Ye Maaya Chesave

Karthik is a mechanical engineering graduate but aspires to become a filmmaker. Karthik's family rents the ground floor of a two-storeyed house which belongs to a Kerala Christian family who are very conservative Syrian Catholic family from Alappuzha, Kerala, who live upstairs. Jessie, their daughter, is 2 years older than Karthik. She has a brother Jerry. When Karthik meets Jessie for the first time, he falls in love with her. Karthik expresses his love one day to her, who is afraid of speaking to men around her strict father, and ends up angering Jessie. Later Jessie goes to Alappuzha, her grandparents' place. Karthik gets to know this from his sister and goes to Alappuzha, along with his friend Krishnudu, where he gets introduces to her family as his classmate. Then Karthik tells her that they can be good friends. After coming to know from her that she is going back to Hyderabad alone, he decides to turn the friendship in to love in the train journey. In the train he kisses her for which she slaps him and later the two meet several times afterwards and Jessie begins to admit that she likes Karthik but wants to refrain from any problems because she knows her father won't accept a Hindu marrying their daughter. Now, Jerry finds that they like each other and in the fight that follows we come to know that Karthik is a part-time boxer where he beats up Jerry and his friends. Her parents learn about their affair with this fight and arrange a marriage for her. But at the wedding, she refuses to marry the groom, Roy Thomas, displeasing everyone in her family. Karthik and Jessie continue to love each other without the knowledge of their parents. Suddenly, Jessie is forced by her father to marry and seeks Karthik's help, who was in Goa for a film shooting. Busy Karthik is unable to attend to her calls and messages; Jessie is unable to reach him. After a tense phone call from Jessie, Karthik goes back one night to check on her. An angry and hurt Jessie makes a final decision to break up with Karthik because of her father's strong disapproval of their love.

Later on, Karthik learns that Jessie got married and is settled abroad. Two years later, Karthik meets Nandini, who falls in love with him. She is rejected by Karthik who cites his previous affair with Jessie whom he can not get over. He then comes up with a script for his first film, which happens to be his own love story. He calls upon Silambarasan as the film's protagonist and Trisha as the female lead. The film is eventually titled Jessie.

He sees Jessie three years later in the U.S. and thinks she is married. She reveals that she is not. She refused to marry anyone her parents set up because they rejected Karthik. Out of anger, her parents leave. They then get married at a Hindu temple and a church. The film ends at a theater where they watch Jessie.

Academy Award winning composer A. R. Rahman composed the soundtrack and background score of the film. Ye Maaya Chesave / Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaaya, marked the beginning of a collaboration between Rahman and Gautham Menon. The album consists of seven tracks, with Telugu lyrics penned by Anantha Sreeram. Rahman's compositions for the Tamil version were retained without any change, in the Telugu version.

Rahman won his first Filmfare Award in Telugu for this highly successful album. Rahman reused the same tunes for the Hindi remake of the film (Ekk Deewana Tha), also directed by Gautham Menon.

After the announcement of Gautham Menon's Tamil project, Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa, Manjula Ghattamaneni (Producer of the movie) approached Gautham Menon to do a Telugu version of the same, with Naga Chaitanya in the lead. Gautham, who was initially hesitant to do another version, later agreed to Manjula's proposal and scheduled the shoots of many portions simultaneously.

The film was made with a moderate budget of ₹12.5 crore (US$1.8 million) was made following much speculation that Gautham Menon was set to remake it with Manjula's brother, Mahesh Babu.[8] Shooting continued through the latter part of 2009, with the film garnering significant media interest, with schedules in the United States, with Princeton University being used as a backdrop for song picturisation.[9]

The film was shot along with the Tamil version Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa with a completely different cast and climax. This film is Menon's second Telugu venture, after the critically successful Gharshana.

The lead pair Naga Chaitanya and Samantha Ruth Prabhu played guest roles in the Tamil version whereas Trisha and Silambarasan made a cameo in this version. Telugu director Puri Jagannadh appears as himself in a guest role.

The title of the film inspired a similarly named film Ye Mantram Vesave (2018).[13]

• Ye Maaya Chesave at IMDb