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OBIYUARY: SHIVAJI GANESAN
God Of Big Dreams
The
guns roared in salutation. Tears welled unabashedly among the surging
swell of people. Wails rend the air. It was a funeral befitting the man
who stirred seamless passion even during his lifetime.
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Sivaji Ganesan
1929-2001
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But it's unlikely Sivaji Ganesan
will die. Demigods seldom do. Fifty years of mass adulation can do that
to men. For Sivaji, it
was 50 years of celluloid hyperbole-fiery dialogues, animated gestures,
heart-wrenching expressions-that spawned a cult following. Introducing
and redefining histrionics in Tamil cinema, he developed what actor Mammooty
calls the "Sivaji method of acting". It was a style that suffused
his diverse roles without trammelling his versatility. It was also a style
that prompted Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee to remark: "His emotive
appeal
and expressive visage transcended all barriers of language."
True. One doesn't have to be well-versed in Tamil to feel the
fire in Veerapandiya Kattabomman.
With over 300 films stretched across
the entire south Indian cinematic scape, Sivaji's was not a career, it
was an era. An era that began when Periyar E.V. Ramasamy Naicker-father
of the Dravidian movement-christened Villupuram Chinnaiah Pillai Ganesan
as "Sivaji" after watching his performance in C.N. Annadurai's
play Sivaji Kanda Indu Rajyam in the early 1950s.
The era came to an end on July 21, 2001, when the 72-year-old succumbed
to a combination of heart ailment and kidney problems.
"My grief is unbearable,"
said former Tamil Nadu chief minister M. Karunanidhi, reduced to tears
near Sivaji's coffin. Karunanidhi had written the script for Sivaji's
debut film Parasakthi in which a 24-year-old Sivaji played the protagonist
and fumed at a caste-ridden society. In film after film thereafter he
played the lead-a raging patriot, a mythological character or a romantic
hero-and drew accolades. Exaggeration may have been an oft-cited shortcoming,
but Sivaji was not averse to acknowledging it on occasion. In Mudal Mariyadai
(1985), Sivaji was offended with the director Bharathiraja for not allowing
him to act out his grandiose gestures. "He just asks me to walk,
talk and sit. I haven't done much of acting," Sivaji is said to have
complained. After watching himself on the screen, however, Sivaji realised
how astute the director had been."Neengal thaan kalaignar (You are
the real artiste)," Sivaji is said to have complimented Bharathiraja
later.
Effusive applause notwithstanding
Sivaji had his task cut out in retaining the numero uno position against
a formidable MGR who reigned over Tamil cinema during the same period.
The two stalwarts came together only once in Koondu Kili. Though a comparison
between the two could be facetious, Sivaji's consistency and innovation
kept him a notch above MGR.
In politics, however, MGR managed
to outwit the maestro. MGR meticulously built his image, never playing
the bad guy, and rode the crest of a popularity wave. Sivaji, however,
submitted to the actor in him, playing a lorry driver in Neethi and a
drunkard in Vasanthamaligai. So even as MGR went on to become the Tamil
Nadu chief minister, Sivaji's political dreams were reduced to a tenure
in the Rajya Sabha. An ardent follower of Kamaraj, Sivaji joined the Congress,
later switching to the Congress(I). But taking political failure in his
stride, he continued to act with younger stars like Kamal Haasan (Thevar
Magan, 1992), Vijay (Once More, 1997) and Rajnikant (Padayappa, 1999).
To calibrate Sivaji's success would
be foolhardy, yet if awards were the measure, it would need a mammoth
scale. Conferred the Dada Saheb Phalke Award in 1996 and the Padma Bhushan
in 1984, Sivaji also won the best actor award at the Afro-Asia Film Festival
in 1959 for his role in Veerapandiya Kattabomman. France conferred on
him the prestigious Chevalier of Arts title in 1995 but the one feather
that eluded Sivaji's cap was the Best Actor National Award. However, for
a man who was conferred the title "Nadigar Tilagam" (jewel of
an actor) by his fans, it couldn't have been an award much coveted.
Despite claims to the contrary
("I am an ordinary actor, a middle-class man who got lucky"),
Sivaji was no ordinary actor and certainly not an average man. But it
was the man more than the actor that the masses moaned. He was their friend
and father, someone they turned to in need. He was their champion, someone
they could look up to. But in the final run he was a man-who as a child
ran away from home to act in plays-inseparable from the actor. "I
want to die with my make-up intact," he once said. The script, just
this once, didn't provide for it.
—Arun Ram and Riju Mehta
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