# Pandavar Bhoomi

Pandavar Bhoomi (transl. The Land of the Pandavas) is a 2001 Indian Tamil-language drama film, written and directed by Cheran. The film stars Arun Vijay (credited as Arun Kumar), Shamitha and Rajkiran. While Vinu Chakravarthy and Mukesh Tiwari played the antagonists, Chandrasekhar, Ranjith, Manorama and Charle played supporting roles. The film, released on 21 September 2001, won the Filmfare Award for Best Director – Tamil (Cheran), and the Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Second Best Film.

## Plot

Dhanasekar returns to his native village along with his family after twelve years of city life. All the villagers feel happy over welcoming him back to the village. Dhanasekar decides to build a new bungalow adjacent to his ancestral home in the village and plans to live there. He approaches Tamizharasan aka Tamizh, an architect to design his new home. Tamizh's father is also an architect who is famous for traditional architectural designs.
Dhanasekar and his family temporarily stay in his neighbour's house until the construction of the new house is completed. Tamizh also stays in a tent near the construction site managing the construction activities. Vinu Chakravarthy lives in the same village and he hates Dhanasekar and his family. He wants them to be killed and sends his son Mukesh Tiwari to work with the construction workers so that he can get them killed someday.
Jeeva is Dhanasekar's niece and she befriends Tamizh. Tamizh also likes Jeeva and slowly, friendship transforms into love for Tamizh. When Tamizh proposes his love to Jeeva, she leaves the place without replying which makes Tamizh understand that she does not have any feelings for him.
One day, a family comes to Dhanasekar's house expressing interest to get Jeeva married to their son. But Dhanasekar informs them that Jeeva will be married to his brother Ranjith who is in jail for 12 years. Tamizh gets shocked knowing about this and he is angered because the family plans to sacrifice Jeeva by having her marry someone who has been jailed for years. Dhanasekar learns of the love between Jeeva and Tamizh. He calls Tamizh and tells him about his family's past.
In 1990, Dhanasekar was a rich farmer in the same village along with his brothers and Ranjith, sisters Kavitha and Thamarai (also Shamitha), and mother. Vinu Chakravarthy, a distant relative of Dhanasekar is also a farmer in the same village, but does not like Dhanasekar's family and always picks quarrels with them. One day, Vinu and his sons sport a tractor (rare for that time) and a new Royal enfield in front of the villagers, who get to know that they have leased off a portion of land to a Tanning factory. Despite the village council's warning to cancel the lease as it would pollute entire water source, Vinu and his sons refuse. The village's farmers, led by Dhanasekar and his brothers waylay the tanning factory officials and explain their issue, following which the project is shifted to another place. Vinu and his sons refuse to return the advance payments, and their new vehicles are eventually ceased off by the factory management.
The next night, Vinu Chakravarthy poisons the farm pond of Dhanasekar, thereby killing all of Dhanasekar's cows and oxen that drank water from the pond. Dhanasekar gets furious and lodges a complaint with the police following which Vinu Chakravarthy is incarcerated. Things cool off a bit, but then to everyone's shock, the family learns that Thamarai is in love with Akash, Vinu Chakravarthy's younger son. Dhanasekar and Manorama warn Thamarai to forget Akash and they plan to get her married immediately with someone else. But on the day of marriage, Thamarai elopes from home with Akash and Manorama dies the same night, as she could not tolerate this.
While Dhanasekar and his brothers perform their mother's funeral and take her body to the graveyard in a procession, Thamarai comes along with Akash following their wedding. Ranjith gets furious seeing her and he runs towards them with a sickle, and decapitates Thamarai and Akash in anger. All happened in a fraction of second and Ranjith could not believe that he killed his own sister. He then feels guilty and surrenders to the police and is sentenced to 14 years of imprisonment.
Out of sorrow and shame, Dhanasekar and his family members covertly leave the village and move to Tirupur where they earn well and the family comes back to the same village after 11 years. But they are worried that Ranjith's life will be spoiled as no girl will marry him as he has been jailed. So they decide to get Jeeva married to him, as it is socially permissible for a man to marry his elder sister's daughter. Jeeva though not interested in the proposal, agrees to marry her maternal uncle Ranjith for the well-being of her family. Since Ranjith will be released 2 years earlier due to good behaviour, the family is building the new house for the to be couple.
Tamizh understands the family's situation and decides to give up his love for Jeeva. But on the other hand, Jeeva decides to express her interest in marrying Tamizh. She meets Tamizh and conveys her love. But Tamizh says that he learned of her family's past and he also felt proud about Jeeva's decision to sacrifice her life for the happiness of her family. He apologises to Jeeva for confusing her predetermined mind in the name of love and he also requests her to marry Ranjith who is about to get released from jail soon.
The new home is completed and Mukesh Tiwari plants a bomb in the home to destroy it and to kill everyone inside. Tamizh discovers Mukesh Tiwari's plans and alerts everyone. Also, Tamizh rushes into the house in search of the bomb and finds it after much struggle. He takes the bomb and throws it away before it could explode thereby saving all the family members and also the newly built home. The entire family thanks Tamizh for his help. Tamizh leaves to his home on the next day. After coming to know that his plan failed Vinu Chakravarthy dies out of shock.
After a few days, Dhanasekar comes along with his brothers Chandrasekhar and Ranjith, after being released from jail to meet Tamizh and his father Vijayakumar inviting them for the house-warming ceremony as well as for Jeeva's wedding. On seeing the invitation card, Tamizh is surprised to see his name as the groom for Jeeva.
A flashback is shown where Ranjith, after being released from jail, comes to meet his family. They share some good moments as he meets his family members after twelve years as he never allowed anyone to meet him in jail except Dhanasekar. Ranjith is surprised on seeing Jeeva as she exactly resembles his sister Thamarai in looks. Ranjith also believes that Thamarai has been reborn in the form of Jeeva and feels happy that he got back his lovable sister whom he killed out of anger. So he wants to ensure that Jeeva is happily married and her husband is chosen with her consent. Also, Ranjith says that he does not want to marry any one and instead he prefers to stay single along with all the family members. Realising the love of Jeeva and Thamizh, the family members then decide to have them marry. The movie ends with Tamizh and Jeeva uniting.

## Cast

* Arun Vijay as Tamizharasan
* Shamitha in a double role as Jeeva and Thamarai
* Rajkiran as Dhanasekar
* Chandrasekhar as Dhanasekar's brother
* Kavitha as Dhanalakshmi
* Ranjith as Dhanapal, Dhanasekar's brother
* Manorama as Deivanai, Dhanasekar's, Dhanalakshmi's, Dhanapal's mother
* Vinu Chakravarthy
* Mukesh Tiwari as Vinu Chakravarthy's son
* Vijayakumar as Tamizh's father
* Ilavarasu as Carpenter
* Charle
* Neelima Rani (child artist)
* Baby Ranjini

## Production

To prepare for the role of a civil engineer, Arun Vijay was handed the entire script by Cheran, who told him to visit various construction sites. The film's art director P. Krishnamoorthy created a set of a village from Mysore within ₹55 lakh (equivalent to ₹2.2 crore or US$260,000 in 2023).

## Soundtrack

The soundtrack was composed by Bharadwaj.

## Reception

Malathi Rangarajan from The Hindu praised as "Inundated with talent from every quarter" and said: "has to be welcomed, with open arms because decent, meaningful cinema deserves encouragement". Rajitha of Rediff.com particularly heaped praises at Cheran for his screenplay and said "With directors of the calibre of Cheran in its rank, Tamil cinema would not be discredited or degenerated". Sify criticised the length of the film and said: "Cheran has churned out yet another village based sob story to torment you further" and concluded that "it is a typical overdose of Cheran melodrama masala". Visual Dasan of Kalki wrote that Pandavar Bhoomi, which has broken the gap between cinema and life, is a holy land that must be visited without fail. Chennai Online wrote "Like Cheran's earlier films this too is rural based, message oriented, without losing sight of the entertainment factor. A freshness in the story line and narrative style, makes the film engaging and different from the routine ones".

## Accolades

At the 49th Filmfare Awards South, Pandavar Bhoomi won the award for Best Director – Tamil (Cheran), its sole nomination. It also won the Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Second Best Film.