Nine years later in Madras, a young girl, Amudha lives a happy life with her father, the writer Thiruchelvan (better known by his pen name Indira), her mother, a newscaster and the "real" Indira, and her two younger brothers, Vinay and Akhil. However, she leaves behind the baby in order to return to Sri Lanka, hoping that her husband is alive and wishing to continue in his footsteps. After arriving in Rameswaram, Shyama gives birth to a baby girl during refugee processing. Shyama wants the boat to turn around but it is too late. An older man says that he has seen Dileepan with bullet wounds in the forest. Her relatives convince her to go for her unborn child's sake, and they board a rickety boat, journeying through rough waters. Afterwards, the villagers begin fleeing to India, but Shyama is reluctant to join as she still hopes her husband will come for her. Dileepan makes Shyama flee while he remains in the forest. While romancing in the forest, the couple hears Sri Lankan Army troops approaching.
Amidst the backdrop of the civil war, Dileepan fights against the government with other men in the village as part of the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Shyama marries Dileepan and becomes pregnant. In Mankulam, a small Tamil village in Sri Lanka, M. The film premiered at the 2002 Toronto International Film Festival, It also received a strong reception when screened at the San Francisco International Film Festival in 2003.The film received high critical acclaim upon release and went on to win six National Film Awards, three Filmfare Awards South, six Cinema Express Awards, seven Tamil Nadu State Film Awards and Best Film awards at six international film festivals. Mani Ratnam presents the story of a child of Sri Lankan Tamil parentage adopted by Indian parents, whose desire is to meet her biological mother in the midst of the Sri Lankan Civil War. The film's score and soundtrack were composed by A.
Chakravarthy, Prakash Raj and Pasupathy portraying other pivotal characters. The film stars Madhavan, Simran and Baby Keerthana with Nandita Das, J. It was based on a short story, "Amuthavum Avanum" by Sujatha. Kannathil Muthamittal (also released internationally under the translated title A Peck on the Cheek) is a 2002 Indian Tamil-language musical war film produced and directed by Mani Ratnam.