Sandhesam

<p>After retirement from as station master, Raghavan Nair is back home. His long cherished dream to spend his retirement with his family consisting of his wife, three sons and two daughters gets a blow after witnessing his two sons brawling with each other over their political differences and the debilitating effect this has on the family. Prabhakaran, the elder one is a staunch leftist and an active worker of the Revolutionary Democratic Party (RDP), which has just lost the Kerala state Assembly elections and relinquished office. Prakashan, popularly known as KRP, Prabhakaran’s younger brother is involved with the Indian National Secular Party (INSP) which has now come to power. Though they are both educated, neither has any plans to earn a living on their own and are fully immersed in petty politics, sponging off their parents for their needs. Raghavan Nair becomes deeply worried about their future, and tries to advise his sons, but his admonitions fall on deaf ears. Aanandan, his son-in-law is a police , but on suspension. When RDP was in power, he had arrested and beaten up several of the opposition party workers on instruction from the ruling party officials. Now that the former opposition is in power, they exact their revenge; first by transferring him repeatedly to stations as remote as possible and then by suspending him. As part of his retired life, Raghavan Nair decides to focus his attention on his agricultural activities and meets the new young agricultural officer Udayabhanu and with his wife’s approval, wants their younger daughter Latika to marry him. But his elder sons oppose it for flimsy and petty reasons. Prakashan pulls some strings and gets him transferred immediately to a remote location in order to prevent the marriage, but Nair gets them married at the registrar’s office. In the meantime, Aanandan and his wife Lata (Raghavan Nair’s oldest daughter) demand partition of the property and their share of the inheritance which Raghavan Nair objects to. The last straw is when their mother falls ill and is hospitalized and none of her children, especially the two older sons, show up at the hospital. Raghavan upon seeing all of them milling around his house on returning from the hospital, loses his temper. He kicks out all his children and orders them to never enter his house again. But to his surprise, he finds both Prakashan and Prabhakaran at the gate, fully repenting after Achu informs him. He calls them in and they begin a new life. Some time later we see Prabhakaran who has started work as a lawyer and Prakashan going for a as part of his efforts to change and gain employment. At the same time, it is also seen that Prasanthan, the school-going youngest son of Raghavan Nair, has decided to form a student political organisation to conduct a protest at his school. But both his brothers having learnt their lesson the hard way, scold him and break the flag and banners he made. The movie ends here with the message clearly being delivered. is considered one of the best movies in the film industry. Many of the dialogues still find their way into the daily conversation of Malayalees. The infamous scene and the dialogue is still etched into the viewer’s hearts. In 2016, on the occasion of India celebrating its , news agency compiled a list called “70 Years, 70 Great Films” and was among the four Malayalam films that found place in the list. In 2013, in an online poll conducted by on their website as part of the 100 years celebration of , was included in the poll for finding the “greatest Indian film ever”. In 2024, a scene from was recreated in an advertisement for an online mobile game; (son of Sreenivasan, who appeared as Prabhakaran in the film) acted in the advertisement, and Anoop Sathyan (son of Sathyan Anthikad, the director of the film) directed the advertisement.</p>