Guppy 2017

Guppy, a bright schoolboy and gifted visual artist, uses his talent to brighten a modest life. He supports his disabled mother by breeding and selling ornamental fish, and he clings to a simple dream: someday buy her a motorized wheelchair so she can move with a little more ease. His days are filled with the lighthearted mischief of friends and the quiet charm of a village girl, Amina, who lives with her grandparents. In the background, the village nods toward a bigger change as the government approves a railway over-bridge project that will alter the landscape they’ve always known.

When the project’s lead, Thejus Varkey, arrives on a motorcycle from the Himalayas, tension ripples through the community. Their first meeting is prickly—Guppy offends him while serving tea, and a stubborn push-pull relationship quickly forms. A near accident becomes a pretext for Guppy and his friends to press Thejus for money, sharpening the clash between youthful bravado and professional duty. The dispute intensifies after Thejus pressures the village officer to pare down Guppy’s compensation for his fish, prompting Guppy to vandalize the engineer’s jeep. The conflict reaches a fever pitch when Thejus slaps Guppy, who retaliates by striking back with a stone. Soon after, the team’s tent is mysteriously burned, forcing Thejus to press on with the work largely alone.

As Thejus studies the canals, his actions escalate in a way that feels personal to the village. He orders the demolition of Guppy’s fish tanks and the roadside stall under the pretense of illegal construction, instantly wiping out the boy’s livelihood. Desperation leads Guppy to hire a thug to target the engineer, and the plan goes awry when Thejus is stabbed. The moment shakes Guppy to his core, and he realizes the fear of retaliation has deeper roots than he imagined. The true attacker turns out to be Uppooppa, the railway gate operator who faced losing his job once the bridge was built. The revelation drives Uppooppa to the hospital, where guilt weighs heavily on him and the village alike.

With time to recover, Thejus recognizes how his presence has torn at the fabric of Guppy’s family and Uppooppa’s. He comes to believe the bridge project is politically motivated and technically questionable, and he ultimately cancels it. In a bid for reconciliation, he forgives Uppooppa, pledges support for Amina’s education, and arranges to rebuild Guppy’s ruined livelihood by restoring the fish tanks. Guppy’s first instinct is to rush to tell his mother the good news, but the moment is heartbreakingly tempered by the news that she has died, and the long-sought wheelchair remains unfinished on the way.

As the story unfolds, an elderly villager, Tinku, reveals Thejus’s hidden history: years earlier, during the inauguration of the Omallur Bridge, Thejus lost his parents, wife, and young daughter Malu in a terrible accident. Riding becomes his coping mechanism, and in a strange, protective way he comes to see every child as Malu. The railway over-bridge project, in his mind, becomes his one major work since that tragedy, a way to reclaim some sense of purpose.

In the closing sequence, Thejus is shown moving forward through the Himalayas, carrying Malu’s memory as a quiet presence that finally allows him to find peace. Guppy, meanwhile, discovers a sense of belonging and care in the community’s renewed support, honoring his mother’s wish that he would not be left alone. The film ends on a note of quiet resolve: a boy who found strength in art and friendship, and a man who found healing in forgiveness, walking separate paths that have become inseparable in memory and meaning.