Oru Cheru Punchiri

Oru Cheru Punchiri. Sitting on the thinnai of his tiled, gardened home Krishna Kurup (Oduvil Unnikrishnan), mid 70, retired, combs the pensioned tresses of wife Ammalukutty (Nirmala Srinivasan); a kid spots them, smiles; alerts the neighbours; laughter tickles coconut tops. After years, Govindettan visits Kurup for old friends sake; 'its such a pleasure to see old friends,' says Govindettan; they chat over liquor and smoke; Krishna Kurup drums a note on a steel vessel. Tale of a couple in a village, deep in a quietness, beside a river; no mobiles, no Dubai speed vehicles, no Mohanlal wrestling matches; Krishna Kurup enjoys reading letters from son and daughter; Rama settling down with me in Dombivili in 1976, wrote five to six pages of detailed letters to her mother; inserted it in a stamped over; licked it shut; me dropped it at GPO near VT station; stayed calm for a week before turning restive for the postman; her mother and the postman never disappointed; assured a seven pages reply with every detail of Sreevatsam. Rama and me were watching the film written and directed by M.T. Vasudevan Nair for the fourth time and more; the film is based on Telugu writer Sriramana's short story Mithunam. Sriramana and MT should have been at their near-fine moments, writing and directing the film. Wonder how MT is spending hours at his Kozhikode home. Krishna Kurup and wife prefer their home, shot along the banks of Periyar, to sharing a living with a Kuwait son and a city daughter. There are no family quarrels to thorn the flow of the narrative. They own each other; Krishna Kurup, Ammalukutty and his green padam (garden) are friends, know each other. When a giddiness spins Ammalukutty, Krishna Kutty is beside her with ayurvedic potions dismissing the doctor and tablets; he hot packs her. These moments stick in the mind; hard to unpeel. And one  morning, after a kalyana saddi, Krishna Kurup lies down to rest; is 'off' as the Mumbaikar says; Ammalukutty decides to live alone at the same home. A 90 minute film with Oduvil Unnikrishnan at his normal best. No exaggerations; just like any cheery karanavar in a Kerala veedu located in a Kerala gramam, not abandoned. Left Rama and me with punjiris (smiles); some two years ago we were for a week at the Kurumpala home of  retired, 35 year old friend Narayana Karunakara Kurup on invitation. Absent is a river; compensation a well; and the spread out padams where we strolled. His elder sister stays in a tiled home, on the edges of the padams jammed with trees. She is around 85 and content. Guruvayurappa is always there. There is much to argue for a retired life beside river Periyar or a green. That sure is not for Rama and me.