On a warm Tuesday morning, under the canopy of trees in a park, Tamil’s only writer-duo, Subha — Suresh and Balakrishnan — in a freewheeling chat, spoke about their beginning in writing for magazines and how entering the movie world through director K.V. Anand has taken them to half a dozen top directors:
Suresh and Balakrishnan met in Presidency College when they joined B.Sc. (physics) in 1972.
There was a competition in Tamil and Balakrishnan was declared winner of the first prize. One more person eligible for the prize and that went to Suresh.
“We both had interest in Tamil literature and this incident brought us together. When we got bored in the class room, we would move to the garden and talk about stories. I wrote for Kannan and Bala talked to me about Thi. Janakiraman and M.V. Venkatram,” begins Suresh. “He read a lot in the Ramakrishna Math library, while I spent my Sundays from morning to evening in district central library in Anna Salai,” supplements Bala.
They graduated in 1975. Emergency had been declared and the duo found that there was no opening in job market. They attended interviews but there were no appointment orders!
Destiny, apparently, had other plans for them. Kalki had published a thriller by Rekha Chandranath and asked the readers to guess the end of the story. In fact it was a short story competition. Each one had a story ready to enter the competition, when a question cropped up. ‘Why write two different stories?’ asked each other and submitted one story — ‘Vichitra Uravugal’ — and it won the third prize. Thus was born ‘Subha.’
“When the cheque came, my father happened to see it. ‘Are you going to ruin yourself?’ was his reaction,” recalls Balakrishnan. Both decided not to write until they got a job. Balakrishnan got a bank job and was posted to Perundurai and Suresh in another bank, in Chennai.
Bank of stories
“We exchanged ideas through letters, almost daily,” reminisces Suresh. “We built a bank of twenty stories. There was a magazine boom then — Kungumam, Savi, Aswini, etc., We sent one story a day to Savi, consecutively as a strategy . Nineteen returned promptly, one was retained at the office and eventually got published. We sent a story to Dinamani Kadir , when K.R. Vasudevan was the editor. It got published in its Deepavali special issue with illustration by Maruthi, when Na. Parthasarathy took over as editor. We congratulated each other through a telegram. When Bala came to Chennai for Deepavali, we discussed the next story!”
After publishing their story, ‘Saakkadai Sannidhanangal,’ Savi sent a letter to the duo addressed as ‘Anbulla Ammani’ (Dear Madam), asking the writer to come with a photograph. Naturally, it was assumed that Subha was a woman.
“When we entered his cabin, Savi looked behind us! We revealed our identity,” laughs Suresh. Since the story dealt with sensitive issues of women, the editor was sure that the author was a woman.
Which of them is the ideator? ‘Well, when I write, Bala would correct some passages and vice versa. We understand each other’s thought process. Once we decide on a theme, either of us takes up the writing. The flow is natural,” they expalin.
Bala’s transfer to Chennai and his moving to Tiruvallikeni made their task easier. Seeing Suresh off at the Marina bus stand, Bala saw a crow sitting on the roof of the Chepauk Palace. That inspired the thriller ‘Narendran Jaggiradai.’ “Most of the stories were developed when we walked together,” says Bala.
The short story, which won them the first prize in the Ananda Vikatan competition, was ‘Kozhikunju.’ It was a first person account by a mentally challenged man, whose brother is a renal patient.
The question was, should he be asked to donate his kidney and if so, does he understand the implications? After this story won the prize, there was no looking back!
Have there been conflicts? “We debate, never quarrel or fight,” they say. “We discuss the story from all angles before arriving at the end. Mind you, there is a writer in every reader. If neither of us is convinced, we don’t explore that option,” they say. In this context the duo mentions a story, which they held for over 15 years. ‘Udhiram’ was about an Indian soldier trying to quench his thirst. “When we were convinced about the circumstances, we decided to send it,” they inform.
How did films happen?
“We did ‘Madham Oru Mavattam’ for Kalki, when K.V. Anand accompanied us as a still photographer. In Avudayapuram near Virudhunagar, we reported about a well contaminated with poison. This became a huge hit and went up to the Supreme Court.
Incidentally, Anand is a serious reader, too. We published monthly super novels, for which Anand gave us stunning wrappers. The duo became a trio!” they say cheerfully. Out of the 14 films that Anand directed, Subha have been associated with six. Their ‘Pudhaithaalum Varuven’ was turned into Kana Kanden . The writers are all praise for Anand’s flair for visualisation and camera angles.
Film nuances
Subha are currently discussing stories and dialogue for directors A. Venkatesh, Vishnu Vardhan, Jayendra, Mohan Raja, Shankar, Sundar C and Prabhu Deva. They have made films with all of them. “We learnt the nuances of scriptwriting from K. Bhagyaraj. Screenplay is just unfolding of the story. Once the storyline is approved, our work begins!” For such prolific output, the duo keeps a low profile. Is it deliberate?
“You can call it realisation,” they respond. “We do not create. We only discover. Some force, call it what your will, has made us writers. We realise that we are not special. Have you gone to Ellora? The sculptor has done in one single rock the entire edifice. It is magnificent. Do you find his name there? We think of all those veteran writers such as Kalki, Thi. Janakiraman and a host of others to keep our ego in check.”
As reporters for international film festivals in New Delhi, Hyderabad and Goa, the duo was exposed to world cinema.
What gives you satisfaction — writing for magazines or penning scripts for films?
“The tie with the print media is like the umbilical knot,” they assert even while agreeing that right now, they are riding two horses! The duo’s Thanga Thamarai Publications has seen significant achievements. Their book on Mahabalipuram, with J. Prabhakar’s line drawings has seen several editions in several languages. Agasthiyan gave them the Nalayira Divya Prabhandam in easily readable syllables and this has seen six editions.
As ‘Kashyapan,’ they have written articles in Ananda Vikatan , after visiting important temples in the country. JP’s line drawings have made them a visual delight.
K.V. Anand says:
Since I was a reader,between us and yet there was no difficulty in moving with them closely.somemysterythen did some films. In the meanwhileopposite house in AdyarThe idea of direction came up when I had done a lot of films as cameraman.The maidenThen I didwith them.
and had As they became very close to me, the discussions were very jovial and healthy, despite occasional heat. Evenpointssimplified at the end. Since cinema is a medium that reaches a wide circle of viewers we were concerned about various types of sentiments and when we three sat together and discussed the screenplay, we got the filtered idea that was ready for the film.There was one more point in our combinationall three of us were B.Sc. Physics students! That is why we could handle both sentimental and scientific issues with ease.
