Kandukondain, Kandukondain

This film breaks the stereotyped pattern of Indian cinema, with the beautiful girl eventually falling in love with and marrying the disabled man.

Set in modern India, it's a classical tale of a widowed mother and her three daughters: Saumya and Meenakshi who are grown-up and beautiful, and Kamla who is still at school. They live with the widow's father in his grand country house. The father, who is ill, dies unable to communicate that he wants to change his will. Everything is left to his son, Sam, and Sam's mean wife. The family of women, who have spent years looking after the father, are evicted by Sam and his wife and are forced to move to Madras. Before this, both elder daughters have developed a romantic interest: Saumya with Manohar, a budding filmmaker returned from America who wants to make his mark in Tamil cinema; and Meenakshi with Srikanth, a young businessman who is involved in some dodgy investments.

Major Bala (who is disabled) and his uncle befriend the girls and their mother. Bala, who was a commando major in the Indian army, is shown in the first scene being blown up, resulting in the loss of his leg. He drinks too much as he feels sorry for himself. Meenakshi has compassion for him and persuades him that, if he stops drinking, she will learn to play the tampura and sing. Major Bala falls in love with Meenakshi, but soon realises she will not love him as she is fixated on Srikanth, who is clearly a swindler.

On moving to Madras, Saumya gets a job as a telephone operator, although she is a qualified computer programmer. Major Bala helps Meenakshi go to music school. Manohar gets wrapped up in making his film and Saumya thinks he has forgotten her. When Saumya gets promoted to programmer and offered a job in America, she therefore takes it. Meenakshi's music career takes off, but she finds out that Srikanth is marrying someone else to sort out his financial affairs. Shocked, she wanders through a monsoon-flooded street and falls into a storm drain, only to be rescued by Bala. Slowly, Meenakshi comes to love Bala, but he thinks she is pitying him because of his impairment.

However, all ends well. Manohar's film is a great success and he convinces Saumya that he still loves her, and Bala finally accepts that Meenakshi loves him because she 'sees the beauty within him', not out of pity.

Make sure you prepare the ground by covering the material in the Introducing disability in class guidelines before looking at issues in any specific film.

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