Saravanan Natarajan writes:
Yaarukkaga Azhuthaan (Continued)
What then was this story that had attracted so many celebrities over the years? As we know, it had appeared in Ananda Vikatan, and had then been published as a book by Meenakshi Puththaga Nilayam, Madurai in 1962.
‘Nataraja Vilas’, an unpretentious lodge located near the railway station in a nondescript town forms the backdrop of the proceedings. The story narrates the happenings of a Monday night and the subsequent Tuesday in the lodge. The chief protagonist is the simpleton Joseph, a hardworking employee in the lodge. An inebriated guest, Gopinath Seth entrusts his wallet stuffed with money to the owner Ratnavelu Mudaliar for the night. Forgetting all about it in the morning, he accuses the innocent Joseph who had entered his room with his morning coffee of stealing his wallet. Mudaliar, who is in dire need of money, seizes this opportunity and remains silent, even as Gopinath thrashes Joseph asking him to accept the theft and return the wallet.
A stoic Joesph’s response remains that he did not steal the wallet. A small-time fraudster who occupies another room in the lodge sees an opportunity to share in the loot, and taking Joseph aside, cajoles him to own up so that they can make good their escape with the wallet. When Joseph reiterates that he did not take the wallet, the scoundrel along with his accomplice beat him mercilessly.A woman who had been abandoned by her paramour is another guest in the lodge. She has always held Joseph in high regard, and yells at the two men to stop beating Joseph. She then takes him to her room and bathes his wounds and comforts him. Joseph goes down to Mudaliar’s room. A nervous Mudaliar asks him blusteringly if he had stolen the wallet. Joseph does not reiterate his innocence now, he looks at Mudaliar unflinchingly. Joseph had witnessed Gopinath handing over his wallet to Mudaliar the previous night, but chooses to remain silent rather than reveal Mudaliar’s duplicity.
Unable to meet Jospeh’s gaze, Mudaliar falls silent. Govindasami Naidu, the head cook returns just then from his weekly visit to his village. He had always held a soft corner for Joseph and seeing him torn and bleeding, he flies into a rage. He insists that Joseph would have never committed this theft. After ascertaining that no one had left the lodge since morning, Naidu urges that the police are summoned so that they could search the premises and find the wallet. Mudaliar trembles in fear, and when Naidu asks him to lock all the rooms, he sees a way out of his predicament. Going up to Gopinath’s room, he places the wallet behind a statuette of Gandhiji’s 3 monkeys that Joseph had placed there. When Gopinath goes in to take his coat, he notices the wallet and announces the discovery.
Gopinath Seth is now profuse in his apologies to Joseph and offers him money, which Joseph refuses. Mudaliar is unable to look at the honest Joseph. The fraudsters and the other employees of the lodge who had thought Joseph to be guilty look at him sheepishly. Naidu and the girl look at him with compassion. And what does Joseph do? He cries. Joseph who had never shed a drop of tears all his life, even when his mother died, even when he had caught his wife and his best friend locked in a moment of illicit intimacy, even when he had been unjustly accused of theft, weeps now with unabashed abandon… What does he weep for? Is it enough if the hidden wallet comes to light? When would the deceit, falsehood, avarice and suspicion that men harbour in their hearts come out? Hugging his statuette of the 3 monkeys who see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil, does Joseph weep for the evils that remain hidden deep inside every man?
* * * *
This then was the story that JK set about making a movie of. He picked on Nagesh to play the lead role of Joseph. It was the time when Nagesh was riding on an unprecedented high as the most sought after actor in Tamil cinema- his very name spelled magic at the box office, for his mere presence in a scene would kindle guffaws from elders and children alike. JK had held Nagesh in high esteem for his unquestioned talents. And for his part, Nagesh reserves words of warm appreciation for JK in his ‘Sirithu Vaazha Vendum’.
Nagesh’s close friend Srikanth who was an ardent fan of JK’s works. When JK met Nagesh for the first time in a railway station, Nagesh, who had not read much of JK’s books, told him that Srikanth used to speak high of JK to him. Later Nagesh attended some of JK’s public speeches and found himself drawn to the maverick writer. One morning JK woke up to see a huge crowd gathered in front of his house.
When he rushed down to know the cause, he saw Nagesh seated calmly in his drawing hall. Nagesh said that he had heard that JK would be at home only early in the morning and so he had dropped by at that unusual hour. After exchanging pleasantries, Nagesh invited JK to come and watch his ‘Ethirneechal’ play. JK willingly obliged, and after watching the play, JK refuted the rumours floating around that the play was inspired by his ‘Yaarukkaaga azhuthaan.’ This incident served to pave the way for a budding friendship between the writer and the actor, which strengthened further during the making of ‘Yaarukkaaga azhuthaan’.
Nagesh agreed happily to play the role of Joseph, indeed he treasured it as a singular honour for having been picked by JK for the coveted role. However, his dates were wholly booked much in advance, and hence JK shot all the sequences involving Nagesh in the middle of the night. In his memoirs Nagesh recalls an incident wherein they were relaxing after a stint of shooting.
As the financiers wanted popular actors of the day in the cast, JK selected his cast accordingly. A slim and beautiful K.R. Vijaya, a much sought after heroine by all the top actors of the day, agreed willingly to play the role of the sympathetic female guest in the lodge and even went to the extent of adjusting her dates to accommodate JK. T.S. Baliah enacted the role of the lodge owner Ratnavelu Mudaliar who gives in to temptation and remains silent when Joseph is unfairly accused. For the playing the role of the good-hearted Govindasami Naidu, JK’s first choice was S.V. Subbiah, but when Subbiah refused the offer, JK engaged another veteran S.V. Sahasranamam to play the role. Raja Wahab Kashmiri was well cast as the North-Indian Gopinath Seth.
The gifted Nimai Ghosh, who had earlier directed ‘Paadhai theriyudhu paar’ was the cinematographer of ‘Yaarukkaaga Azhuthaan’. Koteeswara Rao composed the background music. Editing was by Jambulingam and Selvaraj. JK’s total budget was Rs. 3 Lakhs, which Chempi Traders handed over in 6 installments. JK was assisted by his associates K. Vijayan and Malliyam Rajagopal. JK demanded and secured a higher remuneration than Nagesh, but recalls in his ‘Or ilakkiyavaadhiyin kalaiyulaga anubavangaL’ that he was taken aback when the financiers informed him that part of the remuneration would be in black!
The movie had a single song, which comes right after the opening speech by JK. The song was written by Kannadasan. In his initial years, when Kannadasan was associated with the DMK, JK did not entertain any high regards for the poet, as JK was vehemently against the party. However, with Kannadasan breaking away from DMK and associating himself with the Congress, JK found himself addressing joint meetings with Kannadasan and came to know him well. Kannadasan had openly declared once that one book that was always to be found at his bedside was JK’s ‘Yaarukkaaga Azhuthaan’.
When JK called Kannadasn to write the song for ‘Yaarukkaaga Azhuthaan’, the bard came willingly one morning to the ‘Asia Jyothi Films’ office. After accepting ‘a peg’ offered by JK, Kannadasan’s pen flew with its known felicity, and the verses were written in no time at all. The bard then departed flashing his gracious smile. JK had kept aside in a cover the money to be paid to Kannadasan for the song; the cover was lying intact with JK for many months, and then JK used the money to meet some expense. JK adds that Kannadasan never asked for the payment!
Kannadasan poratrays the noble character of Joseph in simple, yet arresting lines:
uruvaththilE ivan manithan-
koNda uLLaththilE oru paRavai
paruvaththilE oru kuzhandhai-
nenjin paasaththilE oru thandhai
JK sent for S.V. Ramanan to set the verses to tune. JK had listened earlier to the music composed by Ramanan for the documentaries produced by his brother S. Krishnaswami and for few devotional songs and radio jingles. Even earlier Ramanan had assisted his gifted mother Meenakshi Subramaniam when she, along with C.N. Pandurangan, composed music for ‘paaNdithEvan’. Ramanan had also assisted Pandurangan when the latter composed music for Sridhar’s ‘ethirpaaraathathu’. He was among Salilda’s assistants when the music for ‘chemmeen’ was composed. JK had come to know Ramanan well when Ramanan assisted Chittibabu in composing the background score for ‘unnaippOl oruvan’, and when a song had become mandatory for ‘yaarukkaaga azhuthaan’, he called Ramanan to compose the music.
The movie version of the song begins with the lines ‘piRandhapOdhu piRandha paarvai maaRavEyillai- indha piLLai koNda veLLai manam vaLaravEyillai’ rendered by Dharapuram Sundararajan. This song is among the early forays of Yesudas in Tamil Cinema, and his honeyed tones tinged with an inexplicable melancholy bring alive the vision of the bard.
The song serves as an introduction to the noble character of Joseph with silhouette shots of him working hard at his menial tasks. As the verses unfold, Joseph is seen kneeling in front of a cross, his eyes closed deep in prayer. As the song progresses, we see Joseph reacting to all situations with the same serene smile… when he gives all his food to a beggar, when a street urchin throws a stone at him, when Mudaliar pours a bucketful of water at him when he oversleeps- he even mops the water cheerfully, when he massages Mudaliar’s feet at the end of the day, when he spies his wife and friend in an intimate embrace… Joseph’s response is the same always … the tranquil smile that comes from his heart and escapes from his lips, not before lighting up his eyes… The song, with its lyrics and visuals establishes firmly the credentials of Joseph…
http://www.veoh.com/watch/yapi-Vpdfvitmyao
With JK’s meticulous planning and determined execution, the movie was shot in a start-to-finish schedule at the Newtone Studios and was completed in 3 months. The movie was released on April 14 1966. K. Balachander, who was among those who watched the movie in its very first show in Casino Theater, was effusive in his praise. JK who watched the movie along with the audience that day felt encouraged at the response. But when he returned from a 10-day trip to Kerala, he saw that the movie was running to empty halls, and was taken off from all the theaters at the end of a mere 2 weeks.
The reasons were not far to seek. JK admits that a story that could not be extended beyond 7000 feet had been ‘dragged like rubber’ to satisfy the whims of the financiers. The original story takes place wholly in the premises of ‘Nataraja Vilas’, but the movie had extended external sequences such as Naidu taking leave of his family after his weekly visit in the village, the girl’s lover being unable to return to her due to family pressures, Mudaliar seeing a mother beating her child for stealing, Mudaliar imagining himself standing as an accused in a court and then languishing as a prisoner in a cell… For prolonging the length of the movie, JK even had to introduce new characters not present in the original story such as Mani Panikkar played by K. Vijayan. As another ‘stretching tactic’, the movie opens with a speech heard in JK’s voice, followed by the longish song.
Notwithstanding the unseemly speed with which it was returned to the cans, ‘Yaarukkaaga Azhuthaan’ remains one of the stray realistic ventures of Tamil Cinema. In fact, it has a place of pride in the ratings of learned film historians such as Theodore Bhaskaran. Nimai Ghosh captured the soul of JK’s story with his haunting black & white frames. Nagesh was simply astounding as the unjustly accused Joseph, and Vijaya was a revelation with her stark, brilliant performance. In future years, Nagesh would go on to gather honours with his sensitive portrayals in JKs projects such as ‘Sila nerangalil sila manitharga’ and ‘Oru nadigai naadagam paarkiraal’, while Vijaya would come out with another stunning delineation in JK’s ‘Karunai ullam’.
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