Sabhari Bharathan, like most nine-year-olds, does not like to do his homework. He gives the same reply to his father, director Bharathan, each time he’s asked if he’s finished it. “ Evvalavo pannitom, idha panna maatoma ?” he says, imitating Vijay.
It’s a punch line Bharathan wrote for Azhagiya Tamil Magan, and it gives him great joy to listen to his son use it…even if it’s against him. It’s also proof that his dialogues form a part of pop culture and everyday conversation.
“There are several such lines in Bairavaa ,” Bharathan promises, as I catch up with him in Vijaya Productions’ Saligramam office. “It’s the dialogues I wrote for Veeram that led to this film as well, a second chance to direct Vijay.”
A flashback to Bharathan’s past reveals that he came to Chennai after watching Moondram Pirai . A film he watched 10 times. “It’s when I understood the power of cinema.” He is grateful to his parents for allowing him to join The Adyar Film Institute when others his age weren’t even allowed to watch movies.
Bharathan debuted as director with Vijay’s Azhagiya Tamil Magan, but it didn’t do well at the box office. It was his first flop after four consecutive hits (he wrote the dialogues for Dhill , Dhool , Ghilli and Madhurey ). Following the success of Pokkiri , the expectations on Vijay’s next had weighed too heavily on Bharathan’s shoulders. “I didn’t speak to Vijay sir for eight years after that. I’d promised myself that I would only approach him after a hit or with a great script.”
Not that he stopped working in that period. “I would write at least 10 pages a day. I knew an opportunity wasn’t too far away. When Vijaya Productions asked me if I had a script for Vijay sir, I felt it could be my redemption.” Bharathan adds, talking about his meeting with Vijay after the long gap, “What amazes me is how Vijay sir has remained the same. He doesn’t care about the past. He thinks only about the future.”
After Vijaya Productions approached him, Bharathan started the process of rewriting the script to suit Vijay… an art in itself. “The script of a mass entertainer and its dialogues have to be tailor-made for a star if it has to succeed. We need to incorporate a star’s image, his body language, and even how he modulates for his fans to be convinced. For instance, distributors in the State generally refer to Vijay as Vasool Mannan, because of how profitable his films are. So I incorporated a line where the villain asks him if he is, indeed, Vasool Mannan. The same line wouldn’t have worked for any other star.”
The script also needed to incorporate the changes Vijay had undergone as a star. “Around 10,000 people used to come to see him when we were shooting for ATM in Kancheepuram. The numbers have multiplied, and today, people from neighbouring towns and villages hire trucks to come to the sets.”
Bharathan says there are no B and C centres any more. “Tamil Nadu has over 400 release centres now, and the audience needn’t wait for a film to come to their village to see it. So a film needs to work in Chennai just as it must in Pollachi. No director can say his movie did not work because it was meant only for a particular audience.”
He can speak authoritatively on the matter because he was part of some of Tamil cinema’s biggest entertainers. He was one half of the formidable Dharani-Bharathan combo that produced monster hits like Dhill , Dhool , and Ghilli . “ Dhool , to this day, comes up in every discussion of what goes into the making of a successful entertainer. People assume it’s very easy to make such films, but one has to realise that we’re not making such films for just one kind of audience. With the budgets that go into it, everyone needs to like it for the film to break even.”
Even for Dhill , the producers had one request for Bharathan, the film’s dialogue writer. “They just wanted five dialogues that would make the audience applaud. I promised them that I’d give them 10. They called me after watching the first show at Udhayam and said the audience had cheered for 23 scenes. It’s my job to make sure Bairavaa breaks this record.”
