Velu, a tea seller whose world revolves around his young daughter, isn’t your typical super-dad that cinema has fed us until now. He breaks into a roaring applause when she speaks in English, but misses her dance recital at school for work. He lights her face up with small unplanned gifts, but forgets her birthday and laughs along with her at his waning memory. And when she goes through an unexpected trauma, he doesn’t burst a blood vessel, but lets his rage simmer inside, never once letting it emerge past his eyes. With Velu, Yogi Babu gives us a striking, lived-in interpretation of a blue-collar worker, who navigates fatherhood and caste prejudices in rural Tamil Nadu.
Director Shan begins the movie with fitting montages of various daily wage workers from across Tamil Nadu – and this gets a beautiful extension through some of the characters that he fills its universe with. You have a homeless paati who speaks politics and protests police brutality on the streets and a beef biryani vendor who will do anything for a friend in need. And then there is Jeeva (a superb Hari Krishna), a communist activist who fights for the marginalised. In the middle of all this is Velu, a tea seller who keeps his head down now just while serving tea, but also when the people around him outrage. So, when his half-brother’s family treats him like dirt, Velu probably realises that it has everything to do with his caste, but doesn’t let out as much as a sigh. Instead, he moves himself away from the volatile situation and goes about living his life in silence. For he prefers silence and peace to outrage and justice. But when distress strikes and shakes up his family, it also shakes up his beliefs, forcing him to face a reality he wanted to stay away from.