Mambazha pulissery is a lip-smacking dish that is a fusion of a curry and a dessert. Recipes differ and each family has its own version of the best way to make mambazha pulissery, a flavoursome blend of curd and ripe mango. Theertha Mythry’s 10-minute short film, Ruchibhedam , which was screened at the International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala (IDSFFK) in the capital city, has as its plot a soul-stirring story of two sisters cooking a mambazha pulissery in the midst of a relationship issue with the mother finally managing to get the sweet and sour ingredients right for the sisters.
In Theertha’s words, ‘The film is a slice of life drama between two sisters who find themselves at odds with each other whilst making their mother’s recipe of mambazha pulissery’.
A still from Ruchibhedam
“My mother, Maya Raveendran, is an amazing cook and mambazha pulissery is my comfort food,” she declares. At her house in Elamakkara, Kochi, there stands three huge mango trees. “We have the Chandrakkaran variety, which is usually used to make the pulissery. Once the mango season starts, my mother prepares it every other day. I am a foodie! So when I decided to do a film it had to be about food. In fact my script was named ‘Pulissery’ till the last minute!” she smiles. This is the 27-year-old’s debut film.
Ruchibhedam is about Varsha, a divorcee, and Tara, who share an apartment. Varsha tries to cook mambazha pulissery with instructions from her mother over Skype. There ensues a fight between the sisters over Tara’s decision to move in with her boyfriend. They are unaware that their mother is privy to all this because the video call wasn’t disconnected. The magic of the story lies in how the mother sweetens the situation, using the mambazha pulissery.
“I wanted the story to reflect upon the times I grow in and thus pulissery became the subtext. I brought in several other aspects from my life. Just like Varsha, I am always on call with my mother when I cook because I have a lot of doubts. In fact, before I shot the movie, I prepared the pulissery for the soul. Although I don’t have a sister, I could portray the camaraderie between the sisters as I have a lot of friends who are almost my siblings,” she says.
She says she enjoyed bringing the progressive mother into the narrative. “She looks all homely in her attire, body language, dialogues... But a mother is a micro manager, handling so many things at the same time,” Theertha explains.
Theertha is overwhelmed by the response she received at the IDSFFK. “The film had its premiere at Mumbai International Film Festival early this year. At IDSFFK a Malayali audience was watching it for the first time. I was excited to hear the applause for certain scenes. People could relate to many situations and jokes. Some even said that it didn’t look like my first film,” she gushes.
Route to cinema
In fact there was a time when she had almost given up on her dream of becoming a filmmaker. “It wasn’t working for me and so I went on to do my post graduation in social development from Azim Premji University in Bangalore. That helped me learn more about life, especially after mingling with students from across India and I joined an NGO in Pune.”
But she couldn’t resist the pull of the lights. Thanks to her friends, Ganesh Raj and Anend C. Chandran, the director and cinematographer of Aanandam, she found herself back in tinsel town. “They asked me to join the shoot and those two months brought me back to cinema. I got a mentor in Anand Ekarshi, whom I am assisting now in his new project. Ruchibhedam was a learning process. Thankfully I had the support of my friends and family,” she says. Bonny Mary Mathew, who plays Varsha, was executive producer of Aanandam , Lakshmi Marikar, cast as Tara, is Theertha’s friend and Neeraja Rajendran, who plays the mother, is her friend Darshana’s ( Maayaanadhi -fame) mother. The movie was produced by Theertha’s father, B.Raveendran. After taking the film to a few more festivals, she plans to release it on YouTube.
