‘If Mohanlal hadn’t caught her…’ Kaloor Dennis recalls Karthika’s near fall on January Oru Orma set

Karthika had already become a sensation in Malayalam cinema by the mid-1980s. From ‘Oru Painkilikatha’ to ‘Manicheppu Thurannappol’, she had carved out a space that no actress before her had quite occupied. Yet, beneath the glitter of instant stardom, she was still the soft-spoken, ordinary-looking young woman who smiled without showing her teeth and spoke in a voice barely above a whisper. That was the Karthika screenwriter Kaloor Dennis met for the first time in Kodaikanal in 1986, on the sets of ‘January Oru Orma’.

Dennis and director Joshiy had reached the hill station two days earlier, armed with little more than a sequence order and an unfinished script. With Mohanlal, Soman, Jayabharathi, Rohini, Suresh Gopi and others set to join soon, they were racing to complete the screenplay. Karthika arrived the evening before the shoot began — quiet, polite, accompanied by her mother. Dennis, submerged in writing, hadn’t yet found time to brief her personally and had entrusted the job to associate director Paul Njarakkal.

The next morning, the unit moved to Suicide Point to film the first sequence featuring Mohanlal and Karthika. Mohanlal played Raju, a mischievous unauthorised guide. Karthika played Nimmi, an educated young woman visiting with her family. Dennis and Joshiy were keen to watch how she approached her character.

What happened next is a memory etched sharply in Dennis’s mind — not for the performance alone, but for what almost became a tragedy.

As the scene unfolded, Mohanlal led Karthika up the mist-covered slope. They walked along the narrow path overlooking the gorge, improvising light banter.

“Hey, that’s the Suicide Point you see there, come on,” Mohanlal said in character.

“Oh… if your foot slips and you fall down…” Karthika murmured, staring at the steep drop.

“You won’t even be seen again — not even as dust,” he added, finishing her sentence with effortless ease.

The following dialogues about Englishmen, lost honour and love failure suicides came naturally. Karthika grew playful, teasing him. Then came her final line: “Anyway shall I try jumping once?”

It was scripted as mischief. But the ground beneath her wasn’t playing along.

When she stepped forward, her foot slipped — ever so slightly, but enough to tilt her towards the edge. It happened in a fraction of a second. Before Dennis or anyone else could react, Mohanlal’s hand shot out, gripping her wrist firmly and pulling her back to safety.

The unit burst into applause, celebrating a beautifully performed scene. But Kaloor Dennis couldn’t clap.

A wave of fear washed over him — the realisation of how close they had come to disaster. “If Mohanlal hadn’t caught her that exact second…” he thought. No one else seemed to have noticed the slip. Perhaps even Karthika hadn’t realised how a moment’s imbalance could have changed everything.

It was a secret fear Dennis carried quietly — the kind that only a writer, responsible for imagining every scene yet helpless during its execution, might feel. Even today, he wonders if Karthika remembers that moment on the hilltop: the mist, the step, the slip — and Mohanlal’s instinctive reach that saved her.

For Karthika, ‘January Oru Orma’ would be among her final films before her sudden exit from Malayalam cinema. For Kaloor Dennis, that day in Kodaikanal remains unforgettable — a reminder that even the most beautiful scenes sometimes hang by the thinnest of threads.