Shobana Chandrakumar Pillai

Shobana Chandrakumar Pillai known by the short name 'Shobana' is a well renowned Bharatnatyam artist and film actress. She is proficient in several languages such as English, Hindi, Telugu, Malayalam, and Tamil and worked in 200 such films. For her phenomenal performance in 1993's 'Manichitrathazhu' and 2001's 'Mitr, My Friend', she won two National Film Award for Best Actress. The first film is a Malayalam psychological horror film based on cataclysm happened in Alummoottil Tharavadu, which is a famous Travancore family. The film turned out to be one of the most successful films in Alummoottil Tharavadu, which is a famous Travancore family. The film turned out to be one of the most successful films in Malayalam film industry.

And many remakes were made in several languages. One such is Akshay Kumar's 'Bhool Bhulaiya'. In 2001, Revathi's 'Mitr, My Friend' was one of its kinds since it's script was English partly directed in U.S. and India and all the crew were the woman.

The film portrays Shobana marrying to a software engineer Prithvi based in California. After their marriage, they settle in California where Lakshmi finds difficult to cope up with the surrounding and existing culture. Anyhow, the couple manages and within their year of marriage, they are blessed with a daughter named Divya. Fast forwarding to 17 years, Divya is in her adolescent and free-spirited girl. Thus the tension between mother-daughter increases and leads to quarrels. Prithvi understands both the sides of life. The film takes the turn when Lakshmi ends up making an online friend named 'mitr' and shares her concern. In return, she was advised to give some space and explore her interest despite becoming too committed to the family.

However when Lakshmi tries to cope up with the culture and decides to give some space to her daughter. At last, the story takes an astonishing climax when Lakshmi urges her online friend mitr to meet her in person at the Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. It turns out that his friend is none other than Prithvi. Due to her dedicated efforts in the field of classical dance and arts, she was awarded ‘Padma Shri’ by the Indian Government. She was also given 'Kala Ratna' Award in 2014 by the Kerala Government.

Shobana Family Tree (Infographic Family Tree)