Readers Write In #597: In Madurai, City of Cinema Theatres ….

By V Vijaysree

They say that a donkey which chooses to graze exclusively on cinema posters would not have starved in this city –Madurai, my father’s hometown, was dotted with so many cinema halls. It was also home to Asia’s largest cinema, Thangam Theatre, which could seat over 2500 people.

Every summer, we went to Madurai to spend school vacations with our grandparents. We lived in Bombay.Wasn’t every other place in India supposed to be boring by comparison? But my brother and I did have something to look forward to in this city of ancient temples. Appa, our father, who loved listening to some old Tamil film songs,seemed to disdain films.Fortunately for us, Perippa, my father’s brother, was one of Madurai’s movie-crazy residents.

In those hot summer months, Perippa took us to the cinema theatre to watch Hollywood films. During the rest of the year, he watched films in the other languages – Tamil, Hindi, and Chinese martial arts films, dubbed in English.Recently, thanks to a short video on YouTube, I realized that back when he was a teen, Perippa had missed a landmark Tamil film, screened in his own backyard.

The year was 1952.C. Rajagopalachari, “Rajaji,” was the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. By all accounts, he did not think much of the new medium of the movies. Back then, many conservatives thought films would corrupt young minds.My grandparents who lived in Kakkathoppe Street in Madurai had much the same views on films.

Despite that, there was no denying the buzz as Thangam Theatre came up in their own neighborhood – the construction went on for two years. Even in a city with many theatres, superlatives count for something. Thangam opened for business on October 17,which was Deepavali Day that year. Ticketsfor the best seats in the house were printed on blingy gold foil–“thangam” literally means gold in Tamil.

No one could have predicted this on opening night, but Sivaji Ganesan, who made his debut appearance in Parasakthi, would skyrocket to fame overnight, and enjoy a long career in films. To this day, he is the voice of Tamil, to many speakers of the language worldwide.The film’s scriptwriter, M. Karunanidhi, would go on to be elected chief minister of Tamilnadu five times. The plot of Parasakthi was a vehicle for the ideology of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, DMK, a political party formed in 1949.

Set in the tumultuous years right before India’s Independence, Parasakthitells the story of a chaste young Tamil widow who runs into lascivious men at every turn. She finds it hard to make a living. But when she tries to kill herself and her infant son, she is promptly arrested — their lives belong to the state, she is told. In a conventionally happy ending, she is reunited with her three Burma-based brothers and her infant son – there is no coming into her own, no remarriage for the widow – in short, nothing progressive.  The privileged family, which goes through a series of tribulations, resolves to serve the less fortunate in their land of birth.

Sivaji, who plays the widow’s youngest brother, channels people’s resentment against the upper classes in the form of trenchant dialogue. In 1947, the British left India, but to many, it was as if one set of callous rulers had been replaced by another. Parasakthi demanded social reform. (Besides, in the city of Madras the film said, there would be no homeless families sleeping on sidewalks, no human-pulled rickshaws, and yes,for the common people there would be taps of potable water, which would never run dry….) The film ran to a full house for over 100 days in Thangam theatre.

So, Parasakthi was a dream debut for the cavernous new theatre as well. Because Thangam theatre was not entirely soundproof, people who lived nearby could hear the songs from Parashakti, though the most incendiary dialogues are said to have been drowned out by the sound of applause. My father still sings that song in praise of the sharing ways of crows, with the refrain Kaa Kaa Kaa. Also,the whirly O Rasikum Seemane, featuring the danseuse Kamala Lakshman in a proto-item number.

There are other standouts. Two songs speak of things that experts in the field of development economics seek to address these days. Nenju Porukkuthillaiye,fashioned from the revolutionary poet Subramania Bharathi’s verse, says the poor cannot figure out why they are trapped in some eternal famine. Another song, Porule Illaarkku asks if the have-nots can ever get a shot at making a good life. In short, someone has to help the poor find a way out of poverty. Who would that be? The film ends with a song which translates to “Everyone Should Prosper” featuring stock footage of leaders of the Dravidian ideology.

In real life, in that time period, the state was reeling under a drought and Rajaji had asked people to pray for rain. Such sentiments were parodied in the film, which conservatives saw as both anti-establishment and anti-God. They asked the Central Board of Film Certification for a reappraisal. Rumors were rife that the movie would be pulled from theatres any time. The feared ban never happened. Instead, the rumors made the public flock to the theatre.

Perippa too must have pestered my grandparents for money to go watch the much talked about film. I can picture my mild-mannered grandfather clucking no, my grandmother whacking her eldest son hard with her palm fan. They did not give him money for the cheapest ticket. When he started earning money, Perippa was a“first day, first show” kind of guy and eventually, he became a film buff.

When the 1990’s got under way, inexpensive video players, and the rise of television channels devoted exclusively to movies, led to the demise of many theatres worldwide. Madurai, the city of cinema theatres, was no exception. Demolition day arrived for the famed Thangam as well.

In 2011, on a day in the month of August, old-time movie-goers gathered in the Kakkathoppe neighborhood to pay their final respects to the theatre, which had been defunct for nearly two decades.Some grownups wept openly. Again, I can picture Perippa among them. In a scene right out of a melodramatic film, clouds gathered, and supposedly kept up a steady drizzle in sympathy.

Perippa passed away in Madurai, in his seventies. Most would say he had a long and full life. I say he died too young, passing on just before the era of Netflix, Amazon, and other streaming video services. In his old age, I am sure he would have loved to watch subtitled films from any continent – on demand – from the comfort of his home. In the fullness of things, it would have been our turn – my brother’s and mine – to tell him about new releases and discuss the finer points of films that we liked with him. Alas, it was not to be!

Posted in: Cinema: Tamil, Personal, Readers Write In