Leela was a doctor, she could sing as beautifully as Tara (OK Kanmani) and dance as beautifully as Anjali (Agni Natchathiram). She was strong, independent, talented and what not. However, why did she let an abusive relationship suck her in? The role of Officer VC played by Karthi resembled an abusive, angry young fighter pilot who knows nothing but himself – a misogynist to be precise but that is not the end of his characterization.
The ideal love story is that at the end the couple gets together no matter what but what shocked us was that Mani Ratnam, the mastermind of characters, went for the same ideology. Mani Ratnam is a man who loves it when two opposite characters merge to become one. In ‘Kaatru Veliyidai’ when the Abusive officer VC meets the emotional, calm Leela it’s still the same and they live happily ever after. Amidst beautiful cinematography and beautiful background score, here are 5 reasons why this romance was different:
1. When Dr.Iliyas Hussain defines Leela-VC’s relationship in one sentence as “Enna Love-oh (What kind of love is this)?” We cannot do much but agree with what Ilyas says seeing the way Leela falls for him over and over again even after she is every time insulted, hurt and her self-respect takes a toll. Leela is a calm, talented doctor who loved herself and her every moment. She made officer VC aka Varun fall in love with her and vice versa. Varun, on the other hand, was not someone who took relationships seriously. “We can marry after our first child” was his getaway phrase from his girlfriend.
2. Divya’s past life from ‘Mouna Ragam’ about her previous love life was a prominent one and so was ‘Shakthi’s’ life about her struggle as a woman from lower middle-class family and her ambitions were prominent too. However, do we really know what Leela’s past is? Is there a valid reason why Leela’s character was summarized to be what it was? While even VC’s past was somewhat well described, Leela’s still remains a mystery. What separates ‘Mouna Ragam’ from Kaatru Veliyidai is that while in the previous film, the protagonists or the lovers don’t unite because of their differences (well basically beacuse he dies), in ‘Kaatru Veliyidai’, irrespective of an abusive relationship, she hopes to change him mentally. Let’s take ‘Thalapathy’ as another example where Rajinikanth is an orphan fighting for the Rights of the poor as a goon, Shobana, a daughter of a well reputed family falls in love with him thinking that she can mentally change him. However, that goes down South because she realizes thathe cannot be changed and secondly her father disapproves of a relationship.
3. “It’s the same contrast that Mani Ratnam explores in ‘Kaatru Veliyidai’: VC is too cool for school, we are shown, by the way he steadily clings to his aviators—if he was Captain America, that’d be his shield—the way he walks with a swagger, his haughty smile when one of his girlfriends asks him when they’ll get married, how he playfully talks to his disapproving senior in Telugu even though said senior asks him to stop, only before making an inappropriate, misogynist quip about how a fellow colleague should’ve brought up his daughter better.” This is a point to be noted that amidst abuse and misogyny, all Leela hopes is that VC chooses her over his ex-girlfriend.
4. When Leela breaks the news to VC that she is pregnant (before marriage just the way he wanted), he is not ready for the commitment as he feels he might turn out to be a bad father like his own dad is. However, when Leela finds out through his hesitant talks and uncomfortable eye contact, she walks out saying she can handle it herself. Later, she anyway decides to reunite herself with him.
5. After everything VC put her through, Leela decides to finally walk out on him and start afresh somewhere where he cannot find her. However, after escaping from the Pakistan jail, VC starts looking out for her and when he finally meets her, they both unite like nothing ever happened and of course, Leela decides to have the baby and the couple unites with their daughter; it’s happily ever after!
As Apoorva Sripathi writes, “It doesn’t matter that VC uttered lines like “aambla vera pombala vera (men and women are different); it’s biological, nee doctor thaane (aren’t you a doctor)?”, or that he twists her arm in front of his colleagues, says sorry but again pushes her away forcefully that she falls down, or that he yells at her in front of his parents while standing up for his mother, or that he promises to marry her and that he’ll meet her at the registrar’s office—only to not show up. When she confronts him away from the milling crowd of his colleagues, he yells: “My princess is angry.” Because somewhere he is confident that she will come back. She does, but she also goes away. Only to be found later by him and unite.”
With so much strain and tension going on between these two characters that were totally poles apart, was there a necessity to bring them together irrespective of them realizing that they would have to change who they are to live with each other?