An uncle and a gentleman!

Roommates come in different shapes, sizes  and natures.  Looks very much so, when you are twenty three and one of your room-mates is touching 55.  Room it was but mate?  Seems improbable from the outside but when fate throws five of you together into one tenement, every cohabitant of the room turns out to be a mate, cockroaches and lizards included.  That way, Tiwary uncle  sure was a mate for  us five.

And what a mate he turned out to be!

First the scene.

Silchar.  An overgrown village masquerading as a town those times, the early 90s.  Somewhere in south Assam.  Heard of the place?  I mean Assam?  Well, that's where we took roots, not just in the bank, but in life itself.  That's where we were first consigned to, when we joined the bank's hallowed portals.  Coming from different parts of India, all of us probably had their first baptism by fire there, all of us had a taste of what the rest of India tasted like, smelt like and felt like.  Even if the experience had to come in distant Assam, not India.

To cut a long story short, four of us somehow contrived to meet up with one another after joining the bank , became kind of adjusted to one another and thought of taking up a house in Ambicapatty, that locality of Silchar, the Poes Garden equivalent of Chennai.

That was when fate or providence, whatever you would call a mash up of unexpected events, brought us into contact with Tiwary uncle.

He was already leading a cozy life in his company leased house in Ambicapatty.  Company? Leased? In Silchar? yes, quite possible, even in those days.  Know what? Assam is a place that floats on oil and natural gas, which still find a large number of takers in India.  Indian Companies will do anything to dig out oil from that place and bring it to India by truckloads. Being always a fair trade partner, India gives something in return for the booty smuggled out.  It gives pavilions for free in the India Habitat Centre Trade fair every year  for each of the North Eastern states.  It plies trains that takes 50 hours to reach there.  It has even allowed private airlines to ferry passengers there.  (But why am I digressing?  Should take care of this dirty habit of meandering away and finding good in every bad).  The Indian companies employed an army of labour, mostly from Bihar,  to dig out the gas.   The labourers  used to (and still do) dig, dig and dig.   Why,  the British started it you know, when the entire geography which goes by the name North East now, was under their colony! "Dig boy, Dig.  Dig Boy, Dig"  they used to exhort the labourers till oil gushed out and the diggers passed out.  The story is that probably that's how another quaint oil rich town in Assam got that name Digboi.  (That it is Indian Oil's first and one of biggest refineries is another  irrelevant story).

Silchar in Assam too  has loads of gas underneath its lush paddy fields.  I mean, natural gas, not the obnoxious & hydrogen-sulphide contaminated variety or the politicians' public speeches we normally associate the term with..  So India's biggest oil exploring public sector Navaratna has huge operations there. Such operations in a big scale required labour in large numbers.  Such large number of labour required a personnel department.  Such a large personnel department needed a manager.  Ha, here comes our link, Tiwary Saab, that famous personnel manager in ONGC. No prizes for guessing, even to blondes and Indians, that ONGC can afford company leased accommodation to its managers, even in Silchar.  So now you are able to place Silchar and its famous denizen Tiwary in their respective proper perspectives.

Now the Act

Tiwary had already taken up quarters in that palatial kind of house in Ambicapatty, Silchar but singly.  Now single is a status Tiwary uncle  frowns upon except when it is malt.  He wants company.  In plenty.  Of any variety and of any gender.  For the statistics, he had a family of  (only) one wife, and a daughter safely stashed away in Dehradun.  He had a son too, employed somewhere in North India, i.e. some place north of Karnataka extending up to the Himalayas. (Just as anything below the Vindhyas is South India for my Amit friends).  His work had brought him to Assam and after a brief sojourn in Jorhat, he now found himself in Silchar.  Accommodation was procured, furniture was procured and basic comforts procured but what about company?  So he always wanted to take in others, he had decided, when he moved to Silchar.  In fact, he was proceeding on the right track even before he came into contact with us.  He had procured a domestic help for his cooking and  cleaning ( the house) needs.  So his company already had two members in his household.

That was when we five bakras fell into his fold to enlarge his company.  A private company became a public company.  We were looking for a decent house, he was looking for company and the twain met. Two became seven.  From here, the story should pick up.

You would have by now guessed what mould our Tiwary uncle fit into.  He had some very fine gentlemanly  attributes.  Listed below are only two samples.

1  Disregard for age

He was 55 alright but he is fine with a company that is 5 year old, not to speak of us, all of 23/24 years each.  All he needs is someone who can talk in Hindi and atleast four among us qualified in this test.  The fifth one is still trying when last heard.

2  High regard for booze

He strongly believed that for any man to speak and live sanely, booze is required.  Just as food, clothing and shelter.  Every evening of his was an evening of fun and frolic and mirth and booze. Here, I need to elaborate but don't ask why a sub para no. 2 became this long.  This sub-para could as well have become another blog in itself.

Booze, Tiwary uncle adored and consumed but mostly it came free for him.  Every evening, he boozed.  Mosquito free nights are possible in Silchar but a booze-free Tiwary uncle  is inconceivable.  And the sharab was rarely bought by him.  You know how these sarkari Indian companies functioned.  For the uninitiated, it functioned the same way thirty years back as it does now.  Grease appropriate palms and the wheels moved. Quench appropriate thirsts and postings got fixed.  Every evening, some supplicant or the other would be (forcefully) invited to Tiwary uncle's home to get his things done.  Invariably, the things got done after uncle's thirst was quenched.  Great man, Tiwary uncle, he never did make any fuss on any particular brand.  One day it would be whisky, the next brandy and the third whatever.  I run out of varieties, since my general knowledge on booze is weak.

Some say that booze brings out the best from a man. It certainly did for Mirza Ghalib and Kannadasan.    It certainly did for the supplicants-cum-daily evening delivery boys but it even did wonders for the hero of this tale.  During the course of each Daru session, our Tiwary uncle  would spew forth the following gems. The same gems every evening but one never got bored hearing the same thing evening after evening.  They were: 

That he had three philosophies or credos or whatever funda, in life:

a)  "Head office mein ghar hain , kya  L _ _ _ _ ka dar hai?"

     Like a treatise on Bhagvad Gita, I have to explain this.  Tiwary used to emphasize more than once during the course of his evening discourses that he hails from Dehradun.  The place where ONGC is headquartered. He is a Head Office man.  Meaning, some ulta pulta happens means, he can throw his weight around in Dehradun, his home town itself, beware!  "I come from Dehradun, ONGC comes from Dehradun, and so 'aham ONGC asmi'.  That's his credo.  Here what L _ _ _ _ means, you can conjecture.  I will give only two hints.  The last letter is A and the entire word is commonly referred to as a crass Hindi Gali.

b)  " kaun si aisi chokri jo mujse na takri"?

  Even after thirty years, I am still unable to fathom why he used to dish out this theorem or sloka or whatever, but he did all the same, after each evening's booze session.  We saw only one chokri there in the household and that is the dear 50 year old Mashi, the domestic help.    Other than that chokri, why our Tiwary uncle even used to think about any other intimidating chokri we never knew and we never will. That's an unsolved riddle I will carry to my tomb.

Here I should warn readers that I absolutely have no idea of whether the 55  year old Tiwary uncle had any takkar with any 50 year old chokri in ambicapatty.  I am not suggesting anything, but again that might just provide content for another blog, nay, full length novel, if further dug up.

c)  "chad gaya seedi pe, uthar gaya beedi pe"

This gem, though we all know to be an inextricable part of life, the very essence of every mortal's life, assumed huge proportions when it emanated from the great man's mouth.  In fact, Tiwary uncle was no less than Einstein.  Einstein (was that him or Kalam or some other science nazi?) had said something to the effect that every action should have an equal and opposite reaction and he bloody became famous for this simple quote.  Our Tiwary's Beedi philosophy was no less profound.  It encompasses Einstein and much more.  Whoever climbs up must come down.  Heads high, with all confidence, you ascend the seedi but a time will come, a moment will arrive when you all have to descend, that too with a Beedi in the mouth.  Tiwary's oceanic knowledge suggests that the ascent was with a 555 cigarette but the descent has to be necessarily with a lowly beedi.  What deep wisdom!

(But why such profound philosophy was shared only after 7 p.m. every night don't ask.  There has to be an apt time for everything.  Just read that even Osho attained enlightenment after a particularly commonplace event)

So here ends the story.  I know, you are asking 'but when did it begin?' but that's the beauty of Tiwary uncle's life.  His entire life can be beautifully summed up by what he used to do during those two hours of evening booze.  Naturally, when the brew hits him and he falls flat on his bed, the story should end. As MKG said "my life is my message", Tiwary uncle's three gospel messages (see (a), (b), (c) above) were his life.     In fact, there is neither a beginning nor an end to the tales of great men.  

So this is the tale of how one great soul by name Tiwary uncle came across our lives for a brief spell of about 1 year in our early impressionable career lives.  I remember each and every word of his wisdom as would my friends Tshering, Phurba, Deepak and Pradeep, wherever there are.

To be frank, on restropection, after 30 years, he can very well be called a scum, a womaniser, a boozer, an opportunist now.  But who is not?  At least I am one, not necessarily with the above mentioned four virtues but with qualities equally scum-like.  I can't say about the other four guys but every one has some s_ _ _  in him.  The point is, I still remember him after 30 years for nothing.  He did not turn my life around, he remained my room mate only for a few months, he is of the same category as a traveller companion you come across during long train journeys.  ( I still remember one gentleman from Ambassa, Tripura, with whom I shared 70 glorious hours of my life in Guwahati express, never to see him again, never to even remember his name but remembering word by word the conversation).  Co-travellers, yes,  but who add spice to the long, tiring journey called  life.  Helps me in prioritising life's priorities.

His three mantras of life, I would never forget, even though only one of them really holds any relevance to me.   Chokri had never held any fascination for me and it never will.  My ghar will never be in My Head office.The Beedi analogy probably applies to every one.  Me too.  The analogy as well as the Beedi.  

Tiwary uncle, you must be about 85 now.  And still reminiscing about or missing  those Silchar evenings. Do your gharwale still allow you those small luxuries of Ambicapatty which you enjoyed and initiated us into? Godspeed to you, my friend.  And to my four  other fellow- bakras.  And to the mashi for all reasons, disclosable and undisclosable.

Murder, most foul....

The decision has been made.  A tough one, at that. ‘ No going back at this last moment’  he told himself, ‘ it has to be executed at any cost’….  It still gave him the shivers, the very thought of what he would be embarking on.   ‘It’s all a mental thing’, he reminded himself.  ‘Tough men don’t back out, however tough the task be’.  At this final hour, there’s no going back too.  Too late.  All plans have been made.  Just a matter of few hours.  The set hour can’t be postponed.    It has to be done, however tough the job at hand is.

Carefully, he opened the box he just purchased and spread out the wares over the table.  Gingerly picked up the knife and examined it.  It shone brightly under the reading lamp.  The edges appeared pretty sharp enough.  Enough to slice through effortlessly, even  through stone.  Enough to inflict a deep wound and snub out life, if need be.   ‘Enough to complete the task’, he thought.  Placed the knife on the reading table and now picked up the scissors.  He could not say if the implement would be up to the task at hand.  After all, he has not done this before.  And he fervently hoped he need not repeat it, in case the first attempt failed.  Ha, and then the plastic gloves.  ‘So that nothing sticks to the hand’.   He had taken special care to ensure there will be no trace of blood on his hands after the work is done.  And his handlers have already made arrangements to dispose off the body safely.  No one would notice and no one would care.  It would just rot inside some filthy dump and evaporate into the elements.  Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…..

‘And there would be people around’, he reminded himself.  But of course, that should be no problem.  Everyone would be busy with his chore.  And with some luck, what he does will not even  be noticed.

Visualising the task at hand, he almost puked.  ‘Why should God choose to soak me in this blood and gore?’ he asked himself.  Brought up in an orthodox Tambrahm family, he had not even killed an ant. Immediately he realized, he had no choice.  He should have thought   when he said yes, two years back, when he actually had a choice.  To take that momentous decision that would bring him to this now.  But now he has had enough.  Enough,  with this daily torture of waiting for the inevitable.    Enough,  with procrastination.  Better be done with it.  Hopefully there will be no need for an encore.  How long can one keep postponing?  He wished the moment would never arrive but like taxes, with sure certainty, the moment has indeed arrived.  Thinking of taxes, his mind veered towards death, another sure certainty.  He almost smiled.  And then admonished   himself.  Thinking of death and daring to smile? 

Thinking of death!  But what else he can think of?  THIS IS DEATH AND THIS IS MURDER.  Think of the times spent together with her?  That moment when she gently came from behind and sat on your lap like a bee perched itself  on the flower?  Think of the days when she even partook your food from the same plate?  Or the numerous days when she would hide in each nook and corner and play hide and seek with you when you go after her with a purpose?  Or even dare to enter the bathroom to be close with you when you took a shower?  Ever close but never letting you to lay your hands on?   Always elusive?

But he realized that despite the closeness, despite the daily contacts and fooling around, chasing each other and all, deep inside, he loathed her.  He actually wanted to get rid of her and all her tribe.  Sadly, inspite of having at times made obvious his feelings that he despised her, the poor thing just could not understand.  She kept chasing him.  The farther he ran from her, the closer she pursued him.   Now he has no love lost for her.  He just wanted to get rid of her.  After all, he has to move ahead in life, and this is just a little inconvenience he has to brush aside.

His mind was suddenly yanked violently towards the consequences of his planned action.  What if he failed?  What if someone found out?  Won’t they ridicule him?  What face will you show your neighbours if you fail and get noticed?  After all, the failure will bring forth attention and questions will be asked.  People, undesirable people, will come calling to your home.  At odd hours.     But more important, how would you remove the stains from your hand and clothes if they stuck?  He shuddered to think of the consequences.  He tried to calm himself and went over all the mental preparations he had made over the last few weeks.  ‘I didn’t ask for this’,  he consoled himself, ‘It’s all fate’.  ‘Mine and her, intertwined’.  Just one thought seemed to console him slightly.  That she would never feel the pain.  After all these years together, despite his hatred for her, he could not bear himself to watch her writhing in pain.  He knew she would be sufficiently drugged before he could lay his hands on her.  He was told that she would be,  no doubt about that.  And that gave him some comfort.

With that comforting thought, he retired to his bed, hoping to get some sleep.  To sleep and wake up to tomorrow, Monday, the D-day.  The day his task will be accomplished .   By noon, the next day his XII standard zoology practicals would be over.  Dissection of periplanata americana – the cockroach- would be over.  Failure in the practicals is not an option.  Just not.  He has to get a full 50 if he ever fancies a chance at becoming a doctor….

TMS - Farewell to a musical odyssey!

One does not reminisce about a great musical journey of 91 years with feelings of pathos and melancholy.  No, such emotions would sully the mood  here.  It was, after all,  a beautifully lived,  fully lived life.  As you leaf through the  pages of his life, strains of mellifluous music waft all around. The air is pervaded by the dulcet tunes of a hundred variety.   A duet here, a devotional there, a rap here, a rhapsody there…. And it makes you sit up and wonder.  Who is this man?  And how did the world miss him when he was around?  Why is it invariably that it takes a death to  remind the world about the greatness of one whose life just withered away? 

Who is this TMS?  How could he produce what he did during his lifetime?  How did he manage the effortless ease of a  muthukkulikka vareegala and a muthaitharupathi thirunagai? Or a yaaranda nilavu and a yennadi rakkamma rendered with equal felicity?

Reams have just been written about the man and his bottomless repertoire.  Adjectives could no more adequately 'adjectivise' his greatness.  I shall not attempt to add to the eulogy.  But one thing I wish to attempt – with trepidation.  To pick the top 10 from his output.  The task is nearly impossible of performance, I am aware, but yet venture into.  There actually is no such thing as the best 10, since hundreds of his songs could qualify to be  among the top.  Let me see…

1 Ennirenduppadhinaru vayadhu has always been my personal favourite – till yesterday the reason was Sivaji Ganesan but now, leafing through the life-time greatest songs of TMS, it dawns on me that the singer too was all along reason enough for that classic melody to bear the stamp of class which it does!  Difficult to tell if Sivaji added glitz to TMS’s voice by some excellent acting and lip-syncing or if TMS added that gloss to the song-setting by his golden voice.  8 x 2 = 16 vayadhu comes right on top.

 2 How  do you describe a string of white pearls embedded on a strip of red coral?  To Vaali, it would look like the seductive smile of the heroine.  TMS brought real life to the imagery through his Pavalakkodiyile muthukkal poothal….song.    A heady cocktail of some lilting music, grand orchestration, great but simple lyrics, all embellished by the soothing TMS voice

3  Chinnanchiriya Vannapparavai brings forth a different facet of TMS.  That deep baritone voice rendering a Carnatic classical type song.  Contrasting with the soft, velvety voice of Janaki, yet beautifully complementing it.  What a song!  TMS’s rendition of the stanza beginning with Vaasal ondrirukkum…. is a real treat to the ears.  Easily one of TMS’s best . 

4 And who said his masculine, resonant voice was not cut out  for songs addressing  children?  Three pieces readily come to my mind – Sirithu vazhavendum… was good, but   Idho endhan deivam munnale….was real vintage TMS.  Again, such gems were but heady mixes of Ganesan, MSV &  Kannadasan but imagine anyone else singing the song and the efforts of the first three would have gone to waste.  As Kannadasan says in this song, God is to be seen in the aroma of a flower- strewn garden, in the lilt of the honey voice of the koel, in the black cloud bursting to quench the thirst of all and in the sweetness of the tender fruits in the orchard.  He could as well have added ‘in the tantalizing voice of TMS…’

5  The mother of today’s Kuthupattu  should be ‘Ennadi Rakkamma…’  The pulsating beat, the youthful effervescence of TMS, the folksy lyrics of KD produce an unbeatable winner.  Picture TMS’s photo in your mind and picture such a pious face covered with vibhuti and kumkum belting out ‘en kannu, en mookku , en pallu…’! Such was his variety and versatility…. And after this song, immediately go to …

6 ….Vandha naal mudhal, indha naal varai….A perfect study in contrast.  Was this the same Rakkamma singer?  Unbelievable.  The voice seamlessly merging with the whistling in the background and melting away into the sunset yonder, along with the cycling Ganesan…TMS proves that his caliber is much above the modern day charlatans masquerading as singers.  Perfect acting, beautiful music soft on the ears (hardly one detects more that 2 or 3 instruments in this piece) and to cap it all, the golden voice of TMS again.  When will we ever come across such masterpieces?

7 Talking of childrens’ songs, again my personal favourite is ‘Chellakkiligalam palliyile…’I find myself groping for words to differentiate between one TMS song and another.  My very mediocre writing skills are a hindrance to amply describe the mood, the setting and the metre of this great song.  Sivaji is the caretaker of several orphaned children, he is the beloved mama for them all.  It is night time. Time to get the kids  to bed.  A little one asks why she can’t see God.  Sivaji tries to explain what is God.  Suddenly TMS breaks into  a ‘la la la la la la la laa….chellakkiligalam pallilyile…’ Needless to say, Ganesan then takes over in perfectly emoting Kannadasan’s lyrics.  This song is sure to seek out that soft nerve inside the steeliest of men and touch a chord.  TMS’s "urugum varthai amma amma" in this piece is the forerunner of all the amma (mother) oriented songs of later years in Tamil film world.  

8  'Our sweetest songs are those that tell of the saddest thoughts', said Shelley. Especially true, if told  by TMS.  ‘Netrupparitha Roja…’ is a case in point.  It proves that man finds solace and peace more in sad songs than in happy ones.  Irony,  but probably because one sad man readily reads the emotional outburst of another sad soul and if that bursts out in the form of a song, to the accompaniment of melodious music, nothing like it.  Not many would have heard this song, except the avid Vividh bharathi Madras listeners of those golden  sixties and seventies. 

9  ‘Oru naalile….’ from Sivantha Mann is a real class act.  TMS begins with ‘Oru naalile…’.  Suseela can’t wait for him to finish and interjects with a sexy ‘ennavam?’ (she sure knows 'ennavam'!!) TMS replies in a mono-syllable 'uravanathe’…and the mirth of point/counter-point continues. On screen, Sivaji and Kanchana, mirroring the same lustful emotions.   It is unbelievable to imagine such a romantic, sometimes raunchy, love duet was composed some forty years back.  Even today’s younger bunch of singers could not have done justice to the gaiety and frolic TMS brought forth in his voice in this song.  Would find a place in any top 10 list of TMS.

10 And so here I am, who went for a stroll down memory lane in search of the cool sea breeze and returned satisfied with a sonnet in my hand.  Yes, Kaatru vangapponen, Oru kavithai vangi vanthen…” No surprise here.  Any one who goes for a walk down the TMS lane is sure to return with a heady, satisfied feeling of bliss and a heartful of melodies.    The rich texture of TMS’ voice, exploring scores of nuances at different pitches, scintillating tune and the boyish energy of a ever-youthful love-struck MGR is the perfect setting for this song. 

One can go on and on.  The futility of picking 10 among thousands hits me hard now.  Even though the above 10 is not strictly in the order of my liking or their relative merit,  I wonder why I omitted ‘Muthaitharu pathithirunagai (the precursor of later day rap songs - try this tongue twister  [non-Tamils need not bother] “korputrezhanatpattroudarai vettippaliyittukkulakiri kuthuppadavothupporavala perumale…") or “Pattum naane bhavamum naane" (a super duper Carnatic hit of those times, and TMS effortlessly breezes through the difficult sangathis)  “Buddhan, Yesu, Gandhi pirandhadhu…” ( the typical MGR song but without his usual histrionics, hands firmly in place, sung in a soothing voice).

It is true that most of TMS’s  best were sung on the screen by that legend Sivaji Ganesan.  It becomes difficult to imagine as to who actually sings the song – Ganesan or TMS.  As I said earlier, it was possible only for TMS to sing in different voices for different on-screen heroes.  Just close your eyes, and switch on the transistor (yes, transistor or the Murphy radio, if you like, I am talking of the seventies) and listen to any TMS number.  Nine out of 10 times you can predict if it was Sivaji or MGR or some other hero who sang it on screen.  A God-given but perfectly tuned gift, no other play back singer in India has managed to anywhere come close to acquire. 

No futile arguments on who is the greatest playback singer of Indian cinema and such stuff.  Any argument would even be pointless, what with half of India not even having heard of a legend which went by the name TMS.  Not even heard of that colossus who straddled three decades of Tamil cinema and produced a mind boggling 10,000 songs, not counting his hundreds of devotional songs, outside films.  Not even realizing that the world is bigger than the Rafis, Mukeshs and Kishores.  Not to belittle these gentlemen but a TMS or a PBS or a Ghantasala was much bigger in scope and canvas than what Hindi filmworld could ever throw at us.

Yes, we all know the inevitability of death.  But some deaths leave you with a real sense of void.  A sickening feeling of the unfairness of it all.  Akin to someone snatching away that prized toy from a kid’s hands.  Like how you felt when Ganesan left this world.  Like when PBS breathed his last.  Like when TMS bid adieu!

Rest in peace,  TM Soundararajan.  You are not even a pachai tamizhan but your service to Tamil film music will remain unmatched.

Ganesan - The God who donned the grease paint!

A non-descript boy with poor means from an equally non-descript, dusty hamlet some 160 kms south of Madras does not always make a plot for a great tale.   Limitations are aplenty.  For starters, there are millions of such specimens.  Each one has a tale in him, each one's life is an epic in itself but the sheer numbers daunt one from picking a sample. A sample who would have, providence permitting, managed to inch his way 160 kms up north to Madrasapattinam  and got noticed.  As for the hero of this tale,  notice the world did and for good measure, stood up and stared in awe too.  It still does.

Because Villupuram Chinnaiah Pillai Ganesan was no ordinary specimen.  Everything about his childhood and teen years was bordering on the predictable and mundane, except for his unstoppable passion for acting.  He could have chosen no other profession, since he was probably good at nothing else. But he was good at that one thing.  With empty pockets and tons of talent, this non-descript lad descended on Kodambakkam in the fifties, lorded over it for well over 5 decades and evolved as the best in the business.  'Villupuram' and 'Chinniah Pillai' evaporated from his name in course of time and presently Sivaji came to replace them. And Sivaji Ganesan was born!

Tamil Nadu's history has, for as long as one could remember, been intertwined with the history of cinema. We Tamil folks, (Ayyayyo!)  are crazy about this form of art.  We lived and breathed cinema, we continue to - only the milieu has changed from tent kottais and tharai tickets  to surround-sounds and scotch whiskeys.  We Tamils unabashedly love this medium and do not, for a moment, try to hide our faces and slink under our seats while caught amidst frenzied throngs doing Palabhishekam on our heroes’ cut-outs, throwing chillarai onto the screen and lighting camphor and doing arathi first day, first show.  Right from the humble rickshaw- puller to the corporate honcho.  And we have a history of display of such unbridled adulation for our silver-screen idols starting much before the rest of the world woke up to the power, the film medium is.  Why, our MKT, Chinnappa and KB Sundarambal commanded astronomical salaries some 70 years back which sums, inflation-indexed today, would put today's mega-stars, super-stars and power-stars to shame, Bolly, Holly and all other woods included! Our film stars of yore first got noticed, then became popular, then became demi-gods and then rode to political power.  We Tamils are the pioneers in making Chief Ministers of our film stars and the rest of the world just followed suit. Across the atlantic, the medium even made a President out of a film star, emulating a phenomenon in our back yard  who went by the name Marudhur Gopalan Ramachandran.  And our star-turned-politicians have not fared any worse than the scoundrel-turned-politicians, as history would show.

Oh, yes, V.C.Ganesan I was talking about, pardon the digression.  He rode like a colossus over Tamil Cinema from the mid-fifties till the end of the century.  Well, so many others too have, so what am I crowing about?  Puratchi Thalaivar, for one. Then what makes this VC Ganesan special? Why am I here groping for words to write about the greatest of actors this universe has seen?  What possible facet of acting  of this Ganesan can I hope to highlight which has not been already written about?

I bother with this chore precisely because he is the greatest actor the earth has ever seen but not ever willing to acknowledge so.  I consider it my duty to add one more post to the cyber-world to register my indignation at that.  This post may hardly be read by one trillionth of the world's population but I don't care.  One vote does not elect a Prime Minister but that one vote counts. One drop does not make a ocean but without such single drops an ocean ceases to be.  Being the five crore, forty eight lakhs sixty five thousand, one hundred twenty sixth guy to write about the greatness of Sivaji Ganesan does not make or unmake a legend.  But I have registered my 'like' here and that is what counts for me.

Judging film acting, specially in India is so subjective,  that it is next to impossible to precisely define what constitutes good acting. At one end of the spectrum, you have this arty- films where the protagonist utters not a word for three hours (busy immersed in cattle-herding, beedi- smoking or playing chess ) and gets away with being branded the best actor on earth. At the other end  are these ultimate and penultimate  stars,  who blast your ear drum with one-liners, two-liners, hundred liners and punch dialogues even while busy  cuddling up with cuties half their age or bashing up the baddies. (Some multi-tasking that).   It's either the Mount Everest or the Mariana trench for our actors.  There is no in-between.  This is where my VC Ganesan comes into the picture.  What an amazing repertoire he could boast of! He can play with equal aplomb and felicity the pinnacle of Everest or the nadir of a bottomless pit.  And  anything in- between.  He can play Kattabomman, the king, as effortlessly as Babu, the beggar.  He can play the Justice as well as the lawyer. In one scene he is the Rajapart and the next, the Kallapart.  He can play the senile old man longing for  love in the evening of his years as well as a sadist womaniser. He can play the lecher and  the leper, he can play the seer and the stupid, he can play the playboy and the priest, why my man can play God even.  And when he does, even God descends to take a lesson or two on how to play the part!  There is no role on earth he has not played and if there is any, it just does not exist!  One just has to witness any two of his films one after the other and I would bet my right hand that the uninitiated would hardly realise both the roles were played by the same person!

Quite a few adjectives and invectives have been heaped on the thespian by self-appointed judges of cinema over the years.  The oft-repeated being his ‘loud’ and ‘dramatic’ portrayal.  Forgetting for a moment that our society itself loves being  loud and  dramatic.  Are not our weddings loud and garish?  Are not our funerals melodramatic?  Are we not a nation of hysterics?  And Ganesan was only mirroring you and me while playing the parts.  But he knew when to be loud and when to be silent.  The ignorant   say he is loud.  I say he knew when to tone up and tone down.  They say he is histrionic - I say he knew when to be one, when the role would demand one to be so.  They say he is ‘dramatic’ – I say a drama needs to be dramatic. They say he would not fit into the ‘class’ of art-house type performers – I say darn you, cattle-grazing class,  Ganesan knows what to give, how much to give and when.  They say he overacts – well, I now bow my head.  I take it as a compliment.  At least the carping critics now acknowledge that Ganesan can act!  There can be no overdose unless there is a dose in the first place.  No one can over- eat unless he starts eating.  And no one can over act unless he knows a thing or two about acting. And remember, Ganesan is the yardstick to determine how much is under-acting and how much is over.  Yardsticks are not judged, they are just considered as reference points upon which the commonplace is judged.

One can easily cite examples of hundreds of different roles he has played, to counter each of the above inane arguments, but that is not the point.  Even trying to defend the criticism would be beneath the dignity VC Ganesan deserves.  (But I can’t resist the temptation; anyone access to the internet and you-tube can try downloading the songs (i) ‘ennirandu padhinaru vayadhu’  (ii) chinnanchiriya vannapparavai… (iii) olimayamana edhirkalam …. (iv) pasumai niraindha ninaivugale…. No need to be conversant with the language.  Just observe Ganesan emoting [and not emoting where  not required] without any prejudice or preconceived notion of what is method-acting and what is not.  I am positive no one on earth could have done better.  But of course, that was the heady combination of the sixties, the golden era of Tamil Cinema, Ganesan, TMS, Kannadasan and Viswanathan-Ramamoorthy.  One cannot hope fore the luxury of an encore of such golden times, twice in one’s short life-span). 

Marlon Brando would have been proud to be talked of as the Sivaji of Hollywood.  So would a  Dilip Kumar and a Sanjeev Kumar.. Having said that, it is only fair and expected that the legend of Villupuram Chinnaiah Pillai Ganesan was never ever nominated for the best actor award at the national level, let alone an Oscar.  The similarity here between Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi never winning a peace Nobel is striking.  Awards do not matter though they do provide some nourishment to souls like me, the unabashed Sivaji admirers.  They did deign to endow him with a Dada Saheb Phalke award but just as an after thought. Long after several international awards came his way.  Perhaps out of a guilty feeling, perhaps as a  repentance. …

Just read Bharadwaj Rangan in The Hindu yesterday (the idea behind this post is that article) – quote- ‘….. V then said that she could not get (how) Tamil audiences rated Sivaji Ganesan a great actor. “ How can someone so loud and theatrical…?”  And I (Rangan) said, “watch Uyarndha Manidhan and Motor Sundaram Pillai, and let’s continue this conversation”….’-unquote.

Here rests my defence, milord!  Watch Ganesan without blinkers and then let’s continue this conversation….