Punjabi House (1998)

Interesting facts

Punjabi House is a 1998 Indian Malayalam-language comedy drama film written and directed by Rafi Mecartin. It stars Dileep and Harisree Ashokan as Unni and Ramanan with Mohini, Jomol, Lal, Cochin Haneefa, Thilakan, Janardhanan and N. F. Varghese in other pivotal roles. It revolves around Unni, a debt-ridden entrepreneur who attempts suicide by jumping into the sea so that his family can use the insurance money to repay his debts. However, he survives and is rescued by two debt ridden fisherman, who keep him as a servant in the house of a Punjabi family of moneylenders, so that they can repay the sum at a later time.

Production

Rafi and Mecartin initially got the idea for a story from an incident that happened while on a train journey. They had ordered breakfast on the train. However, since it was spoilt, they had to throw it out. Seeing them throw the food out, a student in a school uniform took the food from the ground. The duo asked him not to take the food and warned him that the food was spoilt.

Jayaram was initially offered the role of Unni. However, he couldn't take up the role due to prior commitments. In the original script, the main location of the film was the drawing room of the house where the Punjabi families lived. Initially, they rented out an auditorium where they would create a set. However, Rafi-Mecartin wasn't satisfied as the auditorium was smaller than planned.

The scene where Unni asks all the debt collectors to come to Dharmadam, so that he can repay the debts was not actually shot in Dharmadom, but in Alappuzha. In the scene where Dileep jumps into the water, a dupe was hired from Madras (now Chennai). Upon reaching the location, Rafi-Mecartin learnt that the dupe was inexperienced.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.