Nandu (film)

Nandu is a 1981 Indian Tamil-language film written and directed by Mahendran. The film stars Ashwini and newcomer Suresh. It is based on the 1975 novel of the same name by Sivasankari. The film was released on 17 April 1981 and failed commercially.

Plot
Ramkumar Sharma is a sickly engineer living in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh in a large family. He suffers from asthma and does not like the behaviour of his autocratic father, but is deeply attached to his loving mother. Unable to get along with his father who compels him to marry a girl of his choice, Sharma leaves for Madras, Tamil Nadu. He finds a job there and meets Seetha. Once settled, he goes around looking for a house with the help of house broker. Incidentally, he finds Seetha residing as a tenant in a portion under the very same house. He likes the portion and agrees to start living there. The lives of the girls who live in portions of the large house are brightened by the appearance of the engineer from Lucknow. Of them, two of them try to impress Sharma. One of them is the house owner's daughter, while the other is Seetha. Eventually, he ends up marrying Seetha.

Production
Nandu is based on the 1975 novel of the same name by Sivasankari. Suhasini, who previously appeared in Mahendran's Nenjathai Killathe (1980), worked as an assistant cinematographer under Ashok Kumar. The film took liberties with the novel; while the protagonist in the novel is a cancer patient, the disease was changed to asthma for the film. Debutant Suresh was chosen as the lead actor portraying a Hindi-speaking man from Lucknow when Mahendran saw him at his friend's home while Ashwini who earlier acted in Mahendran's Uthiripookkal (1979) was the lead actress. Sarath Babu dubbed Suresh's voice. Mahendran spotted an actress named Beena Halsi at Lucknow and chose her to portray Suresh's mother. Since the male protagonist and his family are shown to be hailing from Lucknow as depicted in the novel, Mahendran wanted to shoot in Lucknow but felt the budget would escalate; however producer Dakshinamoorthy agreed to this, thus Mahendran shot two songs with Hindi lyrics there. While filming the song "Kaise Kahoon", Suresh struggled to emote which led Mahendran to film the whole song focusing only on Ashwini.

Themes
Writing for Frontline, Venkatesh Chakravarthy believes the title Nandu is a metaphor used as a "double-edged weapon in the film".

Soundtrack
The soundtrack was composed by Ilaiyaraaja. The songs "Kaise Kahoon" and "Hum Hai Akele" are entirely in Hindi. The song "Manjal Veyil" is set in the Carnatic raga Kalyani.

Release and reception
Nandu was released on 17 April 1981. The posters were designed with a crab's shadow looming over the protagonist to indicate his eventual death. When the film was released in theatres, audience mocked the film, saying Mahendran made a complete Hindi film which led the producer to dub the Hindi dialogues into Tamil and re-released it much to the dissatisfaction of Mahendran. Despite this, the film failed at box-office. Kumudam noted the film's abundance of Hindi dialogues, and caustically commented that any more dialogues in Hindi would result in K. Balaji (a film producer known mainly for remaking Hindi films in Tamil) remaking the film in Tamil. Jeeva of Kalki appreciated the comedy by Mahendran's usual team of Kumarimuthu, Vennira Aadai Moorthy and Samikannu, the cinematography by Ashok Kumar, Ilaiyaraaja's music, and concluded that the film was a must watch for Mahendran's filmmaking prowess. Maalai Malar attributed the film's failure to the audience's inability to understand the many Hindi dialogues.