The knowledge of the freedom struggle to most Indians most often starts only with the Sepoy Mutiny. The Vellore Mutiny and the struggle of men like Puliyur Devar in the early 1800s are reduced to vague memories, not being chronicled in popular history texts.

One such a patriot, who launched a war against the British even prior to the 1857 revolt, was the Kerala Varma Pazhassi Raja of the Padinjare Kovilakom. Stiffly opposing the revenue policies of the East India Company, he made the then government thaw under his pressure and alters the revenue laws and asks for truce, as early as 1796. The British government returned to its irresponsible ways soon, and the Raja went into hiding with his wife and attendant, later being killed in 1805.

This valiant story of one of our earliest patriots is all set to be revived in public memory. And the credit for this goes to award-winning writer M T Vasudevan Nair, director Hariharan. The duo has teamed up to do a film on ‘Pazhassi Raja’. The film features Mega Star Mammootty in the lead role, and in a bid to make the film available to the entire country, the film is expected to be released in five languages, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi and English. Sarath Kumar makes his debut in Malayalam with this film, playing Edachena Kunkan, the best friend of ‘Pazhassi Raja’. The audio of the film was launched recently, with Illayaraja being the music composer.