My cousin Latha mentioned this movie when we met in Chennai a few weeks back. She mentioned a couple of other movies but this one stuck in my head as the name was interesting. Manjummel Boys was released on Disney Hotstar in May and we watched it a few days back. Never knew that this real life incident happened at the Gunaa caves.
Manjummel Boys – The Real Story
In 2006, ten friends from an arts club in Manjummel, a small town near Kochi decide to go on a trip to Kodaikanal. After sightseeing a few places, as they are about to return, one of the friends says that they can visit the Guna caves, where Kamal Hassan’s famous movie “Gunaa” was filmed.
They all immediately agree and go over to the Guna Caves. While some portions of the Guna Caves are open to the public, some areas are fenced off and are not meant to be explored. The friends egg each other on and jump over the fencing to visit the actual cave. As they walk around admiring the natural beauty and writing their name “Manjummel Boys” on one of the rocks, Subhash, one of the friends, falls into a covered cave.
Initially others think he is pulling a prank but soon realise that he has genuinely fallen into the cave. They panic and some of them go out in search of people to help them. Three of them go to the police station where they get beaten up. Finally one policeman comes with them and the forest guard etc try to dissuade them from rescuing Subhash. Before Subhash, there were 13 people who had fallen into this very same cave and have never been recovered.
The friends refuse to give up and call out to Subhash repeatedly. Finally they hear Subhash calling out weakly and everyone is enthused to help him. The fire department comes to the rescue, but none of the firemen is willing to get down into the Killer cave. Finally one of the friends, Siju agrees to go down into the cave and rescue Subhash.
The firemen lower Siju into the cave thinking it will be just 120 ft, but they scramble for more rope as Subhash had fallen even further down. Finally Siju is able to reach Subhash and they are both pulled out of the cave.
Initially Subhash gets some first aid at Kodaikanal and all the friends decide to keep mum about the whole incident. While Subhash recovers fully after a few months of nightmares, one of the tourists who witnessed the whole incident, talks about it to the press and finally the whole story comes out. Siju David is given a medal for bravery and 18 years later, its made into a movie.
Manjummel Boys – The Movie
Do read this interview with the original Manjummel Boys – A day out with the original Manjummel Boys and when they say the movie is 95% accurate then it can’t get better than that !
We loved the movie. The actors have done an outstanding job. The sets created are life like and one wouldn’t know that it wasn’t really the Guna caves. Ofcourse Ilayaraaja’s song “Kanmani, anbodu kadalan” has got into some controversy. Am sure it will be sorted soon. Without that song, the movie Gunaa is incomplete and Guna caves are synonymous with that movie.
We have heroes all around us and just because many people failed before us, doesn’t mean we will fail as well. That’s the inspiring message the movie communicates, besides ofcourse the deep friendships we make as children.
Rating – 5/5. Do watch the movie. We watched it in Tamil, but it’s available in nearly all Indian languages.