Taramani 2017

Andrea Jeremiah’s portrayal of Althea Johnson introduces a young, Anglo-Indian single mother navigating Chennai’s corporate world. On a rainy evening, Prabhunath shares shelter with her beneath an abandoned bus stop, and what begins as wariness slowly gives way to a quiet, growing friendship.

Prabhu opens up about his past: he worked at a call centre, where the only bright spot was that it stood opposite Sowmya’s IT office. To help her obtain a visa for the States, he stole money from a sleeping stranger on a train and handed it to her. She married someone else there, leaving Prabhu heartbroken. After learning the man he stole from died of a heart attack shortly afterward, he spiraled into guilt and depression, nearly taking his own life at the Taramani railway station until a railway policeman intervened, later becoming a trusted friend.

Althea soon introduces Prabhu to her son, Adrian Knight Jesly, and to her mother. The elder woman disapproves of the budding friendship, and Althea ends up leaving home. Homeless and alone, she spends a night at the railway station, sharing her story of a husband, Jacob, who had an affair with a man. Believing his sexuality makes real love impossible, she separates from him, unaware that she is pregnant. Amidst these challenges, Althea and Adrian grow close, and when Adrian asks if Prabhu can be his father, they confess their feelings for each other and decide to live together.

Prabhu’s feelings soon turn possessive. He becomes suspicious that Althea is having an affair with her boss, and a crude text message triggers a fight that ends their relationship. In a separate thread of turmoil, Sowmya returns for a holiday, gifting him chocolates, which he rejects. Around this time, Prabhu veers into a darker path: he begins to reach out to lonely married women, records them, and blackmails them for money. One of these women turns out to be a friend of the city’s assistant police commissioner, and when the policeman discovers that the same woman is his own wife, he beats both Prabhu and his wife. Witnessing such abuse jolts Prabhu and makes him reflect on how he treated Althea.

Using money he had received from Sowmya, Prabhu seeks out the widow of the man he once stole from and repays her. The postmortem later reveals that her husband died hours before the theft, and she forgives him. This realization helps him decide to start life anew and seek redemption.

Prabhu returns to Althea, asking for forgiveness. She forgives him but asks him to leave the city to protect their son Adrian from further disruption. After days of apologies, she ultimately accepts his love, and the two of them move forward together, choosing a future built on trust and renewed hope, finding a sense of happiness and stability in each other.