Hi friends in this article let us discuss about a famous Tamil film called as "ANJALI" directed by Maniratnam.This film is a family film and mostly it revolves around child artists and this film was a super hit.Another important thing about the film is that the music is marvelous and it was composed by none other than our Maestro "Ilaiyaraaja".

This story mostly revolves around a apartment and this film is about a child called Anjali who was born mentally ill.At first in the apartment all the children make fun of her but later they become very close and Anjali becomes every body's close friend.

Another most important aspect is the climax when Anjali was found dead on one fine morning everybody tries to wake her and this scene was the best in the film and I guess many would have cried due to this scene.Maniratnam who is usually known to take different kind of stories did an extremely job and this was not the usual type of movie that people have watched and everybody would have enjoyed and the climax would have made them cry..

Technical crew of the movie

i)This film was directed by the the legend Mani Ratnam, who is known for his extremely different story line and he usually takes real life story and that includes,"Iruvar" whose story resemles the life of MGR and Karunanithi, "Guru" whose story line resemles that of Dhirubhai Ambani, "kannathil Muthamittal" based on the problems faced by Sri Lankan Tamils and many other standard movies.

ii)Maniratnam distributed this movie with his company "Madras Talkies" and this film was produced by Mani Ratnam and his brother G. Venkateswaran

iii)The Maestro, Isainani Ilaiyaraaja composed the music for this movie and has done an excellent job and every song in this movie was a huge hit and hugely appreciated.

iv)The editing for this film was done by B. Lenin and Vijayan.

v)Officially this film was released December 3, 1990

vi)This is comparitively a short movie when compared with other Tamil movie which runs for 2 and half hours,and this movie runs for 2 hours and ten minutes.

vii)This film cinematography is done by Madhu Ambat.

viii)Mani Ratnam also wrote the dialogue for this movie.

ix)This film has won 3 National Awards.

x)All the main Child Artists i.e, Tarun, Shruti and Shamili won the National Award for the Best Child Actor

xi)Apart from this Pandu Rangan won the National Award for the Best Audiography

xii)This film also won the National Award for the Best Regional film in Tamil

xiii)This film was a huge hit and the gross revenue compared to the present money value is 10 crores

xiv)Another interesting thing in this movie is that 4 out of the songs were sung by Ilaiyaraaja's and Gangai Amaran's(who is the brother of Ilaiyaraaja) children and these includes

#)Karthik Raja,Yuvan Shankar Raja,Bhavatharini(Ilaiyaraaja's son and daughter).At present they are famous Music directors

#)Venkat Prabhu,who is the famous director and actor who directed Chennai 600028, Saroja and Goa and Premji Amaran, who is the famous comedian and also music director(Gangai Amaran's son)

Artists and casts

Apart from Raghuvaran, Revathi and Prabhu other main artists includes mostly child artists.

i)Raghuvaran as Shekhar, who is a civil Engineer and he works in a construction site

ii)Revathi as Chitra, and she is the wife of Shekhar

iii)TarunKumar as Arjun and he is the elder son of Shekhar and Chitra.Tarun is at present the famous actor in Telugu Film Industry and he also acted as a hero in two Tamil films that includes, Enaku 20 Unaku 18 and Punnagai Thesam.He also acted as a child artist in Rajinkant's film Thalapathi and his character in that movie is that he is a petty - thief, who finds the baby Rajinikant in the Train and also in the film Meera

iv)Shruti as Anu

v)Shamili as Anjali and she is none other than the younger sister of Tamil Actress Shalini and she has also acted in the famous Tamil film "Kandukondain Kandukondain" where her character's name is Kamala and she is the younger sister of Tabu and Aishwarya Rai in that movie.

Apart from this another important aspect is that the present famous Tamil director Vishnuvardhan who has directed famous films like Kurumbu, Arinthum Ariyamalum, Pattiyal, Billa, Sarvam, also played as a child artist in this movie.

About the movie

The movie starts when Tarun and Sruti calls for a taxi so that they could take their mother , who is pregnant , along with their father to the hospital.They also decided to keep their child's name as Anjali, as they believe that they would have a girl child.They reach the hospital and Chitra gives birth to a girl child, but Doctor and Sekhar gives Chira the bad news that her child was dead.This made the whole family worry.

To overcome these thoughts, after few years the family moves to a new apartment which contains lots of families and more importantly many children.This was a positive move as they except that everything will change and as a result of this they start to live happily.

The important problem in the apartment is the children as they are usually naughty and they make lots of problems and one such problem is that they always make fun of the Ex- Watchman,Janakaraj, who is mentally retarded and they also usually tease make fun of all the elders.

They also helped the lovers from their parents and with these children the entire apartment becomes lively.At first when sekhar's family comes to the apartment the wont accept Arjun and Anu as their friends and they usually involve in quarrel.But after some time they become friends and all were happy.Another important character the whole apartment is afraid of is Prabhu,who is an ex-convict and he lives alone in his flat.

Everything was going well until one evening, the New Year Eve, when Arjun went out with his friends to celebrate it saw his father with another woman.When he returns home Chitra scolded her for being late and when Sekhar comes home Chitra asks Sekhar to beat Arjun and that time Tarun says Chitra that he saw his father with another woman but Sekhar refuses this and says Chitra Arjun was lying, and Chitra also believed it.

After some day Chitra along with Arjun and Anu goes to the construction site where Sekhar was working and she notices that he was not there and leaves home.That night Sekar comes home late and when Chitra asks why he was late he said that he had an important work in the site and Chitra found that he was lying and the problem begins as Chitra thinks that Sekhar was having an affair with some other woman and asks to promise to forget that woman for the benefit of the children.

After some day when Chitra was travelling in a bus she sees Sekhar was walking with another woman in the platform.On seeing this she got down from the bus and followed them to a hospital.After that she comes to the apartment and she decides to go out of the apartment with his children as she thinks Sekhar was cheating.

At that time Sekhar comes and stops here and he broke the secret that their daughter(Called as Anjali), who everbody believed was dead when she was born, was alive and he also takes Chitra to the Ashram where Anjali lives as she was mentally retarded.Sekhar says that Anjali was not born dead but her condition was very pathetic and doctor believed that she can't be alive for more than 4 days.

So Sekhar and the Doctor have decided to say that the child was dead .But surprisingly the child managed to live for a longer time than expected but the development of brain was normal.After hearing this Chitra decides to take their daughter to their apartment knowing the condition that Anjali was ill and may die any time.

They took Anjali to their appartment and every family in the appartment had bad idea about the child.Arjun and Anu didn't accept Anjali as they were not interested in accpeting the mentally retarded child as their sister and they believed that everybody will tease them.

When Arjun and Anu were returning from the school, they say their friends were making fun of Anjali, as she was not mentally normal and seeing this Arjun got angry and he started to quarrel with them and ends in injury.At the same time Anu takes Anjali to her flat and beats Anjali, as she believed that Anjali was responsible for Arjun getting hurt.

When the problem was over Anjali comes to Arjun's room and she cries after seeing Arjun being hurt and from this time onwards both Arjun and Anu realise that she is precious and started to be kind with Anjali.Now Arjun goes with Anjai and introduced her as his sister to his friends with whom he was quarreling and he also challenges to tease her now if anybody has guts.

But this doesn't end in quarrel again as everybody accepted Anjali and they were very fond of her.All were happy.

One day Sekhar witness a murder and he knew that the murderer was Dharma and informs police , who arrested him.Apart from this Chitra was shocked to see Anjali in Prabhu's flat and she wasrn Prabhu not to see Anjali again as he was a ex- murderer who spent 10 years in jail.

During the Apartment meeting everyone asked Sekhar to move out of the apartment of to leave the child in the mental hospital as they believe that the Anjai's presence will disturb the behaviour of their children and this made Sekhar angry and leaves that place after scolding them.

This time Prabhu comes and warns the members of the apartment and he said that no one has rights to move this innocent child out of the apartment and he also says other to be perfect before asking this innocent child to go.

At this time Chitra who believe Prabhu was an arrogant man now realsise he was a good hearted man and only circumstance made him to do the murer and he also has some reason for that.

One day Police Commisioner calls Sekhar to be careful as Dharma has come out in bail and as expected he comes to the appartmet and kinaps Arjun and ask Sekhar to com out.But during that time prabhu was in their flat and after attending the all he goed down and kills Dharma and he was arrested again. he also believed no problem will come to Sekar's family hereafter.

When everthing was fine, one day, early in the morning, Anu comes to Anjali's rooma nd tries to wake Anjali but in vain and so she calls her brother Arjun, who finds that Anjali was dead.But Anu who doesn't know this calls her dad, mother and all her friends in the apartment to wake Anjali.This scene was excellent and Anu's acting especially in this scene was awesome.Finally the film ends with Anjali's death.