Prashant plays Cupid!

Rajitha

Saravanan and Amutha have known each other for years. Their families, in fact, being very good friends.

The two were close friends, and nothing more. Till recently, they happened to see a film. Which prompted them to rethink their relationship. The result -- the two of them figured that though they hadn't been aware of it, they felt much more than friendship towards each other. And thinking thus, they decided to get married.

The film in question? Piriyaadha Varam Vendum, the Prashant-Shalini starrer released recently, and now doing well on the Madras marquee.

The film has the two stars as neighbours, and very good friends. The two families share a very close relationship, and look on the very close friendship between the young boy and girl with amused, and indulgent, affection.

It is when the girl goes away for a week, to attend some college cultural festival, that the boy begins to miss her, and realises that he feels more than friendship for her. Just when he is on the point of articulating that friendship, however, he learns that slahe is getting interested in another guy from their college, and decides to keep his feelings a secret.

Matters proceed to the marriage stage. When the girl realises that she will have to go away with her groom to the States, something within her rebels -- and in one cataclysmic evening, she realises that it is actually her neighbour and childhood chum that she loves, and wants to live the rest of her life with.

The rest of the film is about how the tangle is resolved.

This, then, the movie that inspired Saravanan and Amutha to decide to get married -- without informing their parents. The two decided to meet the star of the film -- and end up meeting Prashant's father, former screen villain Thiagarajan, who in turn takes them to the sets of the under-production Prashanth-Jyotika starrer Star.

There, the young couple tell Prashant of their dilemma. Prashant, for his part, suggests that it is wrong on the part of the two college kids to get married without the parents' consent being obtained, and takes it upon himself to meet the members of the two families, and persuade them to agree to the match.

That done, he even arranges for the wedding ring. Life imitating art imitating life?

In passing, Piriyaadha Varam Vendum, which also stars Joemol, was the Tamil debut of hotshot Malayalam director Kamal (who directed the original, Niram, in Malayalam), who has the enviable record of coming up with 23 hits in his first 25 movies.

A Telugu version (not directed by Kamal) starring Tarun (the child star of Mani Ratnam's Anjali, in his first grown-up role) and Richa Palot has meanwhile gone on to become the biggest grosser on the Andhra marquee in recent years.