It was a deviation from the usual genre of films, but the female-centric ‘Ennu Swantham Janakikutty’ was well received by Malayalis 25 years back. And who could have forgotten the characters ‘Janakikutty’ and ‘Kunjathol’, played by talented actress Jomol and cat-eyed pretty lass Chanchal?
Now a picture of the duo, who played the lead roles in the 1998 classic, directed by Hariharan and the screenplay written by M T Vasudevan Nair, together has gone viral in social media, coincidentally on the occasion of the movie celebrating its silver jubilee.
Both still look pretty, as in their good olden days, fans reckon. Some even opine that the actresses turned more beautiful in the flow of time. The sparkling in the eyes of Chanchal is still there, the comments read, as they wonder whether the duo could share the screen space one last time.
“Will both of you return and act together if a remake of ‘Janakikutty’ is made?” a die-hard fan wrote in the comment section.
It was Jomol who enacted the central character ‘Janakikutty’ in the film ‘Enne Swantham Janakikutty’. She even bagged the state award for the best actress that year for her stupendous performance. And Chanchal too played a major character ‘Kunjathol’ without which the story of ‘Janakikutty’ would have remained incomplete. Both characters got permanently etched in the minds of the audience.
It was in 2002 that Jomol married Chandrashekaran Pillai, with whom she was in love. She converted to Hinduism post her marriage and christened herself Gauri Chandrashekaran Pillai. She then took a break from the films and became active in television serials and shows. The couple has two daughters – Arya and Arja. Jomol is not much active in acting these days and instead has ventured into unchartered waters by trying her hand at subtitling. She has been roped in as the subtitler for ‘Janaki Jaane’, starring Navya Nair and Saiju Kurup.
Chanchal, who hails from Kozhikode, became well known through modelling. She did many anchoring assignments too, to perfection. A good dancer, Chanchal also acted in Lohitadas' ‘Ormacheppu’. Currently, she is residing in the US, along with her husband Harishankar and children Niharin and Nila.
