Nadigar Thilagam Sivaji Ganesan Part 11

[shankarbharath]

"Padithal Mattum Podhuma" - 1962

I wish to state my views and experiences in watching this movie Padithal Mattum Podhuma. This was one of the famous black-and-white movies of NT which I watched for the first time when I was 9 years old. What I distinctly remembered in this film for a long time were a few childish things - NT had a very different hair style in this film (he had dyed it brown in real life) and two superb songs which were male duets (Pon ondru Kanden and Vallavan enakku naane vallavan). I never understood the depth of the film until 2002, when I watched it with intense concentration and a renewed outlook to NT films. It is important to mention that I watched the NT-Bhimsingh films in chronological order.

At first, it looked like any normal film, in fact a lot like the TV serials, but then I realized that this family sentiment movie came in 1962. No TV then, no mega serials, and the general outlook to life and familial values were far different then. It is in such a social context that the Bhimsingh "Pa series" made such immense impact. So I first felt it was a normal film, because I was born in 1980.

But one has to understand the context of films - the era, the technological advances available at that time, the kind of characterizations that actors got, the kind of movies that people made, etc. With such thought, I applied a lot of thought to many situations that I felt illogical. For instance, I could not accept the violent and barbaric behavior of Gopal to Meena in the film. I felt it was way too cinematic. But as usual, this was my first opinion - mind you I was watching this film after I had watched zillions of films that had released well after PMP.

I spent nearly 2 full nights trying to rewrite the story and give it my own version. I failed miserably because each one of my 10 attempts were not possible in 1962! In those years, people went by public opinion / general perception, people were very difficult to convince once they formed an opinion, uneducated people had lot of frustrations in them (even though they may be from well to do families) and definitely, marriages happened only with very strong endorsements from mutually known well wishers.

All these were very vital behavioral traits for the core story of PMP. (For instance, Gopal is barbaric because, very simply, he is uneducated. He does not know how to treat a woman, leave alone an educated one). The fact that people strongly went by perception is evident in the song which NT sings "Naan kavignanum illai". He sings "Iravu neram pirarai pola ennai kollum - thunai irundhum illai endru ponaal oor enna sollum?"

The body language exhibited by NT was simply remarkable. In the first part of the film, he is a carefree young man who is barbaric yet has a heart of gold. When he gets married, he shows the enthusiasm and thrill (Enakkum kalyanam nu onnu aaidcha? Haiyaa!!). In the segment where Raju's evil antics make Gopal the scapegoat, he oscillates between abject sorrow, assertive defence and anger. Being uneducated, he gets angry quickly, but he still thinks about every situation. And by the time we reach the court scene in the end, he is just a walking corpse - till Seetha (annai ku inaiyaana anni) defends Gopal and gives him a tonic. The facial expressions shown by NT in the court clearly sum his predicament.

I feel we can never see such movies again. It is worth revisiting these old classics - even small expressions, side characters and one line dialogues have huge significance later the story. And no one better than NT to display on screen.