STEP MOM

It was a regular practice during our higher secondary school (1981-1983) days to screen a movie in the small auditorium once in a fortnight or two , to the hostellers @ Avinasilingam Home Science College campus.(Coimbatore , Tamil Nadu, South India)

One such movie we  watched  during a week end was  “Chiththi” which in one context means “Step mom” in Tamil. It was a Sunday.

The story line is about the heroine (Padmini) with many siblings from a poor family who loves a lad, due to family circumstances , happens to get married to a rich  old man (M.R.Radha) with 7 or 8 kids (Don’t remember exactly) and becomes their step mom. The eldest of her step kid is a teenage daughter and the last one is an year old baby girl. (The lullaby ...kalamithu kaalamithu kannurangu magale kalamithai thavara vittal thookkamillai magale lingers in my ears..)

How her  eldest step daughter and her eldest brother(Muthuraman) get in love and into wedlock forms the rest of the plot.

There is this  duet by the lovers (santhippoma inru santhippoma..thanimaiyil nammai patri sinthippoma) is a good number and the words are easy to remember and the picturisation too..(through phone they fix their meeting , go there biking and meet in a park..)

I remember all the hostellers enjoyed singing that song with their own lyrics according to the situation.

We discussed in depth , about each and every dialogue, song , situation , acting etc with our classmates  the next day , the first thing in the morning of Monday, which pretty much tempted  them to plead through the School Pupil Leader to our Warden cum Head mistress to screen the movie to the whole school again.

We enjoyed immensely (the second time too ) with our classmates sitting in the front rows.. cooing… shouting… singing….mocking the dialogues.. teasing every possible person around right from the projection crew.. missing our classes… It was Tuesday.

Six (6) of us were a group of friends (common factors …well disciplined, studious, early risers & presentably dressed round the clock and cheerful and of course as you guess mischievous???)

Three (3) of us stayed in room no 40 and the others in 42. All of us had our code numbers 1 to 6 . Representative (Malliga) from Room no 42 ,would trespass(??!!)  Room no 41 , from where through the wooden cupboard,  would start singing 42 her code no followed by 40, something like 42140 ( five digit telephone numbers were used then)….

As response, our representative (who else can it be???) would  sing 40 our code no 42…

42 girl would sing about the situation…santhippoma mess la santhippoma…(shall we meet in the mess, yeah it’s time for food)]

Realised while watching the movie recently that the pleasantries of the movie still holds good … and I remember most of the lyrics of the song santhippoma till date…

Though we watched many movies, “Chiththi” is close to my heart till date........

P.S: A recent article read in a Tamil magazine about the great tamil Novelist of good old times MRS.VAI.MU.KOTHAI NAYAKI AMMAL , whose novel was picturised as a movie  and was a roaring success in the box office , ploughed  me down the memory lane of watching the tamil movie “CHITHTHI” (yeah, that’s it)