The drunks at the bar brush most of it away as their drunken stupor until they see a little girl single-handedly raise her grownup dad from the floor and walk away (they don’t see Kuttichathan lifting him from the other end). Most of the humour comes from the stunned reactions of the adults who cannot understand what’s going on – a glass of whiskey moving away (Kuttichathan loves his drink), another drained out of the last drop, a door opening on its own. The movie is short, so the magical journey they have begins right away – the earlier mentioned stunts, and certain bar scenes that are especially funny. He is invisible to everyone else but the three kids. Kuttichathan appears in the form of a boy (Aravind) as the children desire, in a white dhoti. That’s when they accidentally release the Kuttichathan – goblin – from a jar in which an evil sorcerer (Kottarakkara Sreedharan Nair) has trapped him to help hunt for treasure. And now he is coming back again with a script for the first film that Mohanlal will direct, Barroz. In 2001 he made a brief return to cinema with Magic Magic, another 3D film. Both films were made by the Navodaya Studio and Appachan – Jijo’s dad – was the producer. He made two landmark films – no exaggeration here – in the gap of two years and then whoosh, disappeared. Jijo is, if you have bothered searching about him, an enigma himself. Quite a few people who worked for the film did not wish to talk about it unless its director, Jijo Punnoose, spoke first. Here comes the strange part of the story. But writing about it with memories of the team that made it would be so refreshing, we thought. An article was floating about the internet on the actor who played the title role, now working as a leading advocate in Kochi. Not that we woke up thinking of writing about Kuttichathan 36 years and one month after its release.

My dear kuttichathan serial actors