Illiruvudu Summane

Synopsis: This story begins in a small town, somewhere in Karnataka. Hiriyanna, 60-65, a retired central government official, is suddenly alone because his wife Bhagirati dies. His future is now uncertain.

Hiriyanna has three sons. Eldest son, Sadanand, 35-40, is a management consultant, working in Bangalore. He is married to Shalini, an advertising professional, and they have two young children. Second son Harsha, 30-35, and his wife Purnima are both doctors and have just opened a nursing home, also in Bangalore. They are too busy to take care of their father. Third son, Santosh, 25, (Putta) is a college dropout and an aspiring actor/musician, who has low self-esteem because his father considers him a failure. Santosh is also secretly in love with a young widow. Now, who is to take care of Hiriyanna, who has been a strict father, a very honest official and proud individual?

The first problem that crops up is a fight between the father and the third son, who decides to live by himself. Then a series of crises come up because of Hiriyanna’s determination to carry on by himself in his small town home. Finally, the old man agrees to move to Bangalore to Sadanand’s home. After tensions develop between him and his working daughter-in-law, the ‘westernized’ grandchildren and alienated son, Hiriyanna moves to the second son’s home. But, if the problems in the first son’s home are concerned with family, the tensions in the second son's home are about lifestyles – socializing, drinking and parties. What next?

Hiriyanna decides to go on a religious tour, in which he meets people like himself, particularly, Balu, also a retired government official, who shows him the meaning of tolerance, reconciliation and happiness. Hiriyanna returns home and rediscovers his family and their affection.

The serial, through different phases of the old man’s bewilderment with a strange new world, explores India in transition; the tensions that the urban, middle-class, nuclear families have in their encounters with older relatives; a meeting ground of the discovery of the modern world with the rediscovery of the value and true meaning of Indian tradition; prejudice that is faced by young people choosing unconventional fields (like theatre or music) – in a sense, everything we all go through.