Malayalees love to appropriate place names and so Mangaluru becomes Mangalapuram and Chennai’s old moniker Madras becomes Madhirashi. It is pronounced with a lot of love, a touch of yearning and is frothy like the tea you get in the innumerable Chetta-kadais dotting the city.
The current Chennai and the former Madras have always surfaced in Malayalam films, also called Mollywood by those who prefer labels. The umbilical cord between artistes from beyond the Western Ghats and the sunshine city on the Coromandel Coast has always remained intact. When the great movie studios were based in Madras, it was inevitable that Prem Nazir, Bahadur, Jayabharathi and Sheela, to name a few, preferred settling down in this metropolis.
Directors like I.V. Sasi and Priyadarshan followed suit and it was inevitable that Madras played a part in many Malayalam films, be it as a location or by lending studio assistance.
