Manaivi- the Saga. Review on Manaivi

You cant obviously expect sun TV?s serial making crews to come up with something out of the box. Especially not when CJ bhaskar leads the crew. So there comes manaivi, which is a rather irritatingly stretched version of vani rani (CJ bhaskar would have banked on the rather frail memory of the public, specially the serial viewers. They don?t remember the previous serial?s story, they wont certainly recall vani rani when they see manaivi.).

I guess c.j.bhaskar should be applauded and appreciated for breaking new grounds and thinking in a very revolutionary manner .. and trying to ACTUALLY include a story line .. never mind if it?s copied .. Pioneers should be giver at least this amount of leeway ... I would suggest serials needn't be named at all.

They could just follow the news channels way. Like the news at 10, news at 9 and news at 7 we could have serials called serial at 7, serial at 8, serial at 9. Anyways the title doesn?t suggest too much about the serial. They are those generic names like manaivi, kungumam, chiti, anni or just the name of the character, annamalai, roja, kalki and likes. In effect they speak about some women and their wedded lives.

The problem that tags with naming it is that they make a title song to sing out the title loud and whats worse, the hero and the heroine dancing to these unbearable tunes. Kowsalya is the lead artist (serials have become the one place where women take the front seat, the women's lib plea won here....But think again, even if you win a rat race, you are still a rat. Right?) who does the double act, obviously the twin sisters (vani rani?remember?!) who get separated when they are kids in a temple (I will have to give this to CJ bhaskar?.he didn?t use the thiruvizha for this like most tamil movies?very creative thinking there?!) and though lot of things are very obvious and can be recalled very well from vani rani I wish to state some for those unfortunate people who haven?t seen it, very briefly.

So, one kowsalya is the timid one (the sari wearing kowsalya..we shall call her?cos in tamil entertainment industry..women in sari are timid and women in jeans are vamps or revolutionary..more so when they wear a jippa with jeans.) and other one is the vivacious modern girl, which fits kowsalya reasonably well, atleast better than the sari adorned one with a bindi the size of a signal light. The rest of the story you will know. They switch places somehow and the story is planned to be taken forward along on these lines?till here cj bhaskar would be clear. Beyond which even he wouldn?t know what he plans to do. But what we must appreciate Mr. Bhaskar for is his thinking of a novel plot to cause these two girls to switch places.

You guessed a stepmother of the sari wearing kowsalya who ill-treats kowsalya. Now, that?s where you went wrong. This is different and how. It?s the jadaga dosham. Varadarajan who is the ?friend philosopher and astrologer?of kowsalya?s family believes that he will die the moment his daughter enters matrimony or so his prophetical science claims.

So in a rather helpless situation wherein his daughter really gets desperate to unveil the guarded secret of her jadagam he quickly puts a black spot on kowsalya?s jadagam saying that its hers that has this dosham. Kowsalya happens to eavesdrop on what these guys are talking and sulks endlessly about it. Eventually she runs away the day before the wedding only for the other kowsalya to find her way into the wedding hall and who eventually get married to vijay adiraj. Now to the niceties of this serial. Manaivi would have been ideal if it had been a period serial?happening sometime in the 19th century.

The ideas and the ways are so primitive only Neolithic man can relate to it. So much for a serial aired in the channel which has a so claimed policy of not propagating superstitions or religions. Guess the sun TV?s officers responsible for policy compliances in programmes were on vacation when manaivi was approved. Superstitions are still fine if they are backed by the least of logic.

The whole premise of this serial denies logic. If a girl?s father should die when the girl marries, will he become immortal if she doesn?t marry at all? Is the sari wearing kowsalya who runs away to save her father so naïve that she thinks she can keep her father?s death at bay by not marrying and how long would it remain at the bay. Even a bird brain could see the denial of logic in this astrological claim but neither the director, nor the producer and if I may say so the viewers have seen it or considered it important enough to change it.

Media, at least revolutionary channels like sun TV should do something to discourage superstitions and serials like maniavi only foster such beliefs. That?s not all the superstition. Some fire sparks burn a small portion of the wedding initiation and the whole family starts weeping its way to glory and brings the roof (whatever little is left of it) down.

The father in neck deep into debt having borrowed heavily for paying dowry for kowsalya (he doesn?t know it?s a criminal offence?maybe different set of laws prevail in sriperumpudur where he lives, or they never get newspapers?or maybe only to frame such ignorant characters, they chose a non-metro believing such ignorance prevails there still?.wont the folks there react and say we are not this stupid.). His house is mortgaged, business pledged?.probably the wedding feast would be last square meal the family would have being left penniless and he loses sleep because a very small portion of a 25 paise invitation got burnt.

Now that?s what the director calls anbu pasam prevailing over money and all?I call it sheer stupidity. Amidst these contradictions and nonexistent logic in the serial, which are glaring to any reasonably intelligent person, there are some good spots too. It gets comical sometimes here and there and Delhi ganesh really manages to bring a smile now and then?and so is kowsalya?s sister who is the most sensible of the characters in manaivi.

The modern jeans wearing kowsalya story has just begun..which has been very inconsequential with a doting father dominating most scenes. Yes, velumani is there. He obviously hasn?t heard the word versatility. Innovation in acting is taboo in Tamil serials. It?s the same velumani as in chiti with a different name and with different set of people to bitch about.

Overall, this isn?t something that should exactly be aired in a non-believer channel or in any channel, which has the slightest inclination towards to discouraging superfluous beliefs.