Marmadesam ( Land of Mystery) was a 1996-2001 Tamil mystery anthology television series telecasted between 1996 and 1998 on Sun TV and then on Raj TV between 1999 and 2001 lasting 5 seasons.
From 2019, it started airing on YouTube from Monday to Saturday by Kavithalaya.
Premise The series consisted of 5 stand-alone stories dealing with supernatural and mystery occurrences. While the stories are purely fictitious, they explore to some extent the beliefs and real-life traditions of Tamilnadu.
Ragasiyam was set in both village and city.
Vidathu Karupu had a complete village setting.
Sorna Regai had a complete city setting.
Iyandira Paravai had both village and city setting.
Edhuvum Nadakkum was set in a forest.
The seasons are named: Ragasiyam () ( The Secret) (fantasy thriller) (Director: Naga) Explores the legend of the mysterious healing powers of Nava-bhashana lingam. 73 Episodes. Vidāthu Karuppu () ( ( Karuppu ) Black Never Spares) (Psychological Thriller) (Director: Naga) Explores the legend of the Hindu village deity Karuppu Sami. PS: Karuppu Sami where., Karuppu means Black, Sami Means God. Its so called because the deity is black is colour. Karuppu Sami is considered as a god which protects the villages. Vidātha Karuppu means the god (Karuppu Sami) wont spares the one who make's mistakes. 82 Episodes.
Sorna Reghai () ( Golden palmlines) (crime thriller) (Director: C.J.Bhaskar) Explores the field of palmistry. 20 Episodes. Eyanthira Paravai () ( The Mechanical Bird) (crime thriller) (Director: C.J.Bhaskar) Explores the art of Varmakalai. 34 Episodes. Edhuvum Nadakkum () ( Anything can happen) (fantasy horror) (Director: Naga) Explores the legend of Kalpaka-vriksham and environment as a living entity. 33 Episodes (the story is not complete as it was abandoned mid-way.)
Plot
Ragasiyam
Ragasiyam is the first season of Marmadesam series. The story-line is about the mysterious healing powers of Navabhashanam Lingams of Lord Shiva.
The plot opens with a small fictional village named Chitharpatti, where a temple of Chitheswarar (also pronounced as Sitheshwarar) attracts a large number of devotees thanks to its legend as well as its purported power to heal any known or unknown disease. An ashram adjacent to the temple, headed by Oomaisaamy (Charuhasan) is also a popular name, as it cures literally any physically or mentally ill patient.
The temple is closed from 6 pm every evening until 6 am the following morning. It is believed that Siddhars enter the temple past its closure for the day, and perform their rituals and prayers and leave before dawn, and anyone who disturbs the prayers of the Siddhars is done away with by the guardian of the temple, Kaalabhairavar, who is believed to guard the temple during the night in the form of a dog. This belief attracts a number of rationalists to the temple, who want to try and solve the mystery. One such rationalist, a journalist names Srikanth (Indra Soundar Rajan), hides in the temple when it is being closed for the day, in an attempt to find out what really happens in the temple in the dark. However, as if the villagers' fear is made true, Srikanth is killed by a dog while he is inside the temple. Hence, the entire village is convinced that the temple of Chitheshwarar is actually a den of heavenly Siddhas who pray during the night, leaving ordinary people to pray during the day.
Srikanth's friend, Mani Sundaram (Ram G) is the young son of the temple's chief priest. He is a rationalist, who does not believe in myths and rituals. Instead, he chooses to rationalize his beliefs, and hence often ends up at odds with his father with regard to the temple's mysteries and rituals. One by one, four people are killed inside the temple, including a police inspector who is there to investigate the mystery. At this juncture, Dr. KR (Delhi Ganesh)—once a great psychiatrist, but now intellectually disabled—strays into the village, and is admitted to Oomaisaamy's ashram by Mani. Prasad (Prithviraj), Dr. KR's son, comes in search of him, and ends up being a guest to Mani and his sister Lalitha (Vasuki). As Mani and Prasad try to reveal the temple's mystery even more, they come to know that Dr. KR is actually acting as a fool, and he too is trying to do the same. But Dr. KR has personal intentions. He had been regarded as one of the best psychiatrists of India, and an Indian Central Minister admits his intellectually disabled son to his hospital for treatment. But Dr. KR is unable to cure the Minister's son even after giving his best for the patient. Enraged by this, the Minister ridicules Dr. KR and moves his son away to Oomaisaamy's ashram after hearing other people speak so highly about it. Dr. KR feels insulted and decides to find out how Oomaisaamy is able to cure patients so effortlessly in his ashram. To achieve this, he makes everyone believe he is foolish, and lands up in Oomaisaamy's ashram. What Dr. KR does not know, is that he was unable to cure the Minister's son not because of his incompetency, but because of a sinister scheme laid out by his junior, Dr. Vishwaram (Mohan V. Ram).
As Dr. KR acts as a fool and tries to uncover Chitharpatti's mystery, he stumbles upon a greater truth about what might be going on inside the temple during the dark. Dr. KR and Mani then decide to work together to find out the truth. Mani finds out that there are actually one or more persons entering the temple at night through a secret entrance to the temple, and exiting at dawn. In an attempt to find out what they are actually doing inside the temple, Mani hides in the temple one night. He finds out that the two men enter the temple with trained dogs searching for Navabhashana lingams, of which, he learns, they have six already and are trying to locate the remaining three. Mani finds out that these dogs were the ones that killed the four, and it was just the work of thugs and not God, as the villagers believe. Also, the two men seem to get instructions from someone inside the village, who knows and is capitalizing on the superstitious nature of the villagers.
Meanwhile, Prasad fall in love with lalitha (Vasuki), (sister of Sundaram) and they decide to marry. Mani is found hiding by these men, and a chase ensues where Mani, fighting for his life, kills the dogs, and forces the two men to leave the temple as stealthily as they arrived, and set the ball rolling for a police probe. Vaithiyar (Kavithalaya Krishnan), Mani's best friend in the village, turns out to be the man behind these killings inside the temple. As he is about to get caught, he escapes with the lingams he had already stolen, and sets off to Chennai with an accomplice. However, on the way, the accomplice is killed by a truck, which also chases Vaithiyar, but only manages to send him into a coma. The box containing the lingams is lost in the van Vaithiyar was driving, and finds its way to Chennai.
The rest of the story is a nail-biting chase for these lingams. In between this hunt for the Lingams, people who are involved in this case gets killed by a moving lorry. A guy, known as Guruji, is the reason behind all these crimes and the police tries to crack the code, to find the man. Mani on his own, tries to find him, with the help of his girlfriend, Devi (Nithya), who unfortunately gets killed by the lorry. Angered, Mani goes and meets Vaithiyar, who is acting as a fool, asking him to disclose who Guruji is. From him, Mani gets to know about a book, which had stated all the current happenings, and it was written 400 years ago. He also learns that the box containing the Lingams would find its way to his sister Lalitha. Shocking truth about many people that Mani believes, come to light, making him not to trust anyone around him except his sister and Rudrapathi (Poovilangu Mohan). Rudrapathi also gets killed by the truck. Finally, Mani becomes the one to find the Guruji, by keeping a letter pad on one above another and it is shown that guruji is none other than mani's two neighbors govindaraj and rangaraj. Govindaraj dies of heart attack and rangaraj is arrested. Also in various stages of the plot, the significance of these lingams, values of ancient Hindu scriptures are brought out, which makes the viewer intrigued until the last scene.
The last scene was made in a way to tell the viewers about human life and nature's significance. The people who died in the plot, by the lorry, comes to life to address the viewers. The actors declare that Marma Desam series would continue. Thus, telling the viewers about the second season of the series, Vidaathu Karuppu, which turned out to be the most successful of the whole Marma Desam series.
The novel version of this season is ரகசியமாக ஒரு ரகசியம்.
Vidaathu Karuppu
The second season was titled Vidaathu Karuppu. Vidathu Karuppu was the most successful of the Marmadesam series. The story examines the psychological underpinnings of the concept of split personalities even while exploring in detail the rural cult of Karuppu Sami prevalent in the southern part of Tamil Nadu. Starring C. T. Rajakantham, Chetan, Devadarshini, Meenakumari, Vijaya Sarathy, Master Lokesh, Mohan V. Ram, Poovilangu Mohan, Ponvannan, Sureshwar, Kausalya, Muthusubramanian and Sivakavitha, the series was a huge commercial success and triggered imitations and supernatural thrillers by other television directors.
Each episode was made of two parts—the first ten minutes of each 30-minute episode was set in the year 1970; the second part of each episode was set in 1995 and related to the events shown in the first part. While the first part revolved around the events of the Anaimudi Alampriyar household as seen through the eyes of the young Rajendran (played by Master Lokesh), the second part was mainly concerned with the customs, beliefs and traditions of the village and events unfolding in the Anaimudi Alampriyar household as seen through the eyes of the sceptical medical student Reena (Devadarshini) and her superstitious Chief Doctor, Nanda (Mohan V. Ram). The story begins with Reena's arrival in the village in the company of her colleague and best friend, Ratna, daughter of the village headman, Anaimudi Alampriyar, who seeks sanction from her village's guardian deity Karuppu Sami to marry her lover Aravind.
In Ratna's village, Reena and her boss learn about the cult of Karuppu Sami, the guardian deity and how Karuppu Sami punishes people who transgress his rules. While Reena's Chief believes it, due to him getting hold of some mysterious notebook with weird stuff and a sword which draws blood, every time it is taken out, Reena is skeptical about it. Eventually, they witness some mysterious and gruesome deaths. Simultaneously, the story of the Anaimudi's mother, the evil moneylender Pechi who indulges in usury is told as a flashback through the eyes of Anaimudi's son and Ratna's older brother, the extremely soft and timid Rajendran who is obsessed with legends of Karuppu Sami. Pechi murders one of her opponents and is eventually killed herself, the first in a string of mysterious deaths attributed to Karuppu Sami. A few days later, strange events and sightings take place in the Anaimudi household, prompting Anaimudi's family to conclude that the house is haunted by Pechi's ghost and move out.