Avandhan Manidhan

<p>Ravikumar, the owner of a matchbox factory, is a widower who also lost his daughter in an accident. Recognising that his honest employee Chandran is in a similar position, he decides to help Chandran financially. As Chandran attends training in the United States, Ravi takes care of Chandran’s charming daughter. Upon his return, Chandran suggests changing the company’s structure. The traditionalist Ravi becomes infuriated. Protesting this, Chandran resigns and starts his own matchbox company and becomes the leading matchbox manufacturer. This begins Ravi’s downfall, his charity and donating activities have eaten up profit and he ends up putting his house on sale. Chandran calls for the highest bid and wants to give it back to Ravi, but being the man that he is, Ravi would not accept. Chandran has already got Lalitha, his ex-secretary whom Ravi had a crush on, and now Ravi’s house. Ravi is eventually left with only his dove, and Lalitha requests him to give it to her, as her daughter is sick and is crying for the dove. Ravi has just sold that, so that he could buy food. Unable to say no to a request, he breathes his last. In early 1970, G. Balasubramaniam had written a story exclusively for , and film producer Noor bought the rights for 25,000, with signed on to direct. However, Ganesan was reluctant after hearing the story, feeling it was too tragic. A year later, the same story was bought by the director duo for 38,000, and they made it into a film titled , with starring. After the film’s success, Ganesan decided to remake it in Tamil, and bought the remake rights for 2,00,000. The remake was titled , and the 175th film of Ganesan. It was directed by , co-produced by K. N. Subramaniam, photographed by M. Viswanatha Rai and edited by B. Kandhasamy. While Tirulokchandar also wrote the screenplay, wrote the dialogues. Some scenes involving Ganesan and were shot at Singapore, including . Film historian interpreted one scene where Cho’s character tells Chandrababu’s character, “Ellarum Ungala Marandutaanga pa” ( ) as reflecting Chandrababu’s real life situation at that time. Another historian, K. Puttaswamy noted the story’s similarities to , a play by . The music was composed by , with lyrics by . The song “Aattuviththaal Yaaroruvar”, like many songs written by Kannadasan, extols the god . The song “Anbu Nadamadum” is set in Vasanthi . An assistant director suggested the director not to use the lyric “Thangai” ( ) for a song in this film since “Thangaiyila Illai” ( ) was the pallavi for a song in the director’s earlier film (1972). was released on 11 April 1975. Kanthan of praised Tirulokchander’s direction and writing, Arunachalam’s dialogues, and the performances of Ganesan, Muthuraman and Sundarrajan. The film became a commercial success, running for over 100 days in theatres.</p>