence, they say," I was told. Curious and rebellious as I was, it was all I needed to want to watch the movie.

When I went back to school later in June, there were animated discussions about the movie and the charming, dashing Madhavan (of course!) I'd be looked at like I'd missed so much in life! There was so much 'Alaipayuthey' in the air that I fell in love with the movie even before I'd watched it.

By the time I watched the movie in Theni with my cousins, it was past October - those were times when you could catch a good movie months after its release, in a legit theatre.
I was so, so smitten by the movie, the music, and the leads. The hype my friends had added to it only helped elevate the movie to give me such a high.

Like the coming together of Potterheads, back then I made friends with so many people, all of us bonding over Alaipayuthey. I have a friend who stitched and wore her suits like Shalini did in the movie. There was another who wore her hair like the actor.

And of course, there was that younger me, so charmed by Maddy, and there were those Pepsi-issued collector's cards featuring the actor - there were 24 cards in all - and I managed to hoard so much; my friends collected some for me! I still have them, safely stacked away, notwithstanding KonMari. And I'm not even talking about the countless paper-cuttings featuring the star. I even covered my Std X Math textbook in a newspaper ad that featured him, for that was one book I had to refer to so much 🙈

The songs were such a rage. The posters were treated like epic pieces. I happened to go on a trip to Munnar; back then I had a walkman in which I played Alaipayuthey and Rhythm back-to-back, over and over again, so much that the lyrics have come to be etched in my memory.
Even now, the songs bring back a surge of the beauty and promise of young love that the moment I close my eyes when a song from the movie plays, I feel the misty winds of Munnar whooshing over me. My words do no justice to just how much I connected to the movie as a thirteen year old full of fire, promise, dreams, hope, and unrealistic expectations 😅

Alaipayuthey, now, is more than just a story of young love, to me. I realize that it is also the story of a set of entrepreneurs desperately seeking and finding a breakthrough. So much is said so quietly about what goes on in a start-up, as they mull over one phone call after another.

The movie highlights the aftermath of what happens when marriages happen outside the 'zone of approval' - of how much more the girl's family is impacted in a patriarchial society that shifts all the blame to a woman's upbringing. It speaks of the rough, unrelenting terrain of marriage that couples are jolted into and expected to tread through - should they really want to make it work - and that from nearly every possible perspective.

It technically is a textbook example of incorporating non-linear narratives, editing, and filmography. Look at how it makes the railway station and train come alive, and of how the movie is significant reference of sorts, capturing the days when love was conducted over landline telephone conversations (Shakti has to borrow one!)

This is the movie that unravelled the angst and magic in having a man going in search of his lady love - with the 'Evano Oruvan' sequence started the whole affair of Suriya flying to the US for Meghna (VA) and Karthik making it to Alleppey, bowled over by Jessie (VTV).

And the cast, what a stellar cast it was! From the ravishing Jayasudha to the suave Arvind Swamy, the cast remains one of the best. I bet nearly everyone wanted a sister like Swarnamalya and a mother like K. P. A. C. Lalitha (Maddy's Mom?!). I could go on and on, trust me.

So much has changed in these twenty years that have rolled by. I'm relatively tamer, quieter, cautious and resigned.
Nevertheless, even now, when the movie gets aired on TV, that thirteen year old me comes alive as I furtively look around to see if my parents are shaking their heads in quiet exasperation. And a wave of thrill still comes and steals over me, as always.
#20YearsOfAlaipayuthey