How Dasan and Vijayan charmed the Malayali audience with their 'dosaputtidli'

The witty dialogues in the blockbuster movie Nadodikattu starring Mohanlal and Sreenivasan in the lead roles continue to throw the Malayali movie lovers into laughing sprees even 32 years after it hit the screens. Sidhique - Lal had written the story of the movie helmed by hit maker Sathyan Anthikad. Characters like Ananthan Nambiar, Pavanayi, driver Balettan, Radha and Kovai Venkitesan still enthral the audience with their uniqueness. The movie which released on the first week of May in 1987, introduced Dasan and Vijayan, two of the most iconic characters in Malayalam cinema. However, it is food which plays a prominent and noticeable role in almost all the scenes. Food has importance in the narrative of the movie and the comic repartees between the lead actors often have references of delicious food in it.

In the first half of the movie, the lead actors are often spotted carrying tiffin boxes in their hands. The movie opens at a bachelors' pad where the ways of cooking and food would be quite different from that of a normal household. Vijayan played by Sreenivasan looks for tea powder when the water is already boiling over the stove. However, he soon realizes that there is no tea powder in the house. Scenes like these perfectly reflect the financial struggles suffered by bachelors. Vijayan is shown as the person who mainly cooks at the house. His eyes get burned blowing into the firewood stove over which rice is cooked in a pot. However, Vijayan clearly doesn’t like being the one who cooks always and gets irritated when Dasan chides him for not getting the food ready on time. Dasan and Vijayan work as peons in an office and when they are thrown out, neither of them lets go of the tiffin box.

It was after this episode that the duo ventures into selling milk. They purchase a cow and thinks that the cow would give at least 10 - 12 litres of milk everyday if it is fed cotton seeds, oil-cakes and a bit of bran. However, they are disappointed when they get only 6 litres of milk despite trying very hard. It was Vijayan’s idea to mix water in the fresh milk, which is creamier, to obtain the amount of milk that they had promised the tea shop owner. But their plan backfires when the tea shop owner’s returns the milk and says, “Father told that it is better to wield knives and turn burglars.”

Dasan and Vijayan reach the coast of Madras falsely thinking that Gafoor has indeed taken them to Dubai in his boat. The story takes a turn when driver Balettan arranges jobs for the duo at Ananthan Nambiar's company and also a house for them to stay. As they walk back from the market purchasing the ingredients to cook, Dasan suggests that they should have a time table when it comes to food. He says that dosa would be fine on Mondays, while puttu could be cooked on Tuesdays and idli on Wednesdays respectively. However, Vijayan clearly doesn’t like the idea as he understood that cooking would fall on his head here as well. He retorts, "How about ‘dosaputtidli’ on Thursdays? Am I your cook?" The audiences were reportedly roaring in laughter, at the theatres, when they heard the funny portmanteau word, combining the names of the popular breakfast dishes.

Like the iconic dialogue, “ Ellathinum athitenthaya samyamundu Dasaa”( Everything happens at its own time) the movie and the funny dialogues too have earned an irreplaceable position in the hearts of the Keralites, who always appreciate good cinema and delicious food as well.