Katha Parayumbol

The Malayalam film Katha Parayumbol tells a simple story. Balan (Sreenivasan) is a barber living in a remote Kerala village. His business is not going well, and a modern beauty parlor has started its operations close to his shop, and has taken away most of his business. He couldn't even provide replacements for the clay pots in the kitchen that his wife (Meena) keeps on breaking everyday. His children couldn't pay school fees. One fine day, the sleepy village wakes up as the news reaches that a film is being picturized in the village, with superstar Ashok Raj (Mammootty) playing the hero. Balan casually mentions to his children that Ashok Raj had been his childhood friend, even though they have never been in touch after their schooldays. Balan is so sure that the famous star wont be remembering him, or even if he does remember, he wont like being called as a friend of an ordinary villager. But, through the children, this news leaks out and then Balan's image in the village transforms instantaneously. He is regarded as an important man then onwards, and people surround him to take his help for getting in touch with the superstar for various purposes. His life would never be the same again.

Sreenivasan used to make great satirical movies once upon a time. I think his classic scripts, Sandesham, Vadakkunokkiyanthram and Varavelppu, all memorably picturized by Sathyan Anthikkad or Sreenivasan himself, would be remembered as long as people watch movies in Kerala. But, last few years, his films have been showing a constant downtrend and what we see in Katha Parayumbol is a Sreenivasan who is not even a mere shadow of the veteran writer of the 1990s. The plot is pretty thin and goes in an entirely predictable line, but that shouldn't have been a problem if the presentation was not so pathetically clichéd. Srinivasan's characters always had light shades of caricatures, but in this film, they just remain as cartoon characters - be it the beauty parlor owner played by Jagadeesh or the rich man played by Innocent or the production executive played by Suraj Venjaramoodu (who keeps on irritating me in almost every Malayalam film these days) - and still they fail to make us laugh. In fact, throughout the entire movie, I didn't feel like even smiling once. The dialogues and scenes from the King of Satire don't even reach the standards of a drama in School Youth Festival competitions. Balan's wife's (Meena, who is a total misfit for that role, though it doesn't really matter) pongachcham in front of the neighbors, his daughter's dialogue that "her ambition is not to become engineer or doctor, but to become a student who is able to pay her fees regularly", the tuition-center owner's (Mukesh) tricks to extract the pending payments from his students - these are supposed to be the key "satirical comedy scenes" in the film!! Near the climax, Sreenivasan tries to bring some feel-good element in the film, by showing the super star's emotional public speech at a school function, in which he remembers his old friend who had helped and inspired him during his childhood, and thus giving an illustration on how people can reach the heights of success and still keep the old days in their hearts.

In spite of being a below-average film from Sreenivasan, Katha Parayumbol is actually better than many of the intolerable Malayalam films like Roudram, Kangaroo and College Kumaran that were made recently, and perhaps that is the reason for its popularity.