Readers Write In #440: Edhu thevaiyo, adhuve dharmam in ‘Michael Madana Kamarajan’

By Jay

Classics are made not only when they speak to many but also when they variedly render to the same aesthete consumer. Take MMKR that can be watched on repeat as a rip-roaring comedy that flows to a confluential climax. The comic details hold surprises for new discoveries and yet the most surprising discovery must be the saga of the Indian woman that is the real propellant and protagonist of the deceptively airy screenplay.

We have the placeless-ness in Indian society of the unwed mother and the extramarital progeny multiplied 4 times, all laid out right in the title song. Having already internalized the motherlessness of the protagonists, the audience is effortlessly primed to be taken on a roller coaster ride of chaotic incidents in the lives of orphaned heroes – rich or wanting, educated or street smart, naïve or naughty. While a whole forgotten storehouse of Tamil movies have explored the trope of the wayward son or the rowdy hero who has missed the nurture of the mother, this little detail is used here to help the discerning viewer suspend disbelief without the niggling questions of cinematically convenient paths and choices the protagonists take.

A single parent raising children, especially a female child is another clichéd yet real tribulation that has predominantly been claimed ownership of, by women all over. The child is nonetheless one of the heroines of the movie, Chakku Bai – a role that could do without the vile and cunning that can be afforded to a supporting role. Manorama who plays Ganga Bai takes the weight of the supporting role with the comic levitation of her virtuous talent. This affords Roopini the Tamil heroine and Chakku Bai, the character to preserve her innocence and her potential to be the Tamil hero’s wife in this and future movies. It is after all the mom and not the good girlfriend who manipulates the hero with Cupids own arrow for a secure future in the absence of a father figure. In Aaaranya Kandam, just like a mere tool for sexual needs, trapped in the gangster world, outwits huMANs to make a clean escape, we have Ganga Bai using her drama artist skills and her womanly experience to get Madan to slip a ring on her daughter’s finger and future. And behold the beautiful Siva rathiri song that is (but is not) an item song with reel time choreography by Ganga Bai preserving the comic overtones of the movie.

The oppression of the Indian woman has long been symbolized by the mottai paati (mostly young widows who live their entire lives as frumpy grandmoms often denied the natural pleasures of real motherhood and grandmotherhood). The stealing paati played by SN Lakshmi sees opportunities where others in more normal circumstances sense caution and guilt. She steals, spins and deals not just to survive but to endear Kameshwaran as the underdog star of a star-studded story. His naivete and his emotional frailties ring so true when set against paati’s guile and his life without a female touch so far. The fluffy romantic strand between Raju and Shalini is also dignified by their artistic compatibility and ‘art-saving’ circumstances. Even the cringe worthy ‘woman in wet clothes trope’ sits in the movie as a fireman’s fantasy and excusably so. In an era where heroes who played characters that would be considered a nuisance at best and a no-one at worst by women in reality, bagged the heroines in movies, a few film-makers including Kamal dignified romance and hence women even in a movie like MMKR.

Personally, it is an ‘inba adhirchi’ that I wrote an entire piece on MMKR without actually mentioning Kamal Haasan as I don’t even get through many conversations without mentioning him. What can I say – when there are layers to be explored and writing to be dissected, art remains even beyond the artist and the fan. One can find Aaranya Kandam in MMKR and MMKR as reflection of society as such are the attributes of a time tested layered classic.