Standing tall, shining still
T R JAWAHAR
That Sivaji Ganesan's statue has become sub-judice should be of little concern for his admirers. The actor non pareil stands tall in the hearts of the people.
Born into a poor family, Ganesan took flight from home at the tender age of seven to meet his tryst with destiny, on the stage and screen. The spark was evident from his early days. In fact, he defied all logic and rules of artistic evolution. Sivaji Ganesan was a consummate actor from day one!
'With my first movie itself, I landed on the moon', he once told this writer. In fact he said, 'moo...o oon' in his typical booming baritone with that all too familiar drag that was vintage Sivaji. For a prolific performer of his calibre he was too humble and ever remained an ardent student of his vocation, even after he had written and re-written the grammar of acting several times over. ' What do I know? I only did what my directors bid me to do. All credit goes to them'.
He was certainly not acting when he said this, but the remarkable under-statement reflected the character and disposition of the man to life and to his career. 'I can never become a director. I can only act and this I can and I want to do till my last breath. I am not so talented as these youngsters who could write, act, sing, dance and direct'.
I still remember those bulging, probing eyes rolling in mock seriousness when he made the statement. Sivaji never wavered from his karmic duty as an actor. He was never even tempted into lofty rhetoric when lesser beings in the industry used to harangue endlessly on the pros and cons of acting. But then Sivaji did not have to speak. His portrayals spoke a million words, wrote a thousand theories on the art and science of acting and has spawned generations of actors, all trying to imitate and emulate him.
The sheer volume of his output is astounding and the versatality and vitality of his performances confound all. The breath-taking array of his roles makes one wonder if it was really just one man who did all this. He could switch from extreme roles in a jiffy. The regal gait of a monarch and the clumsy walk of a village idiot, the cunning viles of a villain or the utopian goodness of a hero, a doting father or a wayward son, a sanguine saint or a senseless maniac, as Lord Shiva or His devotee, from a short-tempered musician to a soft-spoken family man, you name it, and a visage of Sivaji would pop up your mind's screen. He was the undisputed master of melodrama and little wonder that the people of Tamilnadu, have laughed and wept with him for over five decades and will do so for time immemorial by watching his immortal performances.
Sivaji Ganesan was an ageless wonder. If the current generation were to study his career they would emerge completely confused about the chronology of his movies. Would anyone believe if I say that he did Navarathiri, Karnan and Puthiya Paravai in the same year? Or for that matter Thillana Mohanambal and Ooty Varai Uravu? Or again Thiruvarutchelvar and Iru Malargal? And to think that he was just thirty one when he played Kattabomman, the macho Tamil chieftain who dared the British or as the venerable V.O.C just a year later! For him acting was a series of different states of mind and the moment his mood shifted to the latest role on hand, the inner spirit automatically generated the relevant body language and expressions on the exterior. Here was a man whose every cell, every drop of blood, every sinew and muscle could act, thus creating a colossal facade that was much, much more than the sum of all its parts.
Such was the range of his histrionic abilities that he dwarfed all his peers and strode the tinsel world like a towering titan. Bestowed with an imposing demeanour, a powerful screen presence, a resonating voice that could also melt into a cool stream and vibrant eyes housed in a remarkable face, Sivaji was a make-up man's delight and a director's dream.
Sivaji was often accused of over emoting, but then with his bottomless ocean of skill, he could carry on till eternity unless the director bothered to say 'cut'. And few directors had the heart to stop the deluge and often left it to his fans to consume to their fill. In a way such directors did him a dis-service, but Sivaji had also proved that he was capable of 'restraining' himself if the director wanted it that way and movies like Sridhar's Nenjirukkum Varai, Balachander's Yethiroli and Savale Samali stand testimony to this facet of the actor. Sivaji was a gold mine of talent. He could be presented as raw gold, cut to size, polished to taste, made into any kind of jewellery or moulded into any shape. It was wholly upto the director to take his pick. But he was gold all the same, pure and pristine.
Sivaji was a national treasure but was also sadly a victim of regional bias. In a milieu dominated by Hindi film intellectuals who moulded filmi opinion at the national level, Sivaji was deliberately overlooked, though international recognition came his way unsolicited. For them Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor were pan Indian icons but Sivaji never figured in their scheme of things just because he hailed from a regional filmdom and spoke a local tongue. And paradoxically for him, in Tamilnadu he suffered because of the reverse effect. While he threw his lot with a national party, he was promptly sidelined owing to the dominance of Dravidian politicians of the sixties, who had appointed themselves as the sole custodians of Tamil. Could there ever be a greater protagonist of Tamil than Sivaji Ganesan or has anyone else enriched and elevated the language as he did, beyond paroachical walls and transcending State borders? Though Sivaji Ganesan brought glory and world attention to the State and his mother tongue, it is also a fact that he was badly let down here. An artiste of international stature was confined to totally local terrain.
All said, Sivaji Ganesan would ever remain the mascot for acting, for admirers and critics alike.
