Sarangapani established his name with the box office bonanza and early classic comedy, Rambayin Kaadhal (1939). It is a folk fantasy built around the celestial dancer Ramba, who is cursed by Lord Indra to become a stone sculpture (which comes to life after sunset!) on earth. Some mischievous friends get the stone woman married to a rural halfwit named Yathbhavishyan (Sarangapani).
How she gets relief from the curse forms the crux of the Central Studios, Coimbatore Production’s Rambayin Kaadhal . Central Studios Limited was established in 1937 by a group of mill-owners such as R.K. Ramakrishnan Chettiar (Sir R.K. Shanmugham Chetty’s brother), and a college fresher S.M. Sriramulu Naidu (later of Pakshiraja Films and Studio fame).
Directed by B.N. Rao, it was a major box-office hit, running for 25 weeks in many parts of the Tamil-speaking districts of the erstwhile Madras Presidency. In her debut as Ramba, Vasantha (credited as ‘K.L.V. Vasantha Devi’, original name Kunrathur Vallikannu), played her role with charm, and Sarangapani did an excellent job as the half wit. So much so that Yathbhavishyan became a by-word for a naïve person! Both Vasantha and Sarangapani became stars with this film.
Chokkalinga Bhagavathar, who played Narada, sang well—one of the songs, Vasudeva Suthaaa Venugana Vilolaa... , became a hit.
N.S. Krishnan-T.A. Mathuram provided comic relief, which did not quite click with the audience. Mathuram played a princess with whom a commoner (NSK) falls in love. As a consequence of Indra’s curse, Ramba becomes a fearful demoness and enters the soul, mind and body of Mathuram! However, the sequences did not provoke laughter as expected. The noted comedian and later day producer and director T.S. Durairaj played their sidekick and another role as the exorcist’s (Kali N. Ratnam) assistant. R. Balasubramaniam, the well-known character actor, played Lord Indra.
Written by the forgotten Tamil scholar, screenwriter and also director T.C. Vadivelu Naicker, who worked along with Rao in the directorial department, the film had excellent outdoor sequences shot on the banks of River Kallaar by the German technician Bodo Gutschwager (during that period there were quite a few foreign technicians working in Tamil Cinema such as J. Moylan, Michael Omalov, T. Marconi and the most famous and successful of them all, the American Tamil filmmaker Ellis R. Dungan. Not many are aware that Marconi, an Italian cinematographer was imprisoned as an ‘undesirable alien’ by the British Indian rulers during the Second World War! He was popularly known as Morekuzhambhu Marconi because of his fondness for that South Indian spicy dish!) With this film Sarangapani became a star comedian…
Sarangapani’s earlier outing in a minor role in Tukaram , however, did not make much of an impact. The film was a classic, produced by Central Studios of Coimbatore in 1938. After prolonged discussions, Chettiar, Naidu, the film director B.N. Rao and others decided to film the life of the famed patron saint of Maharashtra, Tukaram. Prabhat Studio of Poona had filmed the story with great success, which obviously had persuaded Rao and his producers to make it in Tamil and Telugu so that the project would be economically viable. Incidentally, Musiri Subramanya Iyer played Tukaram, in keeping with the trend of Carnatic musicians donning the grease paint.
(To be continued)
