Manaivi Ready (transl. Wife is Ready) is a 1987 Indian Tamil-language comedy film, produced and directed by Pandiarajan. The film stars Pandiarajan and Debashree Roy, with K. A. Thangavelu, R. S. Manohar and Manorama in supporting roles. Roy was credited as Sinthamani. It was her only film in Tamil.[1]

Manaivi Ready
Directed byPandiarajan
Written byPandiarajan
Produced byPandiarajan
Starring
CinematographyAshok Kumar
Edited byV. Rajagopal
P. Mohan Raj
Music byIlaiyaraaja
Production
company
Ratnam Art Movies
Release date
  • 21 January 1987 (1987-01-21)
Running time
109 minutes
CountryIndia
LanguageTamil

Plot

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Radha (Padiyarajan) is a highschool student who is mischievous and gets into trouble with his lateral thinking and naughty way of answering his teachers. Radha's father is a police officer with hopes on his son and wishes his son to be a musician like his grandfather and wants to stage his son's violin skills.  One day, Radha and his friends attend their friend's sister's wedding far in a village. The bride's father have a lot of respect for the guests arriving from Chennai city. In a sudden turn of events, the bride Chintamani's father attempts suicide; the reason being that the bridegroom (Chintamani's aunt's son) had quit the wedding with a reason letter that he had won a lottery prize and wanted to look for a better family for the marriage proposal. Chintamani's life gets hopeless as she was turned down right during the marriage, a talk goes on for who is interested in marrying the girl. Radha empathises and has interests in marrying her. Chintamani is now married to radha.

Radha is now tensed of how he is going to take his marriage news to his father. Chintamani's family travel to chennai to inform and drop the couple at in-law's house. Radha's father is shocked to hear the news. The next day go as usual; Chintamani is given household duties of preparing radha for his highschool. Radha goes to school and his collegues welcome him with celebrations for his marriage. Radha's classmates wants him to whisper about his marriage night. radha says he has not even seen her face properly. Radha opens his lunch and finds a sorry letter from his wife as she was not able to cook for his lunch. On return from school, radha brings flowers for a rupee to home. Radha's teacher who resides in the same apartment reveals the lunch box and warns radha's father to postpone violin staging as radha is interested more in his marriage life. As a revenge, Radha patiently blasts his teacher's mouth by adultrating his teacher's cigarette. Radha's teacher plans a revenge using radha's classmate. Radha and classmate gets into fight leading to action from principal. Principal suspends the teacher.

Days later comes Radha's birthday and chintamani wants to gift him presents of radha's interest. She goes to radha's teacher and asks him to buy gifts as he knows radha well as a teacher. When radha returns home, he finds a lot of gift wrapped presents from his wife. He opens them and finds different items like Shoes, skin cream, body building spring. He finds them discriminating and accuses her that she brought heels shoes as he is short, skin cream as he is dark and exersise-spring as he is weak. He explains her his expectations he had for his future wife. Later radha's dad wants radha to focus on his violin learnings and gets chintamani's promise on that. One day, Radha watches a movie in cinema and gets tempted by the intimate scenes from that movie, and returns home and tries to touch his wife in the same fashion. She slaps him for his deeds. Radha reminds her of the sacrifice he made in marrying her and him getting a slap in return for his sacrifice. Chintamani apologises to him. Later, chintamani explains what happened, to her father-in-law. Father in-law decides to arrange for a bedding ceremony for Radha and chintamani. But chintamani reveals that radha did not accept her apology and left to prostitute.

Later a policeman comes and informs the accident met by radha after visiting a prostitution house and trying to escape a raid. Chintamani and radha's father see him at a hospital. Radha undergoes a surgery. Chintamani as a wife makes a lot of customs in her prayers at temples. Chintamani's parents were sent a telegram about the accident. Radha's aunt on her way to Chennai meets her son who sells lottery tickets for a living. Meanwhile, Radha consults the doctor to clarify his doubts regarding his fertility after the surgery. The doctor assures him that there are no issues. Radha decorates and arranges his hospital room for wedding consummation. Chintamani's aunt after visiting radha at hospital, on their way back, gets a wrong message from the watchman about Radha's fertileness that he would not have a heir. Back in their village, chintamani's aunt and father decide to re-marry Chintamani to her aun't son. Radha is discharged from hospital and later practices for his violin staging. On the other side, chintamani is forced for re-marriage. During the violin performance, goes simultaneously Chintamani's re-marriage ceremony. Right during the ceremony, chintamani gets pregnancy vomiting; and she reveals that she had her consummation with her husband in hospital itself. This stops the re-marriage ceremony. Radha performs well at his violin staging and receives much appreciations. Later, Radha and Chintamani are reunited.

Cast

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Soundtrack

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All songs were written by Vaali and composed by Ilaiyaraaja.[2][3]

Title Singer(s) Duration
"Saan Pillai" Ilaiyaraaja, S. Janaki 4:47
"Pallavan Odura" Malaysia Vasudevan 4:33
"Varuga" Deepan Chakravarthy, Rajeswari 4:26
"Udambu Ippo" S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, S. Janaki 5:01
"Unna Vitaa" Ilaiyaraaja 4:26

Reception

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Jayamanmadhan of Kalki wrote initially, Pandiarajan had started pouring all the good ghee with the intention of giving some good Mysore pak. Gradually the softness has escaped.[4]

Legacy

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In 2014, Deepika Ramesh of Silverscreen India called Manaivi Ready a rare Tamil film to employ "classroom jokes to good effect".[5]

References

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  1. ^ Rohini (24 September 2021). "ரீவைண்ட்-வில்லங்கமான கதையை நாகரீகமாக சொன்ன மனைவி ரெடி". CineReporters (in Tamil). Archived from the original on 18 August 2023. Retrieved 18 August 2023.
  2. ^ "Manaivi Ready Tamil Film LP Vinyl Record by Ilayaraaja". Macsendisk. Archived from the original on 16 August 2023. Retrieved 16 August 2023.
  3. ^ "Manaivi Ready (1987)". Raaga.com. Archived from the original on 16 August 2023. Retrieved 16 August 2023.
  4. ^ ஜெயமன்மதன் (18 January 1987). "மனைவி ரெடி". Kalki (in Tamil). p. 38. Archived from the original on 18 August 2023. Retrieved 18 August 2023 – via Internet Archive.
  5. ^ Ramesh, Deepika (26 December 2014). "Kappal Review: Smooth Sailing". Silverscreen India. Archived from the original on 30 September 2020. Retrieved 15 February 2020.
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