Balettan

<p>Athaniparampil Balachandran (Balan) is an ordinary family man, living with his wife Radhika, two children, his younger brother and father, a locally respected retired . Balan struggles to balance his professional life amidst his multiple interests, which includes and a penchant for helping others, including strangers. Nevertheless, he leads a cheerful life, with the support of his loving family, and has earned the status of being a major figure in the local society, earning the pet name Balettan (Balan, the elder brother). However, his , amateur interests and carelessness leads to circumstances that leave him deep in debt and he even gets arrested for cheating on false charges. His father bails him out of the problems with his , and expects Balan to become more responsible towards his family. One day, an unexpected leaves Balan’s father in the hospital, and right before his death, he confides to Balan about having another wife and daughter from an illicit relation, and asks him to take care of them, without letting the rest of his family or villagers knowing about the matter. After his father’s death, Balachandran tries to realign his life between the two families and struggles with it. His family starts suspecting him of having an affair, as he is spotted with his half-sister. Amid the chaos, a stranger named Bhadran comes into Balan’s life with sinister intentions, and blackmails him, with an eye on his half-sister. The rest of the story tells how Balan manages to solve his problems, including Bhadran’s threats and getting his second family accepted in the society. The film features songs were composed by with lyrics by . The background score was provided by C. Rajamani. All lyrics are written by ; all music is composed by . The film was released on 28 August 2003 during the month of festival. was a commercial success at the box office, becoming the highest-grossing Malayalam film of the year. Made on a budget of 1.75 crore, the film grossed 14 crore. It ran for over 100 days. The film gave box office success to Mohanlal after a gap of almost two years, which according to , “helped him regain the No. 1 spot”. It was also the first major box office success of director Vinu.</p>