Episode 1 – THE ORIGIN OF MARUDHANAYAGAM
90’s was a glorious period in Kamal Haasan’s career with landmark films such as Michael Madana Kama Rajan, Guna, Thevar Magan, Mahanadhi, Kuruthipunal and Indian to name a few. After the huge success of Indian in 1996, Kamal churned out Avvai Shanmugi, a comic caper towards the fag end of the year. It was during this time he was seriously pondering over making a historical film on the lines of Ambikapathi before he stumbled upon the prolific Sujatha Rangarajan, a computer engineer-turned-writer whose services Tamil cinema gravely miss even today. It was Sujatha who proposed the life history of Mohamed Yusuf Khan to Kamal Haasan for a biographical film.
Sujatha once revealed this in an interview: “For the past few years, Kamal Haasan has been searching for a story to make a historical. While he was examining so many ideas, I suggested why not we go into immediate past history. It was around that time I came across a folk ballad edited by Vanamamalai and published by Madurai Kamaraj University. Impressed by the ballad, I showed it to Kamal Haasan to see if it has the potential of a good film. Kamal was initially reluctant, but agreed to go through the ballad.”
And, the rest is still history-under-process.
“Marudhanayagam may be a historical character, but he is not a larger than life character. It is a story which depicts a man with all his strengths and weaknesses. The rise and fall of a man is the one line story of Marudhanayagam, a plot that will interest anyone in any part of the world,” said Sujatha in the same interview. Sujatha was the script doctor for Marudhanayagam. In Hollywood films, a script doctor usually oversees/supervises/re-writes the script to make sure that the screenplay lives up to its potential.
That Kamal Haasan and Sujatha shared a great rapport and they had a mutual admiration for each other is a long-familiar fact. Kamal even paid homage for the late writer by penning a short note right after his demise. In fact, Sujatha was one of the important writers who elevated Kamal’s literary knowledge. “Coming from a background of science, he considered writing not a profession but a continuing love affair. Usually, writers consider a compromise degrading and a defeat. But he thought a compromise was a necessity, a social duty,” said Kamal Haasan in his note.
If not for Sujatha, there would have been no Marudhanayagam at all.
Our next episode will discuss the rendezvous of political kingpins and celluloid bigwigs who attended the inaugural day shoot of Marudhanayagam on October 16, 1997. We will also take a sneak peek into the life of Mohamed Yusuf Khan and discuss about things which impressed Kamal Haasan the most.
Written by Surendhar MK, Design Courtesy: Akilan Nagaraj