Metti Oli Character guide - Page 8

Raji Chellam, if you didn't realize earlier, is a looker and it no wonder that she has Kumar wrapped up around her little finger. She is much better than Viji in several ways, which in any case it is not a difficult task. She is respectful of her father-in-law most of the times and goes to work, unlike Viji. She stands up for her rights without insulting anyone, and is never shown to cry. (BTW, have you ever wondered where the stove is in this household?). Not much is known about her parents except for a passing reference that she had no one to take care of her when she delivered Hari. There are several jovial references to how Kumar takes good care of her including cooking, but we observe her several times doing household chores. Yes, she is spiteful and indulges in plotting against Viji, but in that she has only embraced the spirit of her husband and his immediate family. Thiru probably missed an opportunity in using this talented actress to provide the comic relief - she could've been addicted to food, or have a tendency to vazhinjufy with men (like Santhosh) or at least a nagai paithiyam. Her portrayl wouldn't be complete without a reference to her ubiquitous big pottu.

Sivasami is a decent man. He is too old to be evaluated as an ideal husband, thank goodness, so let's move on to other traits. He is the father of Ramesh and Radha, and owns a very profitable vegetable business. He treats everyone with respect, and is always quick to agree for amicable solutions. He is also quick to forgive and forget, a patient parent and above all is a good husband who cannot stand to see his wife grieving.

During the time that Manickam worked for him, he treats Manickam like his own son and goes to the extent of accompanying Rajam & Co to ask for Saro's hand, and buy dresses for their engagement. He fires Manickam once he is convinced of his adultery, and subsequently tells Saro the truth. He also lets Nirmala continue her friendship with his daughter Radha despite the subsequent treacheries that Manickam commits. When C goes to their house to pick up a fight, learns the truth about M's affair and breaks down, Sivasami consoles him. He also checks his son several times when he employs goondas to take care of M. And despite all this, he is ready to marry Ramesh to Nirmala, if they were truly in love, and chides Ramesh when he knows the truth. Before you decide on the place to build a temple for him, consider this: He thoondufies the bank manager to reject M's loan application, pays money to burn M's lorry and asks Ramesh to kill M when Ashok lost his hand.

Our memories are fresh with the recent episodes, where he reaches out to C to ask for Bhavani's hand for Ramesh and subsequently goes out of his way to clear C's name with Rajam. He is the only one to question the age difference between Ramesh and Bhavani. It must be noted that there is a strong suspicion that he is a fan of Sneha.

Guess which of the following was sketched by me:

Tamil Selvi was the wife of Chidambaram, whom he liked to think of as a very patient and docile woman. It's suspected that C has repressed all memories about her true nature, and hence at a subconscious level gets a kick out of Rajam's arajakam. We see a picture of her in the Alugai Kulam house. If you think the photo looked familiar, you are looking at the wrong picture - that of Indira Gandhi. She was related to C before marriage, and was very happy with him until her hip gave away. During her pregnancies, she picked up different skills, the one at Bhavani's conception being karate. There are rumors that she developed problems in her knee and constantly talked about Mutti veli. Very early in life when C asked her, "patthu kulla number onnu sollu", she said 5 and the rest is history.

Kathiresan is Gopi's dad, and please don't adjust your TV set when they show him – his body moves involuntarily and incoherently most of the times. He tries to cover this by cocking his head to one side and squinting while looking at people, which only makes him look like a crow. As the sleuths in this board found out, he was a dosai master in a kaiendhi bhavan, and loved his work and wife dearly. It is rumored that he was asked to make idlies, but ended up making dosas since he couldn't hold his hand steady. Anyway, he tries to be fair to everyone, loves his son Gopi and fears his dil Viji. He gives good advise to others, but what sets him apart is his flexibility to change his position instantly after the advise – this only confused Gopi before his marriage mess when he had mistaken Viji to be M's sister. Let's hope his wife's name was Bharathi or Ramani, since he made Gopi promise that he will name his kid after her.

 

I think a sketch on Kamatchi paati is overdue now. (It's another unisex name, right?) Any takes for doing a profile on the paati?

Very nicely done.

I have two more - Sak's Dad and San's Dad. Will post it later.... 

Devarajan was once a business magnate at Tiruchy, running a successful business of manufacturing wires with his partner. He was a well-known figure in his town and would often – at least as he described later – provide food at his home for lots of people. Mysteriously, he ignored Rajam during that time, for which she carries a grudge to this day. Due to his popularity, he was able to collect money from several people to the tune of 30 lakh rupees, to be invested in his company. Part of this money, it is believed, was spent on buying kumkum for his wife. His partner practised the fine art of extending wire with the money, leaving Deva and his business in dire straits. It was now the turn of Deva to extend wire from the town and settle with his wife Devaki, son Vasu and daughter Shakthi in Madras. One would think he would live a low profile life in this new town, but not our Deva. He moves freely from the lorry office to the hospital and to several other places in between, and was twice kidnapped by his lenders. At the first instance, Deva exhibited his dexterity in extending wire after enjoying the hospitality of his hosts for a night. In the second time around, his daughter was also kidnapped, so he had to take the help of a magic maid. He calls Selvam affectionately as 'Selvam Thambi' and has no other plans for returning the money to his lenders.

Santhosh's father had a cameo role in this serial and remains nameless to this date. He has the unique distinction among the senior men in this serial – the only one to wear pants. It's suspected that Santhosh inherited his free spirit, for between the time of his son's engagement and wedding, this old man went ahead and married another woman. A few say that Santhosh inherited something else from his father – bad taste in women – put that is purely a matter of individual preference. Whether this man had a keen eye for details, we are not privy to, but he certainly had a keen tongue for food. During Nirmala's pregnancy, he filled the mantle left by Santhosh and straightened the backs of Rajam and Nirmala with hard labor. Another character common to both the father and the son was their willingness to ignore unsavory comments whenever they needed money. After Nirmala's delivery, San's dad took money from Manickam inspite of the bad blood between them. One of the few scenes where this man left a mark was when he once flew off the handle after 'flying down from Calcutta' that Rajam did not give him enough respect.

Sundar is yet another punnagai mannan (ilichavai) in this serial, on the lines of Gopi, Bose and Selvam, the asylum providers. He has a thing for Shakthi, which makes him a suspect case for myopia. He comes from a wealthy family comprised of people with large faces and larger hearts. While we are talking about the family, it must be mentioned that they had a curious approach to marriage: Sundar expresses his desire to marry Shakthi, and guess what they do? They come to Deva's place with thattu, pazham, poo and paaku and put everyone in a spot by asking for her hand! When Rajamani kidnapped Devaraj, Sundar and family came to the rescue and coughed up the one lakh rupees that Deva had usurped. Shakthi eventually discloses to Sundar that she does not fancy marrying him, but his family is still waiting for a word from the D's. Shakthi also confessed her feelings for Sundar, which only gives him the opportunity to act as a junior Mahatma, and he expresses his happiness and best wishes. If this serial is a series of what-ifs, we can speculate what if Shakthi approached Sundar for a job for Nirmala. But alas, this is more a series of dispensible characters, and the small family with large faces is not to be seen anymore.

Chidambaram:

 

The sketch done earlier delve upon the peripheral qualities of C, in truth based what were revealed at the time of writing it.

 

Sooznilay Chidambaram (SNC) is in a way like Sehwag – they both carry on in their inimitable style regardless of the impact to those who follow them. The analogy ends right there, for the acts of SNC do not earn him any fans – from either camp! Also, unlike the indomitable opener, SNC cares a lot about his image and what the oor will talk. It is in fact this consideration of him that readily lets him shove his daughters in the path of peril.

 

SNC is the indigent father of at least 5 daughters, 4 of whom have been married away. His daughters live in marital stress, though we must accentuate that in the case of Viji, she foments most issues.

 

Chidambaram does not wish harm on anyone - even when he is humiliated. He is a chip off the old block, believing in the parochial adage that couples would iron out their problems in the long run through tolerance, indulgence and patience. In the eyes of some, he is an eternal optimist, while in the eyes of others he is in denial, despondent and resigned to fate.

 

It's debatable if he is a loving parent or just cares about himself. But he is often seen without carrying his grand children, which makes some conclude that he cares about two things only: himself, and his image in the society. He has a high esteem of himself, and cannot tolerate any questions on his character: Regardless of all the 'siruki's that Saro is called, he does not get overly upset and wants her to endure Rajam's arajakam; however when his smile is compared to that of a call-girl, he takes extreme offense and walks out. Note that it was okay with him when his daughters were earlier accused of plotting to beguile Manickam.

 

In the case of his eldest daughter Dhanam, he turns a blind eye to her abject dominance in dominions where she has no clue and should rightly desist from interference. With Saro, he has no hesitation in ignoring her hardship at the hands of her in-laws, including her husband. She has pleaded with him not to send her back, and using his control over her he has more than once sent her back – without giving her any excuse ("listen to me, I do this for your good" is all that he said).

 

SNC's loathsome and trite advice to subjugate oneself to the unreasonable spouse was repeatedly evident in the case of Leela. He knew she was subjected to corporal abuses, unfairly suspected to the brink of madness and driven to spiritual attrition, and yet would not let her stand on her own. He in fact plunges to the extremes of debauchery and plots against her plans to move out and lies to her and her house broker. And when challenged about his behavior, appeals to her to reflect on what the Oor will blather and how he will be perceived by the society! And he shows no remorse at her most visible signs of abuse and does not even call her on the phone to ascertain her safety. The only call he made was to establish his anguish at her arraigns and to elicit an apology from her!

 

SNC is adept at emotional blackmail, ready to graphically portray his intense suffering and is quick to grab his chest to underscore his pain. In most cases, such suffering would come at the cost of peace to his daughters!

 

Truth be told, the fortitude of Saro and the resilience of Leela are an indirect offshoot of SNC's upbringing. What he lacks by imparting lore, he compensates by appealing to their love. He does defy the template of the current generation of parents who are emancipators of their children, which provides scope for the interesting drama in the serial. His advices seem piffle in our eyes, but within the context of the world he lives in, they are bound by honor and principle.

 

An interesting point to note of SNC is that in money matters, he is extremely resourceful – on numerous occasions, he has always found a way of coughing up the cash demanded by his rapacious sons-in-law.

 

The strike rate of SNC and Sehwag again set them apart distinctly. In fact the only strikes that SNC has shown are against Bose. SNC has, however, ducked from several situations (much to the disappointment of his #1 fan). Let's end this profile with his favorite sound: Heh heh heh.

I forgot to mention that the profile of C was sent by someone to my email address.