Interesting characters – will they be in movies?
All that discussion on Munshiji in Pavan Jha’s post made me rewind down the memory lane to my plus one class when we had short stories collection for language (both english and Thamizh) non-detailed. The English non-detailed had some regular O Henry stories. The Thamizh non-detailed story had one interesting story by ‘Pudhumai Piththan’. The short story was titled ‘Paalvannam pillai’.
I have forgotten the story as such – what happened to the character etc., However the sketch painted by pudhumai piththan still stays with me. It is an awesome recollection of a typical Indian householder working as a lowly ranked clarke in a government office who speaks only in monosyllables in the office – and that one syllable is usually ‘Yes sir’ to his superiors. At home though he is terror to his wife and children. An absolute monarch who never has heard his wife or children say anything contrasting what he says. Such a dichotomy in a man’s personality expressed in simple to understand words which bring to life the character in our mind’s playing field is the magic of Pudhumai Piththan. Later on when the film bug bit me through the frames of Mahendran and BaluMahendra, I got to know that Udhiri pookkal which was the first feature of Mahendran is actually a pudhumai piththan story and I could see the parallels of the village teacher character with the character of paalvannam pillai. soft and respected outside the house and ruthless and sadistic when treating the creatures of home- a mind chilling sketch brought to life by Mahendran’s megaphone. Once the movie’s last scene played out – a remarkable fusion happened in my mind.
The character who was so well written, got a new life and colour when a sensitive and honest film maker touches him with his neutral and observing gaze. The eye for character – as I understood comes only from reading, reading masters like Mushi and pudhumai piththan, who have spent their entire lives observing humans and understanding them – while accepting them inspite of their frailities and glories. A good book is said to be substitute for a good travel. Our present day film makers think that a good english film is a substitute for a good book,thereby lifting character sketches, plot lines from other people’s creativity, causing accusations of plagiarism to fly from all corners. What they fail to realize is the amazing depth of Indian literary world where many people who lived and died have been chronicled by masters like Jeyakanthan, Tagore, Munshiji and Pudhumai Piththan. Their work is an open garden which anyone can visit, get enriched and in the process translate their wonderful thoughts into good movies without getting accused of plagiarizm and ‘creative bankruptcy’.
Only very few film makers like Bala (whose siththan character in pithamagan was inspired by Jeyakanthan’s vettiyaan in yaarukkaaga azhudhaan) seem to feel the need to revisit the masters to get their film ideas. A handful of Malayalam film makers routinely visit the literary world of MT Vasudevan nair and Thagazhi to comeout with precious pearls like ‘Vidheyan’ or ‘ponthan mada’. Rest seem to get inspired only by a copyrighted DVD and till that time it will be hayday of ‘Partners’ who have no ‘hitch’ in copying instead of creating. For producers it will always seem to be an easy thing to pay a star actor who ‘cant act saala’ crores while becoming particularly frugal when it comes to acquiring the ‘rights’ to an original Indian idea or paying a good writer who is ready to ‘create’ or ‘co-create’. Some good writers dont even mind if their ideas, stories get lifted as long as they are able to sell atleast 5 books more using the cine fame!
Creativity as a term has come to be passe.
It is Recreativity that wears the cloak of creativity in the current Indian scene.
Till the time when makers of the Mahendran mould return, quality in terms of characterization and iterary depth will always be found wanting and good writers will have to by default make their debut as directors only in ‘fun movies’ with ARR or SEL music and some star connections. miles to go before international recognition for an Indian movie for its content and not some curious glance at a primitive film with song and dance novelty. Till that date may our faith be kept and may the force be with Anurags, Shivajees, Onirs, Balas and Ameers. Thus I pray to thee Lord of cinema!
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
IMO, for all this to happen, characters need to be set in real life settings. It is important that they reflect the social and cultural milieu of their times. More often than not, they should be from small towns or villages, and should speak the native language.
Hence the need for a strong regional cinema to be present, which unfortunately seems to be wishful thinking of the tallest order…….