Anantha Poongatre

<p>Meenatchi is a widow living with her son, Nandu. Jeeva, who lives in the same colony, has been pining silently for her for the last four years. He runs an organization called A-to-Z, which can get anything done for anybody. Jeeva follows Divya to get some information on her for her suitor but, she ends up falling for him and pursues him relentlessly. He avoids her, telling her that he is already in love with someone else, and when cornered, reveals that it is Meenatchi. This leads to some surprising revelations about Meenatchi’s past. The flashback is revealed. Meenatchi is a music student of Haridas. Haridas has a child, Nandu, whose mother, Banu, died giving birth to him. Their mutual respect is mistaken for romance by her father, Dharmalingam, who is a zamindar, and Haridas is killed in the fracas. Later, Meena vows to live like a widow, taking care of Haridas’s child. However, that very day, Jeeva and his parents were about to see Meenatchi as a prospective bride. When Jeeva sees this scene unfold before his eyes, he starts admiring her courage. Despite his parents’ protests, he assures Meenatchi’s father that he would make her change her mind and that he would marry her. But Meenatchi’s world turns upside down when Divya’s father, a staunch supporter of love marriage, kidnaps Nandu and asks Jeeva to marry Divya. Jeeva of course accepts and things are then resolved in the climax. During production, the producer M. Kajamydeen had attempted unsuccessfully to oust Ajith Kumar from the project and replace him with . Initially was assigned to play Malavika’s role in the film, but due to her commitment to , she was later dropped from the project. was reported to play a cameo where he would appear in two scenes after the interval, this proved untrue. The music was composed by . The film was released on 27 May 1999. It won two Tamil Nadu State Awards with the going to Shivaram Gandhi while it also won the . The film was remade as in and later in as . K. N. Vijiyan of , writes “Generally go for this movie if you are an Ajith, Karthik or Meena fan. It has star value and good comedy”. K. P. S. of praised Raj Kapoor’s screenplay, performances of Ajith and Karthik and Deva’s music but felt Meena and Malavika came and went and concluded saying due to routine plot and sentiments could not enjoy happiness in this breeze of happiness. D. S. Ramanujam of wrote, “The triangle love tale takes enjoyable proportions thanks to the good handling of the plot by director Raj Kapoor”, also appreciating the cinematography and dialogues.</p>