Cheluvi (the protagonist) had the supernatural powers to transform into flowering tree. In my purely visual terms, Cheluvi is a beautiful film set in a village surrounded by forest and streams.
Cheluvi, the younger daughter, is a lovely, fawn-like a village belle who helps a mendicant who had fainted from hunger and, in return, receives a boon from him. The mendicant teaches her a mantra that will turn her into a Champak tree but he warns her the flowers have to be plucked carefully so that the tree is not even slightly damaged.
She shared this secret with her elder sister and they both start selling flowers. The two sisters are soon selling champak blossoms to the villagers who become curious about where they get their supply of fragrant flowers as their is no champak tree in the vicinity.
Somehow, village headman’s son follows the sisters into the forest, but he falls asleep and misses the metamorphosis. Zamindar’s son KUMMAR was astonished by the fragrance of flowers and was very curious to know about the origin. As he followed her into the woods and came to know about her secret. Then he insisted to marry her. (We know the reason XD)
After the marriage Both Cheluvi and Kummar tried to hide the flowering trees secret , but one day Kummar’s sister SHAMMA witnessed Cheluvi’s transformation and persuaded her to show her the magic. Cheluvi told Shamma to take as much flower as she wanted but never hurt the branches even slightly. But Shamma’s friend broke the branches and left Cheluvi as half human, half tree.
The most heart-rending was the ending…
When Kummar met Cheluvi in that condition and asked for the solution . Cheluvi suggested to collect all her broken branches from the forest to help her into transform to the original form.
But when Kummar and Cheluvi reached the forest they saw that several trees have been felled down and it is impossible to find her branches anymore.
CONCLUSION:
Acc. to me the film’s final irony is that human beings destroy nature in pursuit of material happiness, but only to discover that such happiness is elusive when nature is destroyed.
In this sense film message is overt rather than subtle. And ,precisely because it is a not-so-subtle fable, Cheluvi is a good film to be shown by environmentalist to urban and rural groups.
Thanku for reading..
