V for Vaaranam Aayiram (Guest Post)

Today’s post is a guest post by a very dear friend of mine Deepa Duraisamy, who owns a blog called FictionPies. Writing short fiction is her heartfelt passion. I love reading her posts, and her short stories. They are humorous and quirky but in a good way as they are different. 

 

So, now let’s hear from her about her favorite movie for today’s alphabet and why she loves that movie. 

 

Vaaranam Aayiram (Language: Tamil, Release: 2008)

 

Thanks to Aparna doing her A-Z on film recommendations, we discovered some English, Hindi, and Marathi gems here, and reaffirmed some of our all-time favorites as well. So, I thought why not bring in something completely new here? My recommendation for today is a Tamil movie called Vaaranam Aayiram (translated: A Thousand Elephants). 

 

The younger Suriya plays an army officer, and the movie outlines his growing up years, circumstances that lead him to join the army, personal tragedies that he goes through, finding love, re-finding love, and comfortable solace, all the while with the support of his mother, played by the beautiful Simran and of course, his father played by – Suriya again! 

        Playing both the son and father in this movie, emoting, and acting out the characters physically and emotionally going from 10 to 72 with such aplomb and ease, you can see why Suriya is so well-liked. 

 

The reason I pick this movie is for a few reasons. Firstly, the way it covers a gamut of relationships, emotions, and phases in life. And I can say with much confidence, if you re-watch it at different ages/stages in your life, you’ll relate to it differently every single time. What warms your heart consistently is the beautiful, emotional strength-filled father-son bond throughout – even when both characters are not sharing screen space, the faith and knowledge that his father is there for him, shine through – this is the stuff fathers are made of. 

 

The second reason is more personal, but then I suppose more shared too. Watching this movie, especially the parents – older Suriya and Simran (their younger love story is also shown!) I kept catching glimpses of my parents so much in the movie, once the movie ended, I ended up making an ISD phone call just to talk to them and tell them about it, and at that moment, I missed them so much! Parents usually are such an emotional safety net, even when they don’t make it obvious, even when they don’t spell it out, the silent confidence that they are around to catch you if you fall – it’s a Godsend. 

 

Gautham Vasudev Menon does a fabulous job with direction, and Harris Jayraj’s music is amazing. A couple of numbers stay with you! I still hum them from time to time. This isn’t a teary-eyed emotional drama (well, a little maybe) with lots of lectures or ‘gyaan’ as they say. There is no social message. Except what it leaves you with is happy emotions and warmth filled heavy heart. And isn’t that something really good? 

 

As of this writing, you can watch Vaaranam Aayiram on Voot, Zee 5, Hungama Play, MX Player, and VI movies. 

To check out other posts of A to Z challenge click on links below

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