A still from the series Tholumadan
| Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
When little Appu pleads with his mother to tell a bedtime story, she scares him saying that if he does not sleep, Tholumadan would take him away. Madan, an eerie creature, apparently, hides in the dark, kidnaps men, kills them and wears their skin to live as human beings. According to her, many such Tholumadans live around as men.
Appu, who has been waiting for his father, a soldier, to return from the battlefront believes the tale. But when his father arrives home, all battered, bruised and emotionally shattered, Appu wonders if his father is for real or a Tholumadan.
The three-part series, Tholumadan, blends folklore with the emotional trauma of a person after the war, the Indo-China war of 1962 in this case.
A still from the series Tholumadan
| Photo Credit:
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Richy KS, writer, scriptwriter and director of the work, says, “Tholumadan’s conquests is one among the many bed-time stories that I heard from my late mother, Renuka. She loved making up stories and even claimed to have seen a kuttichathan (a goblin in folklore). Perhaps that’s why I became a storyteller,” says Richy.
The series smartly weaves the settings of a folklore with a soldier’s mental condition. His appearance, outbursts and breakdowns upset and scare the son, who ends up imagining his father to be Tholumadan. “We don’t usually discuss men’s mental health. Here, the soldier, is broken from within and his emotional outbursts affect the boy and the whole family. That vulnerable situation is placed against a folklore, with horror elements thrown in,” Richy explains.
A still from the series Tholumadan
| Photo Credit:
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Tholumadan leaves behind several pertinent questions. For example, when darkness creeps into our mind and surroundings, do we become Tholumadans?
Richy says that in some parts of Kerala, Tholumadan or Chappila Bhootham is a character associated with Thiruvathira festival in the Malayalam month of Dhanu (December-January). “The character visits houses wearing a mask with dry leaves [usually plantain leaves] tied all over the body and would sing songs. There are different stories associated with this figure,” says Richy.
He adds that having heard many such stories from his mother he was planning to bring them out in the animation format. That was when Kandittund, the animated short film on evil spirits of Malayalam folklore, came out. “The success of the work encouraged me but I didn’t want do something similar. So I decided to pick one out of the many stories she had narrated. The plan was to make a short film. But once I realised that the story won’t fit in that format I converted it into a series,” says Richy, who has directed a couple of Malayalam short films and a Tamil music video.
Richy KS
| Photo Credit:
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Richy adds that it was director-producer Krishand who helped him to pitch and present the work on many platforms. “It was planned as an OTT release. But I backed out after waiting for over a year. That’s when I met Krishand. He liked the work and I incorporated some of his suggestions,” he says. Krishand is the executive producer of Tholumadan.
In the cast are Aryan Wilson, Shiyona S George and Arun Sethumadhav. While Kailash S Bhavan is the editor, cinematography is by Vinod M Ravi. Vishnu Das has scored the music.
Richy is elated that the work is getting noticed. “The highpoint was when Lijo Jose Pellissery called me up and appreciated the work.”
The series is streaming on AVISIO Entertainments’ YouTube channel.
Published – January 16, 2025 01:21 pm IST
