Decoding a Scene: Defining moment of 'Odiyan' is when love is told in one line

Decoding a crucial scene in the Mohanlal-starrer 'Odiyan', directed by V A Shrikumar Menon, its scripter K Harikrishnan, revealed that the scene has captured the essence of love quotient in the movie. Talking to Onmanorama, the national award winning scenarist, said that the scene was a satisfying experience for its subtlety, depth and conciseness.

"A script of any film is the ultimate result of a lone fight waged by the writer against himself in having visions, selecting some of them and discarding some others," said Harikrishnan, "While writing 'Odiyan', I went through the pangs, turbulence and loneliness of its characters. Others involved in the film including director Shrikumar Menon had also shared those feelings of the characters."

He said that while infusing the character of the protagonist Odiyan Manikyan into ace actor Mohanlal many of the emotional nuances of pain, happiness, vengeance, solitude, love and so on found their expression.

"In this film, what gives me utmost satisfaction is the way Manikyan's emotion of love is handled. Manikyan is an introvert. But, he is in love with an upper class woman. Something that was unimaginable in those days," Harikrishanan said, "Amid the eventful journey in life their love remains subdued. My challenge was to portray their love subtly."

The screenplay writer decoded a scene, which captured the essence of that love. The scene does not feature Prabha, but the aged Manikyan and his childhood friend Damodaran, played by Siddique.

It depicted a night when they were locked in a conversation and having a drink. Then they set out to a walkway extended into darkness. The scene proceeded as a ruminating conversation in the old age and reflected the anxiousness of a bosom friend over his pal's ability to accept the challenges and successfully execute them.

The scene also has the popular dialogue of Manikyan, "How many games of mine have you witnessed, now watch this one too..."

After this dialogue, Damodaran asks again, "You were so much in love with Prabha, weren't you, Manikyan?" Nowhere else in the film has the love been expressed. Damodaran thus asks the question at a juncture when the viewers are clueless about the love factor in the film, almost towards its end.

So, Manikyan was about to express his love for the first time. It's the moment when the love angle of the film Odiyan has to be established, he said.

"The challenge that I posed before myself was how Manikyan should be expressing his love in just a single sentence. It should be Manikyan's statement of his love that would define love itself," he said.

"So when Manikyan paces ahead and Damodaran put the question Manikyan turns around and very firmly, with the power that love alone can lend and the strength and the beauty of his machismo, says, 'To ask if I 'were' in love, we are not dead and gone, Damodaran'", Harikrishnan said.

The play of tenses in the question and the answer of Manikyan that reflected the beauty and confidence of a man was a real challenge for a writer, he said.

"Manikyan's reply was the answer that I gave myself to the question whether love can be defined in a single sentence. It was a dialogue that my friends and dear Mohanlal liked the most in the film. Later, it was applauded by viewers in theatres as well," he said.

"I am so contented as a writer that this one-line-love-statement expressed by Manikyan is also being widely spread on social media by many who talk about 'Odiyan'. I believe that Manikyan was decoding love as well in that scene," he said.