Mani Ratnam & Eric Segal

'Love means not ever having to say you're sorry' Jennifer Calliveri(Barrett actually) says to Oliver Barrett IV after Oliver finds her sitting on the top step of their house. For the uninitated I am talking with reference to Eric Segal's Love Story.

I like Mani Ratnam's movies very much. I enjoy his storytelling ways, I enjoy his characterisation, I enjoy the power that kids possess in his movies and overall I enjoy the energy in his movies. Did I miss something there, yeah, I just missed to say 'I enjoy the way he portrays love in his movies'. Take any of his movies, he would not have taken more than a couple of incidents to make the protaganist fall in love. And those couple of scenes would so naturally yield the hero/heroine into the tangles of love without hesitation. As viewers we would agree there too.

The lovers would never be sorry for what happened. It would be so positive that there never need to be a looking back. Manisha Koirala would just pack her bags to Bombay or Revathi would wait at the Registrar's office for Karthick. Not a sure thing in real life. Anyways, the purpose of the introduction is to compare the falling-in-love phase of Love Story. That is how Oliver and Jenn would fall in love. They would meet up at Radcliffe Library. They would just go out for a cofee. And Jenny would be there in the hockey to watch Oliver play. There would be no looking back, that Jenn would cancel her plans of going to Paris for her studies in music. A quick snap-up between Barret III and IV. Oliver would marry Jenn. They scrounge for a few days before Oliver joins Jonas and Marsh at New York.

'God damn you, Jenny! Why don't you get the hell out of my life!' Oliver says when Jenny tries to coax him to talk over to his dad. Oliver goes out in search of Jennifer when Jennifer was gone after those few words were uttered by Oliver. Those few pages of searching reminds me of the mood that sets in when Madhavan would be searching for Shalini in Alaipayudhae. I have a hunch that Eric Segal would have inspired Mani Ratnam(just a rare probability). Oliver would then find her on the top of the steps of their house.

And there the story turns upside down. Oliver and Jenn plan to have a kid and it is now the examining doctor breaks out the news that Jenny is dying of Leukemia. And eventually she dies. No pleasant ending and it leaves the reader with a heavy heart. I read in the reviews that Oliver's story is a sequel to Love Story. And the gist of Oliver's story went like '...how he overcomes the sadness and falls in love again...'. Doesn't that sound like what happens in Mouna Raagam?

Have you been thinking why the first two lines were there(at the start) in this blog? There was a coincidence. This dialogue just struck me when I was reading through the novel and I wanted to bookmark this one. And the author did reuse the dialogue to end the book. Maybe I thought the same way the author did! Why not Mani Ratnam?

PS: Periya aatkalai patriya ariya pillaiyin siru kurippa idhu?