Up to Jan 29

Kolangal

a lot has happened since the last posting. Tolkapian kidnaps the three apartment owners, takes them to a slum area near the beach, and threatens to kill them unless they sign over their property to Abhi constructions, as per their earlier agreement. meanwhile, their wives complain to Adi. Adi organizes a group of ruffians to go to Tolkappian's house and threaten Shanti and her daughter.  he then calls Tholkappain saying that unless the apartmentowners arereleased, Shanti and the child will come to harm. Tolkappian agrees to let them go. Normally, that should have been enough.  But, Adi being Adi, he wants to personally enjoy Tolkappain's discomfiture.  He says, quote it right there, I want to come and see you.  He reaches the beach, where Tols is standing with a group of his associates (read, milder thugs). When Adi asks, he says the three have already been sent back home.  If he wants, he can check up himself by calling their wives. Adi does so. He gets a positive answer saying they have reached home.  Now this is a huge gamble.  After all, where is the guarantee that they themselves would not have answered the phone?  Anyhow. now Adi calls off his men. Tolkappian calls Shanti to verify that they have left, and walks away to talk to her in private.  When he returns, he finds Adi gloating over how no one can best him. Tolkappian tells him not to be so sure.  He pulls out of his pocket a sheet of paper, and hands it to Adi. Adi read through it and grows increasingly furious. He discovers that Tolkappian has pulled a fast one on him.  He tears up the agreement, and says, triumphantly, not what would you do?  Tolkappian smiles, and answers that that was only a color copy, the original is safe elsewhere.  Now, Adi says wait just a second I would have my men go right backand get your  friends (Shanti and child). Once again, Tolkappian smiles.  What you think I was talking to her about, he asks.  I've asked her to go to another place, but you cannot find.  Adi knows he has lost this round. he threatens retribution and walks away.

When Tolkappian brings the agreement to Ranjan and says the registration will be tomorrow, Ranjan and Rajamani say they want no part of it, because it has been  acquired using threats.  Tolkappian explains to them that this was necessary only because they would not keep their end of the bargain.  They refuse to agree.  They tell him that unless the project is completed on the given date they will be out of it.  Tolkappian then goes searching for someone to buy the land.  He manages to find an electronics magnate, who agrees to buy the land.the registration will be tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Inspector Prabhu's wife and sonhave returnedfrom Pondicherry, saying the place did not agree with them.  She says her father-in-law died suddenly, and all his pension arrears will take a while to come through.  In the meantime she, she was hoping Tolkappian will be able to help.  He says he will try his best, but right now he is in a hurry to go to a meeting. Gunga, who is there, offers to help.  She says, elliptically, that in a way, it could even be considered as a penance on her part. When the lady says she has no place to stay, Gunga says the auto portion of herhome is available for rent.  She then rushes home, to persuade her father to give the place to the lady.Her father refuses,but Gunga uses psychology.  She argues against giving this lady the apartment.  Immediately the father turns aroundand says the city must get the apartment.it is all settled.  Ramachandran has his eye on this potential fling, and tries to get friendly with the new tenant.


Arasi
Much water underthe Pamban bridge, so to speak.

On the day of the immersion of Tamarai's ashes, Andavan has set a couple of his goons to go on underwater and cut GJ's throat. At the last minute, GJ invites Selvi to walk with him into the water they can immerse Tamarai's ashes together. Why she would agree is one of those eternal mysteries of Tamil serials. she does as both of them are submerged, Selvi gets up, clutching her throat, full of blood.  everyone rushes to her, and take her to thehospital.  They also catch hold of GJ and hand him over to the police, saying that he had somehow hidden a knife on himself and tried to kill her. Like Tendulkar's 41st century, the number of hospital scenes in Selvi/Arasi must also be a world record. In these hospitals are anything but the crowded hell-holes  the rest of us get to endure. The Selvi family seem to be the only occupants. as usual the doctor says nothing can be said of the moment  They have operate.

yogeswaran rushes to the temple, where a homam is being performed by Sentamilarasi's family, for the well-being of her daughter.  The family thinks this is for Kalai. During the ceremony, Yogeswaran shows up on obtrusively, and manages to attract Sentamilarasi's  attention he tells her that her elder daughter is in grave danger, and lying in the hospital fighting for her life.  He pleads with her that she should come to the hospital and just call out to her daughter and all will be well.  She struggles a little,but in the end says she cannot.  My daughter will be well she tells him.  I cannot compromise my current life by doing these things.  Then she asks, how much money do you need?  Yogeswaran is insulted.  He says you cannot put a price on this, all that is needed is you visiting your daughter.  She refuses and asks him to leave.  Then he thunders, "you will have to answer for this one day, Sentamilarasi!", and leaves.  When she gets back to the homam, it is almost over.  She bids the others to leave saying she needs to talk to the priest, and then tells him to perform a similar homam for Selvi. He does. The paguttarivu channel now shows, as the homam proceeds, Selvi slowly opening her eyes and regaining consciousness. Soon the doctor emerges, and tells the family that she is out of danger.  However it is a different question whether she can regain her voice.  The injury to the throat leaves that open to doubt.they all go in and see her.  The cops come too. They have been clamoring to put away GJ for life. The cop says he needs her statement to take any further action. She cannot talk. They put a piece of paper before, asking to write GJ's name. She does so, but adds the words, "did not do it. It was another face." Everyone is shocked. The cop says so much for your evidence, to all of them,  and walks away.

back in the police station, they release GJ. When he asks why they are being so nice to him all of a sudden, the inspector shows him Selvi's statement. He appreciates her honesty to himself.  Then he heads straight to the hospital,  where no one will talk to him, or tell him where Selvi is. As he says, I will go and find out from the front desk, young Kaveri jumps up and takes his hand, saying, "I will show you", leads him straight to the room. There, he hands out a piece of paper to Selvi, asking her to sign it, so that the case against him can be withdrawn. She is disgusted.  She crumples up the paper and throws it aside. he is in a rage. Why won't you do it, he shouts.  Why can't you be a woman, like other women? by this time, Yogeswaran is in the room. He grips GJ, and asks him to leave.   When GJ refuses and lies on the floor in a mariyal, he calls the young men - Tamarai's  brothers and Prabanjan, and they bodily lift GJ and take them out of the room. Now it is kaveri's turn.   She lies on the floor, and demands her father.

They all decide to go back to Madras same-day. As does Sentamilarasi.  She too has had enough of this place, and insists on going back to Madras immediately.

Back in Madras, we are shown Selvi's new mansion. The lone Tiffin shop has grown to a half-dozen hotels, and the new one is scheduled to be opened shortly. Entering the front door, Selvi's mother says some insulting things about those who would feed off Selvi's success, hint, hint to Tamarai's father. When her husband chides her, she says I have every night to say all this because I am, after all, Selvi's mother.  I'm family!  Tamarai's father is deeply wounded by her words, and makes his way to Selvi, sitting with a bandage around her neck, to seek permission to move back with his own sons. Having lost her voice, she cannot say anything, but she does a nice job of showing her distress. He assures her that he will be at her beck and call, no matter where he is.

at Sentamilarasi's p place, she has decided to plunge back into work so that she can forget a guilty conscience at not having gone and visited herdaughter. She decides to take kalai with her to Bombay.  Just as they are leaving, Kalai  faints, and her brother rushes to her, and discovers that there is blood coming out of her mouth.

GJ is playing a deep game with his daughter's affection.  the child asks him why he has not come to see her and he gives her a cock and bull story. Selvi is anguished at her talking to him, but also sees that the child is longing for him.

Up to Jan 12

Wishing everyone a Merry Sankaranti and Happy Pongal!

KOLANGAL

Adi launches his effort to ward off the Human Rights Commission
inquiry. His strategy is to make up with Abhi. To this end, he arrives
at Abhi's place with a vast array of gifts - huge refrigerator, new
big screen TV, fruits to feed the entire island of Fiji, etc. Abhi's
mother is soothed by his words of apology, but, when Abhi arrives, she
rejects is olive branch and says she cannot forget what she has been
trhough, nor can she forget that Manjula died.

Adi returns to Minister, frustrated.

Meanwhile, Abhi decides to see if she can negotiate with the three
holdouts in the land deal, and make them see reason. They, instructed
by Giri on orders from Adi, laugh at her, make fun of her. She says,
finally, do you know you are legally bound to honor your agreement,
after all you have signed it...

They laugh at her once more, and tell her to find that agreement among
her papers, if she can. They add that the agreement has already been
stolen from her premises and handed over to Adi. They mention that the
person who did this was Ganga.

Abhi returns to the office, and, with Rajamani madam's key, they
jointly discover that the agreement is missing. Abhi accuses Ganga of
doing this. Ganga points to Bhaskar who, after all had Abhi's key.
Ganga walks away in a rage.

Later Ganga goes to Tolkappian and complains. He tells her she has
been going down the wrong path all this while. He asks her to calmly
consider what happened, recollecting what could have happened.
Suspcicon falls on Ramachandran, who was hovering around her office
one day. Tolkappian asks her to cease her mischief hereafter, and let
him deal with Ramachandran.

Arasi

Yogeswaran (of Selvi) is not really Selvi's father, he merely adopted
her as a child, when a young girl of 18 conceived her outside of
marriage, and gave birth to the baby girl. This young lady is now a
police officer, married to a judge, mother of a boy and girl, both
young adults. Yogeswaran discovers she lives in town, and comes to her
saying he has something of hers in his possession that he wishes to
return. She advises him that he should forget about the matter,
because Selvi learning of her existence will cause no end of trouble
to all concerned.

All are in Rameswaram. There is a ceremony to pray for a baby for
Prabanjan and click-click (is Pandian still gunning for them?) GJ
shows up uninvited and calls Selvi's daughte to him. Tamarai's
children ignore him.

Andavan calls a young thug and tells them he wants GJ dead, but not
immediately, in due time when he tells him.

Up to Jan 9

Kolangal
the human rights inquiry into Manjula's death reaches Adi's office.  A team of five, led by a chief wearing a coat arrives to see Adi. At first he is arrogant, dismissing them saying he has no need to answer any questions.  Box, when warned that the commission has as much power as a court, he changes his tune.  He is asked about his association with the ex-minister. He says he was engaged to be married to the minister's daughter, but changed his mind and married Abhi's associate, Usha. He says his relations with the ex-minister are still pretty warm. He says Abhi has been making his life miserable, because she cannot compete with him in business. Suddenly,  the man in the coat ask swhether he knows a woman called Salpeta Saroja.  Adi  stumbles, enough to reveal that he does know something.  Though he denies all knowledge, the human rights man understands that there is some connection.

Adi rushes to see the ex-minister, only to find that the commission is there before him.  Upstairs, the minister is trying tofirst fob off his unwelcome visitors by belittlingtheir work.  When this fails, he also relies on denial, saying he has no association with anybody called Salpeta Saroja. After all, hundreds of people use to meet him when he was a minister, and he could not be expected remember every one of them.  Once again, the human rights Commissioner says he might have more questions, and gets up and leaves.

Adi, who is now waiting in the shadows, steps out and meets with the minister.  He says the immediate need is to silence Salpeta Saroja. The human rights commission is not something that can be fooled with.  The Minister then says that he had a falling out with her.  Her brothers had come to him demanding five lakhs. He chased them off.  Then she called him, and he had spoken harshly with her aswell, as she had been disprespectful too. What to do now? Adi says there is no alternative to paying them off.  She could get us both in jail, he says.

Anu is in her parents' place. Easwaran tries in his wimpy wayto tell his wife but what she has done was not correct.  She asks them to buzz off.  Her mother stays the same thing to her, but she will not listen.

Rekha is sitting in a restaurant. Suddenly, she sees Arjun and his fiancée arrive and occupy a table nearby, although they don't see her.  She is jealous of how sweetly they are talking to each other, particularly his highly complementary references to his sister-in-law, Usha. She heads out in disgust, and, seeing Arjun's motorbike, tampers with it so that it will not start.  when the couple come out, Arjun is embarrassed by the motorbike not starting.

At Abhi's  place, the landlord appears, demanding rent.  Abhi tells him to wait until evening.  He is furious.  He says even people who are working for a living are more decent than this.  And here you are, a business owner, trying these tricks!  while she's pleading with him, Mano appears from his room.  He has in his hands a bunch of notes which he places in the landlord's hands, saying here is your money.  At this point his model steps in, and demands that the landlord return the money back to her son. Her daughter will pay him in the evening as promised. The landlord reluctantly accepts.  When he is gone, she tells her son, who protests, that Abhi is her real son.  They did not want to live off of his earnings, because the money comes from a business that his in-laws have set up for him, not something that he has earned himself.  He is hurt. Abhi consoles him, saying that his mother is speaking from anguish, and that he should not take it to heart.

Upon Adi's advice, ex-minister has invited the three ruffians to come and collect the money.  They come quite meekly. He apologizes for his rudeness last time, saying that he had been preoccupied, and their sudden demand for such a large sum evoked the response it did.  They accept his apology, but before accepting the money, they say he should talk to their sister.  One of them calls her in the jail, and hands the phone over to the Minister.  Once again he is nice, but discovers that she has not forgiven him.  She knows what the game is all about.  She says, five lakhs was then.  Now the price is gone up.  Unless you get my brothers 50 lakhs, you and Adi will be counting bars, because I intend to side with Abhi.  The Minister can hardly contain himself.  He starts violently towards the ruffians, but is restrained by Adi, who cools him down and asks him to tell them that he will get the sum  ready and call them. they leave. Adi then says that this has to be dealt with in a different manner, and his face clouds over with a plan.

Up to Jan 7

Kolangal

Mano and Anu return from their shop, bearing gifts for Mano's mother and Abhi. Meanwhile, Abhi's and aunt Sharada  has told of these mother of the shop Adi has set up for them.  She is already upset and distraught, when they arrive.  She refuses to accept their gifts, and asks him what she has done to deserve this insult.  Before he can answer, his wife speaks loud and clear, accusing Abhi of not doing anything for her brother.  After all, if she had set him up in business, even her own business of construction, he would have risen to a board position by now.  Instead, here he was, a lowly mechanic. Aarati, who who has taken a vow to speak up on every matter, with great outrage, says her piece.  This provokes the daughter-in-law even further, and she starts out on a grand speech, cut short suddenly by a spasm of pain, after which she faints. Now, everyone is all over her, full of concern.  They rush her to the hospital. Abhi, Aarati and Mano wait outside.  Mano is full of tears.  Abhi goes over to him and says she's proud of him, because he is showing so much devotion to his wife.  At this point the doctor comes out,  says that there isnothing to worry about, the young lady is pregnant.  Much joy.

Here, Adi and his mother Kanchana arrive at the hospital, concerned about Anu's condition. Mano informs them that it is good news, she is with child. Adi immediately declares that she cannot be left to the care off her poor in-laws, and should be taken to his house immediately.  Mano agrees, though he is tormented by some doubt, and overrules Abhi but she says the proper course is to come home.  He dismisses his sisters, and says the child welfare is paramount, and that he is going to take the child to Adi's house, where his wife will receive the best care. The sisters leave, with tears in their eyes.

when they reach home, late in the evening, their mother and uncle are waiting anxiously.  Abhi offers her mother some sweets, saying that she is going to be a grandmother soon. Karpagam is overjoyed, and rushes to Mano's room to greet her son and daughter-in-law. They are not there of course. Then Abhi has to tell her the whole story. The world crumbles around her at this hugeslap her son has given her. Abhi tries to calm her down by saying that they will be back home in a couple of days, but Aarati, whose tongue is far quicker than her brain, blurts out that her daughter-in-law is going to be in her parents' home for the entire duration of her pregnancy. The mother is devastated.

Meanwhile, Usha arrives at a hotel to meet with someone Krishnan sir has set up.  he explains that it is non-other than Ranjan, Rajamani  Madame's nephew, who heard about her plight and was willing to advance the money. inside, Ranjan tells her that the money is already, but she has to sign a blank stamp paper.  She declines, saying that these relate to her shares in Abhi Constructions, and she cannot sign any blank paper without consulting with our partners.  She walks away.  As she reaches the front of the hotel, she gets a call from Maddy, threatening to send the pictures to her family immediately.  She hesitates, then comes back and goes inside to Ranjan, telling him she has changed her mind about signing.  She signsthe papers and takes the money. later she delivers the money to Maddy,  who gives her an envelope containing photographs, negatives (wasn't it a video camera?) and the tape.  They are meeting at some hotel, on the lawns. Adi's assistant, Giri, who happens to be walking by, spots them from a distance.  He withdraws into some bushes, and notes Maddy leaving, and then Usha leaving separately.

Dec 29

KOLANGAL

Abhi confronts Mano with taking help from Adi. Mano is defiant, and finally stalks away, leaving Abhi in tears at his disloyalty to the family.

Anjali, in bed, goes over all that has happened: she remembers Maddy showing her a sneak preview of the photographs by hiding them from her fiancé.  She remembers his threats.  She remembers Usha telling her that her father cannot afford to give them the money as he has some business problems currently.  She feels hopeless.  She gets up, and proceeds to hang herself from the ceiling fan.  Just at this point, the door opens and Usha enters. Catching her just-in-time, she scolds and slaps her into sanity.  She gives her hope saying that she will support for and make sure everything turns out well.

Alamelu asks Bhaskar why he would do a dumb thing like that. Why would he steal the necklace from his own home?  Here applies that his future is intricately tied in with that of Abhi. If she falls he falls too. His mother is silly and foolish to jeopardize Abhi's well-being, because their own depends on it.  The model begins to see that this makes sense.

Adi and Kanchana go to minister's house to invite him and Rekha to Arjun's wedding. Minister was very gracious and accepting the invitation and says he will make sure personally that it is celebrated in a grand manner.  After they leave his daughter expresses for frustration and anger at her father, for not understanding her situation and disappointment.  She says, have you no concern for me? I want to be married into that house. Minister asks her to be patient.  He says don't worry, my heart is seething too! I will make sure that it is you who gets married to Arjun, not that judges daughter.  A smile returns to Rekha's face.

Dec 28

KOLANGAL (Dec 28)

Alamelu rushes to Suresh's place and accuses him. She accuses him of stealing the necklace. He denies it. His sister in law Kala asks Alamelu if she would like to call the police, if she suspects Suresh. That way, the entire story, including the one lakh, could come out. Alamelu beats a hasty retreat.

Bhaskar returns home and reveals that it was he that took the necklace. Alamelu says, have you gone crazy? He says no, I am just the same old bad guy I always was. but I have to mind the future. If Abhi goes down, I go down too. She accepts his argument.

Usha returns from Bangalore. Anjali tells her about the incident at the restaurant. She asks her to somehow come up with the money soon.

The new cellphone shop opens, which Adi has set up for his brother in law and foster sister. Abhi, who  was walking back from somewhere, sees the opening sign and looks inside with a mixture of surprise and upset.