Even as a child, I was fascinated by how hero introduction scenes in many Tamil films usually showed them praying to a deity. Actor and film historian Mohan V. Raman says such portrayal quickly established them as ‘good’ men. With the rare exception of a film like Anbe Sivam , a devout believer is usually a man of great innocence. The recent Tharai Thappattai shows its villain as a worshipper, his seeming benevolence enhanced by the sacred ash on his forehead. Shortly, you learn he’s wearing a disguise — that of a good man. When his identity is revealed, the man is shown to be drinking, and smoking marijuana. A bad man, you see.
But filmmakers are understandably playing it safe. These are, after all, times when even imagined insults result in laborious lawsuits and likely bans. Have we already forgotten the curious case of Vishwaroopam, which ran into trouble, following protests by those who hadn’t an inkling of what the film was about? Today, it’s almost impossible to imagine that a film like Parasakthi that brazenly took on status quo and its practices was made 64 years ago. This was barely five years after we secured Independence. The film met with trouble of course, as detailed in M.S.S. Pandian’s article for the Economic and Political Weekly , Parasakthi: Life and Times of a DMK Film . But much of the trouble came in the form of lawsuits. Stones weren’t pelted, theatre screens weren’t damaged, and bombs weren’t thrown (as in the case of Mani Ratnam’s Bombay ). There was at least a discussion, not a ‘law and order’ problem, a phrase oft-used to justify bans.
Mohan believes that the advent of caste-based political parties dissuaded filmmakers from handling topics deemed to be of a sensitive nature. Perhaps, that’s why blatantly atheistic characters aren’t written? He poses a return question: “If the story doesn’t need it, why bother writing one?” In order for the characters to be more rounded, of course. Surely, it isn’t crucial for a romance film to show the couple praying in a temple? Surely, it wasn’t absolutely necessary to sneak in a visual of Lord Ganesha’s framed photo before Rajinikanth’s introduction scene in Baasha ? It is but rarely that a protagonist proclaims his atheism, like Aadhi of OK Kanmani . However, the film, being the light romance it is, it is perhaps easy to dismiss it as the frivolous, misguided belief of a young man, eager to impress a girl. But baby steps, nevertheless.
The other issue concerns the ease of depiction, or the lack of it. Just as it is easy to identify certain communities, thanks to their dialects and dressing, it is easy to show a believer. You show a man’s hands folded in devotion. Or as in Annamalai ’s ‘Vandhenda Paalkaran’ song, you show the hero smear his forehead with sacred ash. How do you show an atheist without being too emphatic though? And you don’t want to be too emphatic, considering that it has only been three years since the repudiation of the law that required playwrights to secure official approval of their scripts from the police commissioner’s office. This law was brought in as a response to M.R. Radha’s atheistic interpretation of Ramayana in his play. It’s such excessive reactions that made even our most popular atheist, Kamal Haasan, adopt a weak atheistic stance at the end of Dasavathaaram , when he says, “ Kadavul illanu sollala, irundha nalla irukkum .”
He even later admitted in an interview that it was a compromise. After all, he does belong to an industry in which numerologists decide the spellings of titles; priests decide launch dates; and the said launch of a film is called its puja .
