Tamil Cinema's illustrious portrayal of two Catholic priests

 




















    
    To play the role of a Church Father requires moral courage and a very subtle grasp of the intricate layers of dignity, spirituality and divinity, involved in portraying an exceptional role.Cinema in all regions including the Hollywood and Bollywood,are known for the celebrated inclusion of Church Fathers.Tamil Cinema too has provided a vital place for the inclusion of Church Fathers,to be shown as guiding stars and torch bearers of a vast section of neglected humanity, such as orphans and forlorn men and women.These orphans might include the heroes and heroines of films also,as per the requirement of the story line.Normally,only supporting actors would play the role of Christian priests. Gokulnath of Sivagi Ganesan's Gnana Oli,S.V.Subbiah of Jeyalalitha's Annai Velankanni,V.S.Raghavan of Velli Vizha,directed by K.Balachander, and George Mariyan as the irritable Church father in the most recent Vijay film Bigil are a few remarkable examples of supporting actors,portraying the role of the Catholic clergy.
    But this article focuses on the illustrious portrayal of two Catholic priests by two prominent heroes of Tamil Cinema,who were contemporaries and who periodically shared the Tamil big screen as friends and brothers.They were the Chevalier,Sivaji Ganesan,as Father James in Vellai Roja {1983} and his ever pet co hero R.Muthuraman as Father Arumainayakam,in Unmaiye Un Vilai Enna {1976}.The roles of these two heroes in priestly garbs,are to be discussed here, as per the years of release of their films.
   It was the ultimate satirist Cho Ramasamy,who directed the film Unmaiye Un Vilai Enna after its success as a stage play,with the same title.Though Cho had directed films like Mohammed bin Tukhluq,Mr.Sampath and Yarukkum Vetkamillai,Unmaiye Un Vilai Yenna became a special film,because of its supreme thematic content of the invincible nature of truth.Besides R.Muthuraman performing the role of the protagonist priest,the film had enough space for actors like Cho Ramasamy, S.A.Asokan,V.K.Ramasamy,Neelu,Vijayakumar, Srikanth,Thengai Srinivasan,Padmapriya,Sukumari,Manorama and CID Sakunthala.
   The narration of the story centred around the accidental death of a womanizer,when a taxi driver attacked him in order to save a woman from getting molested and to safeguard himself from a pistol picked up by the rapist.The taxi driver who was a Christian convert,straight away went to the church,to confess his act to the Church Father,who was the incarnation of Truth and Justice.The Father firmly believed that an act of murder unwittingly committed to save another person and in self defence, should not become the cause of conviction of an innocent person.So in order to prevent the arrest of the taxi driver until the truth of the case was established,the Father sent the taxi driver to his most trusted friend,a devotee of Lord Muruga  {marvellously played by veteran V.K.Ramasamy}.
    Meanwhile in the process of collecting contextual evidence for legally protecting the taxi driver,the Father had to face a lot of hurdles in the form of character assassination resulting in the disrobing of his priestly attire.The widely entangling conflicts between the priest and the womanizer's extremely manipulating father,a rich business man-cum Christian called Arokiyasamy{Very neatly performed by S.A.Asokan without  even a little bit of his usual decibel}kept the audience glued to the screen.At last,truth of the case  was categorically presented in the court,in the form of valid documentary and tape recorder evidence,for a revision of the entire arguments of the case, just before the award of the verdict.But unfortunately at the same time, the priest was struck down by the bullets of Arokiyasamy. Even before succumbing to the bullets,the Father insisted upon his being taken to the Bishop first,in order to explain his truthfulness,rather than being taken to the hospital for treatment.
    Vellai Roja,directed by A.Jeganathan,a reputed film maker of action oriented entertainers like Mani Payal,Idhayakani,Moonru Mugam,Thanga Makan and Kadhal Parisu{all Sathya Movies's films}proved to be a big action bonanza,on account of its even mixing of ingredients such as romance,suspense,investigation and the final pronouncement of justice.But unlike Father Arumai Nayagam,Father James had the advantage of being the twin brother of a Superintendent of Police by name Arul and hence he was in a better position to fight for justice.
    Sivaji Ganesan in his usual magnificent way created a creamy note of difference,in travelling between the two roles of a meek priest and a mighty police officer.In this film,the death of a poor Christian girl Mary,who was found hanging due to her unwed pregnancy,caused a cloud of suspicion about the immaculate character of the priest,because prior to her death,Mary was seen in a secret conversation with the Father.
    As Father James had his own doubts over the sudden death of Mary,which was medically declared as a case of suicide,he asked his cop brother to arrange for exhuming the coffin so that Mary's body could go in for a re postmortem.When the coffin was dug out and opened,to everybody's shock,the body of Father James was found in the coffin.The rest of the story would revolve around the consequential investigation by the bereaved police officer,to bring to book the culprit involved in the suspected deaths of Mary and Father James.
   The two films released with a gap of about seven years carried both similarities and differences.Both the films travelled along the pathway of crime,one,to legally and judicially establish the truth in a known incident of crime and the other,towards detecting two hidden crimes committed by a wolfish rich man{elegantly portrayed by Calcutta Viswanathan}who was against his son's love affair with a poor girl{Mary}.Perhaps it was a coincidence that in both the films,the perpetrator of evil was named Mr. Parisutham { The Immaculate}.
    Unmaiye Un Vilai Enna contained a bunch of contexts with Cho's punching dialogues over the invalidity of truth,in a world of opportunism and greed for money and position. Cho during the course of his cheeky narration,sharply brought to focus,not only the plight of truth cherished by the Church father as the voice of God, but also the fact of the Father himself being reflected, as the neglected face of truth.In deliberating the deep rooted Christian concept of truth,Cho fascinatingly established a delicate connecting thread between Christianity and Hinduism,through the characterization of V.K.Ramasamy,as a truth loving devotee of Lord Muruga and a man with absolute faith in the true face of Father Arumai Nayagam.
   Vellai Roja's Father James was an equally dynamic priest with unflinching devotion to truth as the one only way to salvation. A.Jeganathan allowed a song for Father James to be sung with a cluster of children and the beautiful song was,Dhevanil Koilile Yaavarum Deepangale, in the vibrating voice of late Malaysia Vasudevan.Both Father James and Father Arumai Nayagam fell as victims into the criminal hand of falsehood and brutality.
   Both Sivaji Ganesan and his frequent team mate Muthuraman,finely got into their sacerdotal robes with conviction,commitment and commendable display of one of the most venerable roles in their life.However,the visible differences between the two films and the two Fathers,are the black and white and color screenplay of the films,the full length presence of Father Arumai Nayagam in Unmaiye Un Vilai Yenna and the abrupt pull out of the character of Father James, as the curtain fell for an interval of awe and suspense.
   While Sivaji Ganesan as bespectacled Fr.James was beaming with radiance and splendour, R.Muthuraman was on a strenuous and troubling mission to the destination of Truth with his naive simplicity,piety with a firm belief,that ultimately truth would prevail through the miraculous revelation of God.We all know that shocks are a temporary phenomena.But the pain cast by a deep wound and the scars of that deep wound,would keep ensnaring us at regular intervals.
   The character of Fr. Arumai Nayagam by its painful journey to establish the supremacy of truth,would ever keep nagging our sub conscious system with replicas of his painful journey.In this way,one could assertively state that Cho Ramasamy presented indelible impressions of a Catholic priest and the priest's dauntless grasp of the roots of Truth. Finally to sum up,unlike Vellai Roja,that had entertaining elements such as action,music and stunts,Unmaiye Un Vilai Enna was out and out a priestly story,narrated with pragmatic interlinks and all credit for this pointed presentation of a noble theme,through the role of a noble Priest,should go to Cho Ramasamy.
                            ===============================================