Of stars that shone once...

N.Vinoth Kumar

It was not Einstein. It was not Helen Keller. It was not our parents too. But it was the actors and actress that most of us perceived as our role models during our childhood days.

None of us can deny this statement. If you go by the statement, then the book ‘Aasai Mugangal’ is for you.

Compiled by eminent writer and editor of many books, C Mohan, the work ‘Aasai Mugangal’ has been published by Kayal Kavin Pathippagam, Chennai.

One cannot flatly term the films as just a leisure time entertainment.  It is a medium whereby the cultural aspects of a society are reflected. In one way it is a kind of political tool to make satires over the happenings unfolds in a society.

To put it more succinctly, in the words of the author of the book, “Cinema is turned into a kind of celebration. A festivity celebrated all through the year”.

 

Over past two hundred years, the cinema industry has touched new heights.  The kind of film-making is changed, the new kinds of cinematography tools are invented, the narrative style has been changed and still it is continuing to evolve in all possibilities.

Parallel to the changes in these show business, the audience’s perception to a film is also been changed. Gone are the days, where a viewer whistles while a hero pits single-handedly against tens of villains or starts to clap when the heroine sweeps of her feet to his man.

The viewers started to think. They started to analyse. They even evaluate. But still, apart from all technicalities of a film, the viewers continues to relate them with their favourite actors and actress, where a man dreaming of making love with his favourite actress and a woman dreaming of clasping hands with her favourite actor.

And here goes C Mohan saying, “…Actors and actresses are being our priceless possessions of our childhood memories”.

Adding to this, we can say that at some point the actors once we liked merely as favourite hero or heroine turns to be our ‘dream girls’ or ‘dream boys’. 

 The book ‘Aasai Mugangal’ is about such dream girls. It is a compilation of essays about yesteryear actresses who were perceived as ‘dream girls’ in their days by their fans. Most of the essays were written by writers such as A Muthulingam, S Ramakrishnan, Asokamitran, Jeyamohan, Baskar Sakthi and film directors like Balu Mahendra, Vasanth, Seenu Ramasamy. Few written by critics like R P Rajanayaham, V M S Subagunarajan. C Mohan himself has written two essays.

The constellation ranges from T R Rajakumari to Asin. There are 20 essays written about some 20 actresses, which are creating an impression of representing a century old Indian cinema if not at least 80 plus years of Tamil cinema.

Essays in this collection don’t have any filmography of any artistes. Rather, they talks about the rise and fall of the actresses and portrays their lives behind the cameras.

The book filled with information out of which many were never known before to any common man or the fans. Like, K R Vijaya was the only actor of that time who own an aeroplane and T R Rajakumari built a cinema theatre bearing her name during her hey days and it was opened by S S Vasan of Gemini Studios. Also, she started a production house named ‘R R Pictures’ which produced ‘Koondukkili’ only film that brought MGR and Shivaji together for first and last time.

Reminiscing about his association with Padmini, A Muthulingam writes that whenever Padmini refers of a film it’s her manner to include the director, the producer, the actors’ names and even the year the film released.

S Ramakrishnan in his essay on Savithri brings some interesting information like the fans of Savithri has set up a statue of her near Vijayawada. Probably that could be the great veneration in turn for her, who once set up a statue for Nagaswaram virtuoso Karukurichi Arunachalam. She nurtured her children to watch Hollywood movies and for this purpose she even built a 16 MM theatre in her house.

Writing about Saroja Devi, C Mohan says that it was after the arrival of the actress, the camera started to picturise the dorsal side of the actresses. (I am quite intrigued whether he is trying to say that Saroja Devi was a perfect ‘callipygian’ of her days?)

Readers will surprise to hear that Vyjayanthimala refused to accept the award given for her performance in the film ‘Devdas’ in which she played the role of Chandramukhi. Because, she considered herself that she is the heroine of the film but the award jury chosen her as ‘best supporting actress’.

While talking about Srividya, writer Sukumaran captures her acting skills in just one line, which goes as ‘Srividya was not a star. But she was a performer’.

‘An actress is not a machine, but they treat you like a machine. A money machine’ there said Marilyn Monroe. The statement is categorically true. On the other hand, albeit acting is another profession, some of the stars did real justice to their part.

If you really want to know the space shared, created and left by the great actresses and here it is! A book that brings you the stars that shone once and reading it in your week-off makes your day worth living.