Indelible impressions
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The charm of Tamil cinema (of the 1940s and ’50s) was irresistible, notwithstanding the elders’ surveillance. V. Gangadhar
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immortal melodies: M.S.Subbulakshmi in Meera.
In the orthodox homes of those days, the names of films and film personalities were not bandied about as done these days. As a boy of seven or eight, I once read out a news item on N.S.Krishnan–T.A.Mathuram, actor couple, expecting a child. My
grandfather snatched the paper from my hands, threw it away and glared at me.
Another time, as I hummed the popular ‘Haridas’ song, ‘Manmathaleelaiyai Venrar Undo’ which everyone was singing, my aunt shushed me and asked me from where I picked up such ‘dirty’ songs.
Last laugh
On the rare occasions when permission was given to watch a film, it came after days of argument, tears and begging. To watch the M.S.Subbulakshmi starrer ‘Meera,’ we repeatedly pleaded with grandfather and finally permission was given. But it was cinema that had the last laugh.
I remember how many of our peons wept when famous actors N.S.Krishnan and M.K.Thiagaraja Bhaghavathar were sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Lakshmikanthan.
As we travelled in bullock carts from Seranmahadevi to our school in Pathamadai, I would hear young voices squeaking out ‘Katrinile Varum Geetham,’ the immortal M.S. melody from ‘Meera.’
A couple of years later, at Madurai’s American College High School, I watched, with admiration, several of my classmates reciting the dialogue from the trend-setting film, ‘Velaikkari,’ a story by the legendary Dravidian leader, Annadurai. How Tamil cinema influenced Dravidian politics is now history.
At home, electricity was unknown. So no radio. All that the young was expected to do was study, play a bit and be good. On the rare occasions when we were allowed to watch films, the elders came with us and sometimes this caused embarrassment. There was no way one could curb their loud comments as the story unfolded on the screen. The women folk even burst into loud sobs in sympathy with the characters.
The special effects in the 1948 AVM movie, ‘Vedala Ulagam’ (‘Demon Land’) were primitive by today’s standards but as the ghostly figures pranced around, we shivered in fright. Decades later, when my college-going daughter watched the DVD version of the film, she burst out laughing and observed that the creatures were ‘cute’!
Comedy was preferable to tear jerkers. So I enjoyed the Vyjayantimala -T.R.Ramachandran courting scenes in AVM’s ‘Vazhkkai.’ When Modern Theatre’s ‘crime thriller’ of those years, ‘Digambara Samiar’ was released it was a new experience.
I watched films in ‘pucca’ theatres where audiences smoked endlessly. Or in thatched roof-makeshift theatres or even tents where screening was stopped every 45 minutes or so to change the reels.
Tens of songs
Some of the films had 40 to 50 songs and even featured stalwarts of Carnatic music such as Musiri Subramania Iyer, Maharajapuram Viswanatha Iyer and G.N.Balasubramaniam.
Even while cramped up in uncomfortable theatres, I did not mind sitting through films like ‘Aayiram Thalai vaangia Apoorva Chintamani’ a film based on a folk tale spanning four and a half hours.
My favourites? I adored actor T.R.Mahalingam who, according to me, was the most handsome hero of those days. He sang ‘divinely’ even on such mundane stuff as the ‘Palgova’ (‘Adithan Kanavu’).
One of my film crazy classmates, in a ‘review’ dismissed in one word a Mahalingam film ‘Mayawati,’ as ‘Padavathi’ (useless). I never talked to him afterwards!
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